Netflix executive Anna Lee, a 12-year veteran of the streaming giant, is leaving the company to serve as chief strategy officer for media services vendor Deluxe. 

The Los Angeles-based Wharton cum laude left German media services giant Bertelsmann AG for Netflix in 2008, with the DVD business beginning to ebb. Lee started out with Netflix at the title of VP of supply chain development. 

But starting in 2011, when she was upped to VP of content acquisition, she steadily began adding to her job title: she tacked on head of global content services in 2012; and head of global screenings, talent relations and awards in July 2019.

Lee’s departure follows the exit of former Netflix VP of original series, Channing Dungey, who just landed as the replacement for Peter Roth at Warner Bros. TV Group. And among other Netflix comings and goings, longtime original series chief Cindy Holland left last month, replaced by Bela Bajaria. 

At Deluxe, Lee will report directly to CEO Cyril Drabinsky and will be responsible for “developing, communicating, executing and sustaining strategic initiatives for the company.” 

She also won't have the sword of Netflix's infamous company culture memo, and all the super high, (and perhaps arbitrary?) performance benchmarks that come with it, hanging over her head on a monthly basis. 

“Anna is an exceptional leader and her experience in digital cinema, supply-chain workflows, and the global OTT space will ensure that Deluxe can maximize opportunities given the dramatic shifts in the marketplace,” Drabinsky said in a statement. 

Deluxe said Deluxe OnDemand, its video workflow management and content-supply platform, has been selected by Charter Communications and Canadian MSO Shaw Communications.

Charter is tapping it to expand premium titles and device support for CharterTV, the MSO’s authenticated TV Everywhere app for video streaming and downloads. In that role, Deluxe’s role includes content acquisition from studios and cable networks, file and metadata normalization, transcoding, packaging and distribution, the company said.

Shaw, meanwhile, has selected the Deluxe OnDemand to help underpin the MSO’s VOD, feeding both legacy set-top boxes and TV Everywhere applications.

The system, Deluxe said, will provide Shaw with a centralized workflow, automating high volume content ingest, transcoding, and packaging for Shaw’s VOD platform. That work will span across a range of content, including Canadian specialty channels, U.S. cable channels, broadcast TV content, premium subscription VOD providers and transactional VOD.

Deluxe noted that the system can also adapt to handle 4K/Ultra HD video and content that uses High Dynamic Range.

Deluxe said it has added 4K-facing features and workflows to its cloud-based video-on-demand platform for service provider partners.

Deluxe, a partner for DirecTV’s recently launched 4K offering, said the 4K/Ultra HD enhancements added to its cloud-based Deluxe OnDemand platform include digital re-mastering and processing using HEVC/H.265 as well as High Dynamic Range (HDR) displays, such as those that will support Dolby Vision, a proprietary HDR system.

Other 4K-facing enhancements include ingest and re-mastered source files, support for adaptive bit rate transcoding and video packaging for a variety of device types, as well as on-net and off-net network hosting and delivery options, the company said.

Rather than building out those systems on their own, several service providers have opted to outsource content processing and delivery to Deluxe OnDemand, Todd Collart, general manager of Deluxe Digital Distribution, said, noting that the company has become a “general contractor” for the 4K market.

In addition to service providers, Deluxe is also handling 4K content processing, management and distribution for Ultra HD TVs from Samsung and LG Electronics. 

4K “is nascent market…and it’s complicated to get it work across devices,” Collart said. With the latest integrations, “we’re trying to get 4K out of the lab and getting it directly to the consumers.”

Deluxe is beefing up its 4K capabilities as the consumer adoption expands. 4K TV shipments surged 500% in the third quarter of 2014 versus the year-ago period, topping 3 million units, extending total shipments to 6.4 million units through the first three quarters of 2014, according to a recent report from DisplaySearch.

Deluxe’s Digital Distribution unit said it has secured a deal to handle the processing and delivery components of Samsung’s Ultra HD Video Pack, a bundle of movies and other content that are offered in the eye-popping format in a media player that can be paired up with Samsung-made 2014 model 4K TV sets.

Samsung launched the Ultra HD Video pack earlier this month.

Similar to Sony’s approach with a 4K-optimized media player for its Ultra HD TV line and Video Unlimited 4K library, Samsung is also looking to prime the content pump with the Ultra HD Video Pack and One Connect (pictured above), a separate media player/sidecar device that comes pre-packed with movies and documentaries in 4K format, and the ability to download additional titles from a constantly-evolving library of UHD fare. Samsung is also supporting Netflix’s budding 4K streaming library and will feature a new 4K video app from Comcast, which also plans to introduce boxes for its X1 platform that can decode native 4K content.

The Samsung One Connect device is capable of holding “several hundred movies,” with the average 4K file size of about 30 Gigabytes, according to Deluxe, which is encoding Ultra HD video in the H.265/High Efficiency Video Encoding (HEVC) format, which is about 50% more bandwidth efficient than H.264/MPEG-4.

Deluxe is also in talks with multichannel video programming distributors on how to process and deliver 4K content, Kevin Corbett, president of Deluxe Digital Distribution, said. The company is also collaborating with studios to convert, restore and master Ultra HD-optimized content.

Deluxe, he said, looking to “bridge the gap” on 4K by preparing source material into formats that can be handled by consumer devices while still meeting the quality standard required by studios, Corbett added.