How a big player in the streaming war is leveraging AI-powered features – Film Threat

As the streaming war continues, one of its biggest players is using its AI expertise to improve the viewer experience. Those who watch films and television shows with Amazon Prime Video can use generative AI functions such as Dialogue Boost and X-Ray Recaps. They serve as early indicators of how AI tools can impact the streaming service model.

The streaming wars

Since 2019, there has been strong competition in the streaming market trying to keep up with Netflix and capture an audience. This led to the so-called streaming wars, where we saw competition, mergers and tactical bundling as large services fought for survival.

Streaming is just one part of a broader trend that has been going on for decades – the Internet’s growing role in the way we find our entertainment. While film production houses are driving online distribution via streaming, other business models have been producing and distributing online content for years. iGaming, for example, has been around since the 90s and has only grown over time as every type of casino game found its way onto the internet. Now players can find extensive libraries Slot machines online at Paddy Powerwith games inspired by popular media themes such as adventure, science fiction and even horror. With iGaming, games are created by developers and hosted on websites under an agreement. This hasn’t been the case with streaming, as competitors have been pulling IPs from Netflix to host on their proprietary service while also producing their own movies and TV shows.

This leads to where we are today – Netflix is ​​still the frontrunner and has been declared the winner of the streaming wars from providers like Yahoo Finance. The streaming audience is more divided than ever, with some customers unwilling or unable to purchase multiple services. Free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) services are becoming increasingly popular with consumers as they now prefer commercial breaks over paid, ad-free content. After a lull in the streaming wars, AI capabilities could give some platforms a significant advantage over their competition.

Amazon’s AI-powered features

It’s no surprise that Amazon was one of the first companies to introduce AI features to its Prime Video streaming service. When they’re not shipping boxes or producing films, AWS is exploring generative AI through Amazon Q and Amazon Bedrock. Over the past year, they’ve leveraged some of these internal tools to improve the Prime Video experience.

Dialogue boost

If you are a movie lover or have experience in the AV department, you may notice that some modern shows have poor sound mixing. Often the dialogue is the first, quietest layer of sound that gets lost between flashy explosions or bombastic soundtracks.

To solve this problem, Amazon introduced Dialogue Boost in 2023. This tool scans the film and finds places where speech is difficult to understand. The dialogue is then isolated and amplified compared to other audio tracks, making it easier to hear.

@PrimeVideo just started the new Dialogue Boost option 🗣

This allows you to increase the volume of the dialogue in relation to the background music and effects 🔈

Try it now with selected titles. We’ll be rolling out the feature to even more titles later this year! 🎬

Amazon (@amazon) has just introduced the new Dialogue Boost option 🗣

.@PrimeVideo just launched the new Dialogue Boost option 🗣
This allows you to increase the volume of the dialogue in relation to the background music and effects 🔈
Try it now with selected titles. We’ll be rolling out the feature to even more titles later this year! 🎬 https://t.co/bss4Cfu9tL

– Amazon (@amazon) May 25, 2023

X-ray reviews

Generative AI is capable of many things, e.g explained here by MITbut it became famous for its ability to understand context and act as an intelligent chatbot. X-Ray Recaps leverages these qualities by using AI tools to scan and then summarize content on the Prime Video platform. Specifically, these summaries are provided by Amazon Bedrock and SageMaker.

This function generates precise descriptions of films, episodes or entire television seasons. The descriptions can even be personalized depending on where you are in the season. This ensures that the summaries are always accurate and context-specific and don’t spoil things that haven’t happened yet.

These are just early examples of the AI-powered features that Amazon has introduced into its platform. As generative AI continues to improve, we will likely have a greater influence on how we watch movies and TV shows in the future. Whether it’s enough to make Amazon more competitive in the streaming wars remains to be seen.