Essential Install Home Cinema Insight June 2017 | Page 18

Home Cinema Insight | Interview: Darcy Antonellis
Darcy believes a
dominant HDR
format will emerge
in the next 24
months, but will it
be Dolby Vision?
What Will The Future Look Like
For The Entertainment Industry?
With the media landscape changing at such a drastic rate, it’s often hard
to keep up with it all. Thankfully, one person who’s at the forefront of all
of these changes is Darcy Antonellis, the CEO of Vubiquity, a company
providing much of the backbone for video on demand services.
EI recently sat down with Darcy to discuss the future of the industry
and whether there are any underlying trends that could change the
way users consume their media.
Prior to becoming CEO of Vubiquity, Darcy Antonellis
served as president, technical operations and chief
technology officer at Warner Bros, a post she held for
six years. Due to her involvement in Hollywood, she is a
voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences, while she also holds a position on the
board of directors at Cinemark, one of the
US’ largest cinema chains. At Vubiquity
she has been charged with developing
relationships with both studios and
distributors, while exploring new
technologies that continues to push
the industry forward.
It’s unlikely that you’ve ever heard
of Vubiquity before, it’s a company
that largely operates in the shadows
on a business to business to
16 | June 2017
consumer model. While its name may not be immediately
familiar, the company serves over a billion people through
its partnerships with the majority of the streaming video on
demand services, as well as those providing OTT content.
Some of Vubiquity’s customers in the UK include
Vodafone, Virgin Media and Sky, while the company also
works with Netflix and Amazon in some capacity. For
all of these companies, Vubiquity offers something
different – in the case of Virgin Media, the entire
user experience was developed by Vubiquity, while
for the others it could be something as simple as
providing a license for popular content from the
movie studios. In total the company has 1,200
relationships and distributes in more than 121
countries in 80 languages. So given the breadth
of knowledge, are there any trends that Darcy is
noticing in the media industry?