Tunesat Value/Effectiveness Changing?

[yzzman1]

I’m undecided on this topic. I have had a Tunesat account for a number of years. I was thrilled when I opened it to see the placements start rolling in – in real time. I felt it was catching a large majority of detections. Communication with writers and composer was great.

Over the past couple of years – coincidentally when they lost one of their major employees – I’ve noticed a downturn. Less of my detections are getting picked up, enormous delays in detection are happening often, wrong info is sometimes displayed with a detection and it of course isn’t tracking the huge number of shows on streaming networks like Netflix and Amazon.

Now the other side of the coin is that there seems to be no current competitor to Tunesat – so why would they feel the need to better the service? We get plenty of advertising email from them regarding the history of past and purchasing retro detections but not much checking in on how the service is working – but again why bother when they have a monopoly?

Or….is there something monumental – an all encompassing fingerprinting system on the way – from Tunesat? From PRO’s? Another company? I guess it’s anybody’s guess.

Either way it’s not like I see another similar option now – but I think the effectiveness of my Tunesat account has dwindled a bit – and therefore the value of it to me is not quite what is once was.

Curious to hear others experience over the course of consistant time with it?

[composer]

I’ve had a Tunesat account for years. Here’s my experience:

If the wrong show title (or no show title) is displayed initially, it usually corrects in a day or two.

If Tunesat detects a promo or commercial, it will display the title of the show in which the promo/commercial airs. That’s pretty easy to figure out though. If the same track and length is detected during several different shows in the same day, it’s probably a commercial or promo.

I haven’t noticed any significant change over time in the percentage of placements that are detected. I would estimate that 15 to 25 percent of my placements are detected, and often only a portion of the placement is captured. I only track US TV placements.

It IS perplexing to me that this service detects so few placements. I know I’ve seen posts on MLR reporting that some composers have a much higher detection percentage than me. I can’t figure that out.

I still choose to pay for the service though. When deciding what music to produce, it’s very useful to know what is being placed ASAP, and I’m not aware of an alternative to Tunesat. Customer service is good and the interface is easy to use.

[Art Munson]

I still think it’s a valuable service and I agree with “composer”. I do find my detection rate very much higher though. I would say at least 80%.

My biggest complaint is with networks that do not turn in promo logs (BMI will pay on them if turned in, according to my sources) and a few networks that never seem to turn in correct cue sheets. Fox Sports for one.

[yzzman1]

I also probably have a bit of a higher detection rate than composer – but not by much. I have not seen any evidence of the product’s technology evolving to perform at a higher level.

[Music1234]

1 week ago I dove in and decided to upload my free 50. Ignorance has been bliss. Now I get to check in on detections a lot. Detections started happening immediately. I hand picked the 50 tracks. I selected titles that are on my PRO statements a lot as well as new titles that I think and hope will attract TV show producers. Sure enough I have about 30 MTV UK detections for a new track already across several shows over the last 3 days alone. I think the technology is very cool.

I will stick with my free 50 scenario for a while. I am not sure if the PRO’s will pay based on TUNESAT detections anyway. I see this as information and that’s about it. Can UK writers chime in and let me know about their experience with MTV Reality TV shows in the UK? Are they responsible with filing cue sheets to the PRS? I have 1 relatively new track in very heavy rotation on these shows in just the last 4 days all MTV UK.
Catfish: The TV Show
The Hills
My Super Sweet 16
Room Raiders
Teleshopping
Jackass
Finding Carter

Yes, Ignorance was bliss, now 1 week in Tunesat is definitely creating some anxiety. Suddenly a track is getting used left and right in the UK, normally I would not have a clue about this stuff. I definitely find value in this service!

[Hunter Williams]

We here at SourceAudio have an alternative monitoring service to Tunesat called SourceAudio Detect. Our solution uses watermarking instead of fingerprinting which eliminates false positive detections that are inherently common with fingerprinting technologies. We also synch with two industry leading program and commercial level data providers to automatically distinguish music in programs versus music in advertising (rather than listening to the audio and manually tagging commercials). This allows us to automatically report clearly and decisively music as a background cue in a program/episode, or music in a commercial, promo or movie trailer. We can detect down to as little as 0.2 seconds.

In addition, with watermarking we are able to differentiate performances on non-exclusive music distributed by different licensors. This effectively renders “retitling” moot because we can assign a different watermark to each digital copy of the same audio recording.

As watermarking requires us to embed a non-audible signal into the audio itself (not passively analyze the wave form), users have to upload their files to what we call a grey label SourceAudio account to first insert the watermark(s) before delivery to their publishers, distributors, and/or clients. The watermarking is done behind the scenes and is done almost instantaneously upon upload. For larger catalogs on proprietary or other third party distribution platforms, we have an API that seamlessly automates this process. Grey label accounts are free with your SourceAudio Detect subscription, which starts at $49/month for up to 1,000 tracks. Please note that alt versions, stems, and remixes receive their own unique watermarks, so these all count toward your track count.

We currently monitor the top 80 broadcast and cable networks. You can check out more info at http://www.sourceaudio.com/detect.

[Art Munson]

Our solution uses watermarking instead of fingerprinting which eliminates false positive detections that are inherently common with fingerprinting technologies.

Hey Hunter, nice to hear from you and thanks for the info.

My question is this: Wouldn’t your solution require that the tracks delivered to libraries already have the watermark in order for SourceAudio to recognize it?

In other words will you be able to detect music currently being used that was not watermarked by the library but watermarked at SourceAudio?

[Hunter Williams]

Hi Art, I tried to elaborate this in the 3rd paragraph, so sorry it wasn’t clear and thanks for the follow up questions. Tracks have to be watermarked before going into production and broadcast or performed in order to be detected. This means you the composer/producer must watermark the tracks before delivering to your libraries or clients, or the libraries/clients themselves have to watermark the tracks you deliver to them before going to “air”.

[Art Munson]

I tried to elaborate this in the 3rd paragraph, so sorry it wasn’t clear and thanks for the follow up questions.

Thanks Hunter, just wanted to make it clear. Sounds like a great service. Unfortunately for a lot of us we have hundreds of tracks out there that it’s too late for.

[Alan]

Does Tunesat still offer a discount for MLR members?

[Art Munson]

Yep, still does as far as I know. https://musiclibraryreport.com/sales/25-off-tunesat/

[N]

Hello Hunter,

Your service seems fantastic & I know that your clients are major players. My question is why not consider affordable pricing for independent writers/composers/companies, etc? It seems to me that SourceAudio is missing out on a large amount of business due to your lack of affordability for indies.

Thanks

[Author]

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