CDSA, EMA join force to set digital delivery standards

The Content Delivery & Storage Association (CDSA) and the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) have established industry metadata standards for the digital delivery of home entertainment content via the internet.

In doing so, CDSA joins EMA's Digital Delivery Council, which has gained the participation of leading studios and retailers for this step in the industry's technical development. The industry metadata standards will provide uniformity in the communication of product data by content suppliers to retailers and in the nomenclature used to convey that data.

"We welcome CDSA and its members' support in our effort to create a common language for digital files and thereby streamline the pipeline of entertainment from the studios, via retailers, to the consumer," says EMA president Bo Andersen. "Without common standards the industry faces substantial inefficiencies and unnecessary roadblocks to the inevitable development of our industry's digital future."

According to CDSA president Charles Van Horn, the fact that the various online home entertainment retailers require differing sets of metadata with their files causes unnecessary production difficulties for his association's membership, which is set with the responsibility of storing and delivering the content on behalf of their studio clients.

CDSA joins current members of the EMA Digital Delivery Council, including Lionsgate, Warner Home Video, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Home Entertainment, Cinema Now, and Netflix.

Story filed 4 May 2008

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