BidSlate, a global content rights marketplace, said it has closed a three-year, exclusive deal that will bring Unlocked: The World of Games Revealed from Discovery Networks to the Asia Pacific market.

Written and directed by Jeremy Snead of Mediajuice Studios, Unlocked is an eight-episode, non-fiction limited series that tells firsthand stories by celebrities, gaming icons and field experts on the culture, tech, history and the future of the video game industry. The series features episodes with Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2), Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings Trilogy), Penn Gillette, Tom Arnold, Kevin Smith, and Alison Haislip (Attack of the Show!).

“As we celebrate our first year as a quickly-growing online platform determined to change the way that content is sold around the world, we’re delighted to close a major deal with an international broadcaster,” Roland Rojas, co-founder and president of BidSlate, said in a statement.

“We’re excited about this inaugural deal with BidSlate,” said Darren Chau, Director of Programming, Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific – Australia, New Zealand & Pacific Islands. “This series is an informative, entertaining and extensive celebration of video games featuring well known celebrities and pop culture references.

New York-based BidSlate operates an online platform that handles the process of transacting global media rights and distribution for content distributors. A key aim, it says, is to simplify content rights negotiations between buyers and sellers of content.

Mediamorph, a provider of cloud-based rights management systems for programmers and video distributors, said it has won a string of deals for a new VOD orchestration system that can help partners drive more dollars out of the content assets they create or have under license.

Those wins include Liberty Global, Frontier Communications and Altibox.

Mediamorph, which just turned 10 and also works with major studios and select OTT players, said its orchestration system is helping operators bridge the gap between their legacy and next-gen platforms.

RELATED: Mediamorph Lands Hulu Deal 

VOD has become “table stakes” for service providers, but managing that content across new platforms has made everything more complicated as they try to track all of the rights, restrictions and pricing models and availability windows that are being woven into the fabric of the on-demand model, Rob Gardos, Mediamorph’s CEO, said.

RELATED: Mediamorph Lands $21M ‘C’ Round

“It’s not slowing down,” he said. “It’s creating a massive amount of complexity.”

It has become a significant challenge, Gardos added, as operators strive to support legacy systems as they roll out new ones while also maintaining firm control of the rights that govern the content they are distributing.

Mediamorph is answering that call with an orchestration system that serves as the glue that can keep both sides together while also adding in automation that removes time-consuming manual processes.

RELATED: Mediamorph Lands Frontier Deal

“As the largest international cable company, it is important to ensure we are maximizing the value of our content across our entire customer base,” Bob Greene, Liberty Global’s managing director of online entertainment and Mediamorph board member, said in a statement. “Mediamorph’s best-of-breed solutions are an essential component in making that happen, and their new orchestration technologies are quickly having an impact.”

The cloud DVR that comes with YouTube TV’s new OTT TV service comes with unlimited storage, but is apparently limited when it comes to letting subscribers fast-forward through ads in recorded programs.

YouTube confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that subscribers to the new offering, now available in five markets for $35 per month, will be forced to watch commercials in some popular shows recorded to the cloud DVR – a restriction that is not present in traditional local DVRs or cloud DVR offerings from Comcast or Sling TV, the Dish Network-owned virtual MVPD service.

RELATED: Sling TV Extends Paid Cloud DVR Access to Roku, Android Users

Due to a “tangle of contracts” YouTube has with media giants such as Disney, 21st Century Fox and NBCUniversal, if a new TV episode is available via VOD (which disables fast-forwarding for ads), customers won’t have access to a cloud DVR-recorded version that would support ad-skipping, the paper said, noting that the ad-skipping restriction doesn’t factor in if a VOD version of a show doesn’t exist.

YouTube TV makes no mention of this limitation in its FAQ about its cloud DVR, which reads:

“You can record as many programs as you want at the same time, without ever running out of storage space. We’ll even keep each recording for 9 months. Stream from your library anywhere in the U.S.”

The WSJ said this restriction appears to be a special case in part because some believe YouTube “hasn’t done enough to battle pirated content appearing on its platform.”  

YouTube TV also has not detailed the architecture of its cloud DVR, and whether its special rights arrangements with some programmers means it can let multiple subscribers access the same copy for certain programs, or if its system makes individual copies of all program recording requests.

YouTube has been asked for further comment and clarification on this point.

Though it’s extremely inefficient from a storage standpoint, network and cloud-based DVR services from Comcast, Altice (in the former Cablevision System properties) and others make individual copies of all recorded programs to ensure that they stay within the bounds of copyright rules.

RELATED: DOJ Recommends Supreme Court Not Take RS-DVR Case

Still, other cloud DVR implementations aren’t without some caveats of their own. For example, Sony PlayStation Vue’s cloud DVR supports unlimited recordings, but users must watch them within 28 days. The FAQ for Comcast’s cloud DVR (offered with its X1 pay TV platform/service) points out that only the “most recent 60 hours of recordings are available for X1 Cloud DVR functionality.”  Those older recordings will drop off the Cloud DVR list, but will still be available via the set-top box. Also, Sling TV's cloud DVR doesn't provide that functionality for all channels, including ABC and ESPN, yet, though the company is working to rectify that limitation. 

Mediamorph, a provider of cloud-based rights management systems for programmers and video distributors, has closed a $21 million “C” round of funding led by Advance Vixeid Partners and by senior advisors to Lee Equity Partners that include former NBCU chairman and CEO Bob Wright and former USA Networks president and COO Barry Baker.

Mediamorph, which has raised a total of $43 million, said it will use the funding to expand its global reach and enhance its platform, which helps partners manage the financials and rights components of  video and integrate that info into the supply and distribution chain.

Along with the new funding, Mediamorph also announced the appointment of several new board members, including Nomi Bergman, president of Advance/Newhouse Partnership and the former president of Bright House Networks; Bob Greene, managing director, Liberty Global; and Baker.

Rob Gardos, Mediamorph’s CEO, said the C-round was oversubscribed, and that most of the company’s growth is coming from MVPDs and OTT players in the U.S. and abroad. 

Mediamoroph’s platform brings together rights and financial data in a way that helps its partners make informed decisions on how to track and further monetization their media assets.

“There’s so much content coming from different places and the rights are getting more and more complex,” Gardos said.

Recently added Mediamorph customers include Hulu, Millicom, Norway’s Altibox, and Discovery Networks. Other Mediamorph clients include Liberty Global, A&E Networks, AMC Networks, BBC Worldwide, CenturyLink, NBCUniversal, Paramount Pictures, Starz Media, Turner Networks, Warner Bros, and Viacom, among others.

Founded in 2007, Mediamorph is private and doesn’t disclose specific financials, including whether it's profitable, but Gardos said company revenues have grown 100% year-over-year.

“We’re experiencing a massive inflection in Media & Entertainment, where rapid change has made it critical for companies to deploy high-performance systems in order to survive and grow,” Bergman said, in a statement. “Mediamorph is a vital technology platform in this ecosystem and I am excited to provide additional industry insight and expertise.”