Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

IBC 2019 Reflections: EcoDigital's David Gonce and Geoff Tognetti on How They're Reenergizing the DIVA Product Suite

21/09/2019

IBC 2019 Reflections: EcoDigital's David Gonce and Geoff Tognetti on how they're re-energising the DIVA Product Suite By Jason Dachman, Managing Editor

Friday, September 20, 2019 - 05:11

Print This Story

Back in June, EcoDigital was formed in order to acquire the DIVA content-storage-management product suite from Oracle (which it had acquired in 2014 as part of its acquisition of Front Porch Digital). IBC 2019 served as the coming-out show for EcoDigital, which is now ramping up development, sales, and support of DIVA solutions.

EcoDigital CTO Geoff Tognetti (left) and Chief Revenue Officer David Gonce

Since its founding in June, the company has launched an R&D division in the United States and created a new solutions group dedicated to integrated global support and development. At IBC 2019, EcoDigital debuted new features in the DIVA software, including dynamic support for AWS cloud storage (making the software suite cloud-agnostic) and a new partial-file restore (PFR) from cloud-storage capability.

SVG sat down with EcoDigital Chief Revenue Officer David Gonce and CTO Geoff Tognetti to discuss why EcoDigital opted to buy the DIVA portfolio, the major in-house changes they have made since the acquisition, and what the future technology roadmap has in store for DIVA clients.

Why did you make the decision to acquire DIVA from Oracle?

Gonce: [EcoDigital CEO] Justin Ririe and I went through the process of evaluating the opportunity to buy DIVA. And what we found was that the product was still the industry-leading software in its space. When we talked to the clients, they were totally thrilled [at the prospect of us buying DIVA]. And then we met the employees, who are phenomenal. Justin and I, along with our investment partners, decided to make the investment to buy the company.

What changes have you made since finalizing the acquisition?

Gonce: First and foremost, in the first 90 days, we've tripled the size of the sales team. Every single client across the globe as well as every single partner will have a dedicated sales executive, which is extremely important.

Secondly, we have significantly enhanced support. We kept the same people in place that were providing great support to our clients, but we also added developers and engineers to that group so that when an issue or a customization comes in, everything could be done within a single group. There will be no escalating to different groups. So now, if you call with a request, it doesn't go to a level one support representative and then escalated to level two or level three support - it's all one group.

Third, Geoff [Tognetti] has put a roadmap together to totally innovate the product. A lot of maintenance within DIVA had occurred over the past five years, but not a ton of innovation. So, as of this month, we are cloud agnostic. While we will continue to support Oracle Cloud [as DIVA did exclusively under Oracle ownership], we now also fully support AWS and will support Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure before the end of the year. We're also changing the user interface, adding some machine-learning functionality, and we have a lot of really cool innovations coming soon in Version 8 that will roll out ahead of NAB.

And finally, we're looking at other acquisitions and looking to potentially buy other companies that complement what we do. And, so far, the market has really received us well. The clients are thrilled that there's new energy and fresh investment being put back into the product. So we're very excited.

Geoff - can you tell me a bit more about the reenergized R&D efforts for DIVA and what it might mean to the sports and M&E markets?

Tognetti: Coming right out of the gate, we've formed a new, dedicated R&D team specifically focused on innovating the product. I'm working with them directly to look around and find what are we missing, where do we need to be, where are our customers going - and make sure that we're bringing that into [the product]. Some of that is already on the roadmap, some of it we'll keep in our back pocket, and some we'll discard. But having that R&D team just gives us better awareness of the market and our customers, which we've lacked a bit over the past few years.

What are some the near-term technology advances DIVA customers can expect in the next year?

Tognetti: In the near term, we have a really robust 18-month schedule and that runs until the end of 2020, including a brand-new user experience. We will also have a lot more in-depth analytics and reporting because our users are telling us that they need more intelligence about what's going on in their assets.

We're also adding an Amazon S3-like API for DIVA. Today, our DIVA API is proprietary API, so it's like learning an entirely new language that not a lot of people know and you have to spend time to study it. However, S3 has grown into the de facto storage and it's almost like a universal language at this point. So essentially, we're teaching DIVA to speak S3 and that's just going to make it a lot easier to integrate. There's a lot of applications out there that support S3 today, including pretty much every MAM vendor. So really this is about making it easier to integrate new applications to DIVA, which is going to expand our reach.

The other big highlight is we'll be doing a much more efficient job of collecting and assessing metadata. And then we will make further reporting available to our customers [regarding] that metadata. What we're hearing today in the market is that a lot of MAM systems will collect a lot of metadata, but it's often a proprietary format or it's metadata that's more specific to the MAM that doesn't really benefit customer outside of the MAM. So we have a lot of customers who want to collect technical
LINK: https://www.svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/ibc-2019-reflections-ecodigit...
See more stories from svg

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

09/10/2026

Dolby Expands Dolby OptiView Platform with New Capabilities at IBC 2026

September 10 2026, 06:00 (PDT) Dolby Expands Dolby OptiView Platform with New Capabilities at IBC 2026 New Sports Intelligence helps providers better unders...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...

30/09/2026

Schibsted Media Chooses DHD RX2 and TX2 Mixers for Remote...

Schibsted Media, one of Norways largest and most influential digital media publishers and content producers, has invested in mixers and digital signal processor...

30/09/2026

Big Blue Marble adds live multiview channels to its video...

Big Blue Marble announces the addition of live multiview channels to Cloud Video Kit, its broadcast-grade video processing platform. The feature is powered by A...

30/09/2026

Telekom Slovenije brings local advertising to internation...

Leading video software provider Synamedia today announced that Telekom Slovenije, Slovenia's largest provider of telecommunications and TV services, is open...

30/09/2026

PODCAST EXPO 2026 Recorded Using Blackmagic Design Workflow

PODCAST EXPO 2026 Recorded Using Blackmagic Design Workflow Brie Clayton September 29, 2026 0 Comments Conference featuring 24 sessions over two days ...

30/09/2026

IBC2026 Show Report

IBC2026 Show Report David Kirk September 29, 2026 0 Comments The International Broadcasting Convention has long been Europe's equivalent of the US...

30/09/2026

SGO Unveils Workflows Slate To Enable Automated Burn-ins, Slates

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

30/09/2026

Public Advocacy Group Urges Broadcasters to Stop Airing Trump Taxpayer Funded Ad

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

30/09/2026

Qvest Promotes Katlyn Alexander to CEO, North America

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

30/09/2026

Mavis Camera 8-2 adds iPhone 18 Pro Support with Variable...

Mavis has launched Mavis Camera 8.2, the latest release of its professional camera app for the iPhone and iPad. This update brings support for iPhone 18 Pro and...

29/09/2026

Oak View Group Names Cisco as Official Technology Partner

Oak View Group (OVG) has announced Cisco as an Official Technology Partner, with plans to standardize infrastructure across its venue network on Cisco solutions...

29/09/2026

SportsNet Pittsburgh Wins Three Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards

SportsNet Pittsburgh (SNP) won three honors at the 2026 Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards. Program awards went to Bucs BP in the Sports Program Live category (produced ...

29/09/2026

CBC, PWHL Revive Hockey Night in Canada' on Saturdays

The Professional Women's Hockey League has announced home openers for all 12 teams for the 2026-27 season, along with a broadcast partnership with CBC under...

29/09/2026

Manifold Technologies Recognized as MXL Contributor Following IBC Innovation Award

Manifold technologies has been recognized as a contributor to the Media eXchange...

29/09/2026

Fubo Launches My Local Sports RSN Add-On Package

FuboTV has announced My Local Sports, allowing subscribers in select markets to add their local regional sports network (RSN) as an add-on to a Fubo Sports subs...

29/09/2026

ANI Deploys Grass Valley AMPP and Framelight X for News Operations

Asian News International (ANI), a wire agency and video news provider based in India, has deployed Grass Valley's AMPP Media Operating System and Framelight...

29/09/2026

SABC Deploys Ikegami UHK-X600 Cameras for IP-Based Production

South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has deployed Ikegami UHK-X600 cameras as part of an upgrade to IP-based production infrastructure. The deployment ...

29/09/2026

Busy in Bristol: ESPN Headquarters Come Alive With New Studio W, Remote-Production Workflows

REMI, REMCO models will drive the bulk of the broadcaster's NHL productions ...

29/09/2026

NASCAR Productions' Keith D'Alessandro on the Continued Evolution of Its Centralized Production Hub

Three years in, the facility is supporting more centralized race production, com...

29/09/2026

NBC Sports Brings Robust Sunday Night Baseball Production Playbook to MLB Wild Card Round

NBC, Peacock, and NBSN are carrying all four Wild Card series with a production ...

29/09/2026

Sundance Institute Announces 2026 Doc Fund Grantees

19 Nonfiction Projects Across All Stages of Production to Receive More Than $1 million in Support as Documentary Film Program Approaches 25th Anniversary LOS ...

29/09/2026

Zynaptiq introduce Loud & Wide

Two new plug-ins launch alongside updated bundles Zynaptiq have just announced the launch of two new plug-ins, alongside new and improved versions of two of...

29/09/2026

Wes Audio unveil the ngOmniBox

All-in-one bus processor revealed Wes Audio's ng product range has come a long way since it was first introduced, and now includes a tasty selection of ...

29/09/2026

First Baptist Nashville Drastically Upgrades Production Communications with...

eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......

29/09/2026

Fubo TV Launches My Local Sports'

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/09/2026

ARRI Targets Content Creators with New HONOR Smartphone

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/09/2026

Asian News International Enhances Workflow with Grass Valley AMPP, FramelightX

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/09/2026

SABC Chooses Ikegami UHK-X600 Cameras to Support IP Studio Transition

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/09/2026

SABC Upgrades to IP-Based Production with Ikegami UHK-X60...

Ikegami announces that the South African Broadcasting Corporation, SABC, has chosen Ikegami UHK-X600 camera systems as part of an advance to IP-based operation ...

29/09/2026

Blendkit Offers 20% Discount to Celebrate Crossing 150K Asset Milestone

Blendkit Offers 20% Discount to Celebrate Crossing 150K Asset Milestone Brie Clayton September 29, 2026 0 Comments Blendkit, the largest 3D asset libr...

29/09/2026

Ease Live Reports over 75 Million Interactive Sessions Du...

Interactive streaming specialist Ease Live supported more than 76.5 million fan sessions across three major European media operators during this summers FIFA Wo...

29/09/2026

Ease Live to monetise key moments in live sports

Ease Live has added support for VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) to its graphical overlay technology, opening up new ways for broadcasters, streamers and rights...

29/09/2026

Rise AV launches awards celebrating the women advocates a...

Rise AV has announced the launch of the inaugural Rise AV Awards, a new global awards programme celebrating the women, advocates and organisations across the AV...

29/09/2026

Netflix Deploys Advanced Sony PTZ Cameras For Wonka's The Golden Ticket' Production

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/09/2026

Massachusetts Broadcasters Association Names Gene Lavanchy 2026 Broadcaster of the Year

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/09/2026

ESPN Reports Its Most-Watched WNBA Regular Season

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/09/2026

Scripps Taps Digital News Veteran Sean McGarvy to Lead News Strategy

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/09/2026

Gray Raises Political Ad Revenue Estimates

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/09/2026

Edward Czarnecki Uses Game Theory to Assess ATSC 3.0 Transition Policies

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/09/2026

First Baptist Nashville Drastically Upgrades Production C...

Clear-Com announced that First Baptist Nashville has upgraded its production communications with a Clear-Com intercom solution as part of a comprehensive sanct...

29/09/2026

Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K Captured Action Shots for Sketch

Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K Captured Action Shots for Sketch Brie Clayton September 28, 2026 0 Comments Camera's portable design and dynamic range...

29/09/2026

Kean Production Services Deploys AJA ColorBox to Deliver Consistent, Accurate Color Across In-venue Displays at Live Events

Kean Production Services Deploys AJA ColorBox to Deliver Consistent, Accurate Co...

29/09/2026

Berklee Alumni and Faculty Nominated for the 2026 Latin Grammy Awards

Berklee Alumni and Faculty Nominated for the 2026 Latin Grammy Awards A total of 28 Berklee alumni and faculty earned nominations across 20 categories this ye...

29/09/2026

Berklee's K-Pop & Beyond Explores Connections Between K-Pop and Hip-Hop

Berklee's K-Pop & Beyond Explores Connections Between K-Pop and Hip-Hop Now in its fifth year, the series brings together artists, industry leaders, and s...

29/09/2026

SES Successfully Prices 500 million Eurobond

NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN OR INTO OR TO ANY PERSON LOCATED OR RESIDENT IN, OR AT ANY ADDRESS IN, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ITS TERRITO...

29/09/2026

The energy transition will only succeed if it lasts

We tend to think we live in a digital world, with hopes and fears around artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, data centres and the next big technolo...