Muvee and Orca bring Live Photos to IPTV

A picture may be worth 1000 words, but when not presented well, it is practically worthless. This is the logic behind Muvee’s automatic movie-making application Live Photos, now available over IPTV platforms in partnership with middleware provider Orca Interactive. The service, being demonstrated today at IBC, will be accessible via Orca’s advanced RiGHTv IPTV middleware by the end of 2007.

Terence Swee, founder and CEO of Muvee, realized that wedding pictures don’t typically elicit the same emotions as footage of DMX biking stunts, just as hard rock brings to mind different images than a strings quartet. Wanting to re-create a memory as quickly and accurately as possible, he began work on a service that would combine appropriate music with the poignant parts of footage and pictures, creating an emotionally engaging production. That was seven years ago. Today, with the development of Live Photos, Muvee’s patented automatic video editing and photo movie software is being combined with Orca’s user-generated content capabilities (UGC) to produce a new service designed to enhance IPTV service offerings.

“[Orca] was shopping around for a technology to enable users of their service to also generate content, rather than just consume it,” said Swee. “So far in IPTV, you are a passive audience. You just sit there in front of the TV set and watch movies streamed to you. But these Web 2.0 people want to be producers as much as they want to be consumers.”

Live Photos will enable subscribers to create personalized video albums from their photos and video clips, accompanied by their preferred style of music. The application analyzes the pans and zooms of uploaded pictures and video footage to take out the most important shots. The service is designed to seek out human faces and the best pictures or footage in terms of color contrast, clarity, exposure and overall quality. This is also done on the music tracks the user provides. The beats of each song are analyzed to discern what Swee calls the “emotional index” of the music.

“We listen to the music and say, ‘OK, this is like the climax of the music,’ -- an electric guitar solo or Mariah Carey screaming her lungs off,” said Swee. “The video edit will be guided by this emotional index. If you have a nice romantic picture, the edits might be slow motions with longer dissolve, fade ins and fade out. If it picks up, it will be more upbeat music.”

This entire process takes approximately three seconds, Swee said. Muvee has a library of more than 100 styles, made up of transitions, to re-create a particular editing style that matches the user’s footage. The service is currently available over PC software, 40 different LG and Nokia mobile phones, inside cameras, and coming soon in IPTV.

If it brings to mind images of Apple TV’s IPTV services, Swee said the advantages of Muvee are simply not comparable. “Automatic is definitely the key word, and it creates emotionally engaging videos,” he said. “It is not a matter of just taking your footage and putting it on the IPTV box. That is boring to watch.”

The service will be part of a comprehensive on-demand UGC platform enabling triple-play service providers and network operators to differentiate their offerings and bring in new revenues. The companies are also considering marketing it as a stand-alone solution compatible with all IPTV platform types.

“This is the first in the world,” said Swee. “It is a revolutionary thing. IPTV platform users can now become content producers, not just consumers. It is in line with the way the Internet is going and the whole way the media and user-generated content is going. People want to create new stuff, not just consume it.”