Adobe, Rovi Contribute to Olympics Coverage

4 Feb, 2014 By: Chris Tribbey

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It may be NBC streaming a record number of hours for the Winter Olympics, but both Adobe Systems and Rovi Corp. are playing big roles behind the scenes.

NBC Olympics will be using the Adobe Primetime TV Everywhere platform to stream more than 1,000-plus hours of live Olympic content to iOS, Android, Mac, Windows and other devices, allowing pay-TV subscribers to view every competition, highlights and VOD content, via both NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports Live Extra App.

“For the first time we’re seeing delivery to every device, and for the first time it’s available both live and on demand,” said Campbell Foster, director of product marketing for Adobe video solutions. “You can watch all 15 sports, all 98 events, all screens, live or on demand.”

Even those who don’t have a pay-TV subscription can access the TV Everywhere streaming for 30 minutes for free. After that time window expires, viewers will be able to watch five minutes of Olympic content each subsequent day. The NBC Olympics stream will offer viewers who subscribe to both high-speed data and video through the same provider auto-authentication based on individual IP addresses, which are cross referenced with their video subscription.

Also, for the first time with any TV Anywhere platform, live ads seen during the TV broadcast will be completely replaced with other ads for the TV Everywhere platform. This “dynamic ad insertion” process is a technological leap with how networks have been able to sell ads across TV Everywhere platforms, Foster said.

Adobe announced the partnership the same day it released its U.S. Digital Video Benchmark, which saw TV Everywhere streams rise from 222.5 million in 2012 to 574.2 million in 2013, with 37% of those streams for sporting events.

“Sports is really fueling the growth between screens,” Foster said. “For the data sets we looked at, a quarter of all sports video content is viewed on mobile devices. That’s pretty staggering. I think people are just getting more accustomed to watching the big events on devices. They’re comfortable doing it.”

Part of the reason sports is so big is because of the nature of the content, Foster said. “You’re not going to watch the World Series a week after it happens.”

Game consoles are the fastest-growing device for device consumption (up 365% year over year), but remain a small part of the overall video consumption pie (less than 5%.

Also for NBC’s Olympics streaming, Rovi will be supplying the metadata for most of the programming, including hour-by-hour event descriptions, athlete profiles, event history, facts and other multimedia content.

“Our in-house team of sports editors have spent hours collecting and creating metadata for the upcoming Winter Olympic Games,” said John Moakley, EVP of data solutions at Rovi. “We’re ready for the competition to begin and, as we see star athletes and teams emerge, we will be working to capture the details of their stories as history is being made.”

By the time the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi broadcasts its closing ceremony, Rovi estimates it will have created more than 150 new international athlete profiles, more than 40 team IDs and covered more than 95 different events, all in 10 different languages for networks broadcasting in more than 20 countries.

“In this age of borderless and untethered digital content, metadata — while often overlooked — is becoming even more critical to the entertainment experience,” Moakley said. “Rovi’s metadata is driving the connection between people and entertainment content for hundreds of services all across the world, ranging from cable companies and consumer electronics devices to websites and social networks.”

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