5 April 2023

Gazprom-Media Holding launches Video Tagging System, a new video content recognition service

Gazprom-Media Holding announces the launch of Video Tagging System, an automatic video content recognition and tagging service. It was developed by the Friday! TV channel and GPM Data company, the unified big data management center for Gazprom-Media Holding’s assets.

Video Tagging System was created on the basis of Computer Vision technologies and neural networks. The service helps recognize faces, speech*, inscriptions and the number of people in shot, people’s movements, detect animals and objects. It classifies shots, reads the beginning of opening sequences and titles, and determines the prevailing palette of the scene.

All of this enables speeding up the search for the right shots in the production of promotional materials and the launch of contextual video advertising. The product automates the search for suitable scenes, moderation, subtitling and video content analysis. The system is able of automatic marking the most relevant moments for showing commercials (midrolls) as well as marking logical pauses in serial content.

The first users of the service were Friday! and Saturday! TV channels as well as PREMIER online cinema. As a result of using VTS, the time for selecting video materials in creating promotional videos was reduced by more than 20 times, and the time for content subtitling by 4 times. VTS use reduces labor costs when working with content and allows users to reallocate resources from routine operations to creative tasks.

Friday! TV channel actively uses the technology to create promotional videos.

A few years ago, colleagues from GPM Data showed us the possibilities of neural networks, and the idea arose to apply these wonders to solve the operational business problems of Friday!, to at least automate and speed up the work of promo producers. As a result of joint efforts, VTS appeared. The UMA video platform has become a partner for distribution and storage of videos, as well as demonstration of the possibilities of contextual video advertising. VTS is currently searching through a video archive of 3,000 hours of content. Promo producers spend a couple of minutes searching for video clips with the help of the new service, and previously, this work took weeks.

Maksim Rusakov
Head of Friday! Internet projects

In March, the Saturday! TV channel was the first to test the technology in contextual video advertising. Advertising of the new confectionery show with Klava Koka Hello, Sweety was integrated into the show Confectioner on Friday!. Advertising appeared on the air automatically after the words “sweety” and “try”. So while watching the Friday! audience saw a relevant promo for another confectionery project.

We are constantly expanding our portfolio of digital products for Gazprom-Media Holding and advertisers. Solutions based on computer vision and artificial intelligence technologies have a high potential for optimizing work with media content and setting up native advertising communications for online video. The demand for such developments will grow not only within Gazprom-Media Holding, but also from external clients.

Svetlana Lapunova
Managing Director of GPM Data

PREMIER already uses the subtitling technology offered by VTS. It helps to optimize the work on the preparation of promotional materials as well as to adapt the content for hearing-impaired viewers. PREMIER has great ambitions to develop service technologies, so we plan to implement the new system more actively and test its abilities as part of working with content.

Sergey Stamboltsyan
acting CEO of PREMIER

*speech recognition is performed using Tinkoff VoiceKit technologies