In various embodiments, methods and systems for implementing a media management system, for video data processing and adaptation data generation, are provided. At a high level, a video data processing engine relies on different types of video data properties and additional auxiliary data resources to perform video optical character recognition operations for recognizing characters in video data. In operation, video data is accessed to identify recognized characters. A video OCR operation to perform on the video data for character recognition is determined from video character processing and video auxiliary data processing. Video auxiliary data processing includes processing an auxiliary reference object; the auxiliary reference object is an indirect reference object that is a derived input element used as a factor in determining the recognized characters. The video data is processed based on the video OCR operation and based on processing the video data, at least one recognized character is communicated.