Arts Alliance Media (AAM) and Deluxe Technicolor Digital Cinema (DTDC) continue
to drive innovation and technology advancements through a unique collaboration that will deliver the
industry’s first truly automated KDM (Key Delivery Message) management service, representing a
significant step towards the promise of fully automated cinema management.
KDMs are unique security keys issued by service providers of theatrical content on behalf of
studios/content owners to enable film playout. With AAM’s new solution, KDMs can now be generated
and delivered through the cloud directly from distributor booking systems all the way to the cinema
trusted device playout equipment with confirmed proof of delivery. All customers of AAM’s Screenwriter
Theatre Management System (TMS) will be invited to sign up for the service completely free of charge.
Since the introduction of digital cinema, KDMs have been necessary to deliver content, but the process
for their creation and delivery has been ripe for innovation. A variety of unconsolidated solutions have
arisen for the booking, generation and blind delivery of KDMs, often over email and physical media and
without any visibility of delivery success. Manually managed theatrical equipment databases have proved
very hard to maintain resulting in incorrectly targeted KDMs, high support overhead, security
vulnerabilities and cancelled shows or dark screens.
The new automated KDM solution offers a quantum leap in responsiveness, accuracy and reliability, and
is made possible through a direct integration between DTDC’s worldwide booking management systems
and AAM’s ground breaking Thunderstorm cloud platform, supported by AAM’s class leading Screenwriter
TMS.
A secure communications channel between each TMS and AAM’s Thunderstorm cloud allows for realtime
update of DTDC’s Global Trusted Device List (TDL), the industry’s most comprehensive up-to-date
database on the actual equipment installed at each cinema. This ensures that KDMs delivered through
Thunderstorm to cinemas are always correctly targeted. Once at site, Screenwriter takes over to deliver
directly to the target equipment. At all stages, until successful ingest, the delivery is fully tracked thereby
allowing DTDC to provide definitive proof of delivery to their customers. The whole process from booking
to confirmed ingest is typically completed within minutes with zero effort required from the exhibitor.
Rich Phillips, Chief Technology Officer at AAM adds, “Automating KDM delivery is a critical step in
streamlining how features get to screens around the world. Previous industry initiatives to automate
global TDL management and to standardise automated KDM delivery have struggled to get traction.
Through AAM’s advancements in cloud technologies and this ground-breaking partnership with DTDC we
now have the ability to automate global TDL management and to standardise automated KDM delivery,
ultimately making KDM management seamless and invisible for our exhibitor customers.”
