thePlatform Forges New Strategic Relationship with Adobe to Serve Major Media and Entertainment Companies

SEATTLE, April 8, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- At the 2014 NAB Show, thePlatform, the leading white-label video publishing company and independent subsidiary of Comcast, today announced a new strategic relationship with Adobe to serve broadcasters, programmers, pay-TV operators, and other major media companies. Specifically, the two companies have integrated Adobe® Primetime and thePlatform's mpx video management system as part of an end-to-end IP-video solution that the companies will sell jointly to customers. 

Adobe and thePlatform have a long history of working collaboratively to serve major media companies. Most recently, the companies worked together to support NBC Olympics' online production of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi. The new agreement codifies the complementary capabilities of both companies in order to address the highly dynamic and complex needs of TV programmers and operators. 

"As a global pioneer in online video, Adobe continues to lead the industry with powerful innovations like Adobe Primetime," said Ian Blaine, CEO of thePlatform. "Behind the scenes, our two companies are often at the table together for the biggest initiatives in online video. Today's announcement strengthens that alignment. We expect great things from this deep product integration and joint-selling relationship."

"thePlatform is recognized as a leading online video platform built for global broadcasting and distribution scale serving the TV industry today," said Jeremy Helfand, vice president, Primetime at Adobe. "This new relationship plays to both of our strengths, and will benefit our collective customers. Adobe Primetime continues to gain rapid adoption from major programmers and pay-TV service providers." 

Product Integration of Adobe Primetime and mpx 

Each company is responsible for managing complementary capabilities within the joint solution. Specifically, thePlatform's cloud-based mpx system enables clients to:

• Automatically publish video for playback in Primetime Players;
• Easily create custom video players for PCs, tablets, smartphones, and OTT devices, leveraging the integration of the Adobe Primetime Player SDK within thePlatform's Player Dev Kit.
• Automatically ingest video via Feed Readers or Watch Folders, and dynamically update online video channels when new video or editorial content is available;
• Manage and enhance metadata of all video assets, and use mpx TV Data Services to provide deep search capabilities and more interactive internet TV experiences;
• Set viewing rights, playback authorization and monetization policies to enforce obligations between content owners and distributors for both on-demand and live video (entitlements, restrictions, commerce); and
• Schedule, monitor and manage live events, and then have that footage seamlessly converted into on-demand video libraries.

Adobe Primetime the industry's most advanced TV delivery and monetization platform for programmers and pay-TV service providers, contributes the following elements of the joint solution:

• Management of subscriber authentication via Adobe Primetime pay-TV pass;
• Adobe Primetime digital rights management (DRM) capability provides scalable and efficient workflow for programmers and operators to protect video content across devices and platforms; Adobe Primetime DRM is UltraViolet-approved and also offered via the cloud;
• Ad decisioning to improve efficiency and visibility with campaign management, creative trafficking, forecasting, inventory management, and reporting;
• Ad insertion for client-side and cloud-based dynamic ad insertion for VOD, linear and live video content to increase viewer engagement and boost revenue;
• Quality of experience (QoE) monitoring provides real-time insight on video quality, viewer engagement, and ad impressions enabling customers to troubleshoot issues before they arise; and
• Comprehensive understanding of audience viewing and engagement with essential ad content video analytics. 

Customers can manage the entire video workflow of the joint solution via mpx's simple Web-based console. Both companies also provide industry leading, enterprise-grade level support and service level agreements (SLAs) for online video. 

Additional information about Adobe Primetime is available at www.Adobe.com/solutions/primetime.html. Additional information about thePlatform is available at www.thePlatform.com. 

About Adobe Primetime
Adobe Primetime enables programmers and pay TV service providers to capitalize on the rising consumer interest in watching TV across IP-connected screens. The platform tightly integrates Adobe's video publishing, player, DRM, advertising and analytics solutions to help eliminate the complexity of reaching audiences across devices. The results are greater revenue from ad sales and subscriptions, lower operating costs, and audiences that are more engaged. Adobe Primetime's interoperable components can be deployed individually to fit specific infrastructure needs, or deployed as an end-to-end solution to handle the entire broadcast-to-IP workflow.

About thePlatform:
thePlatform™ is the leading white-label video management and publishing company. Media companies rely on thePlatform as their open, central hub for managing, monetizing, and syndicating billions of professionally produced video views annually. The company's services provide unmatched versatility for designing and supporting video businesses on PCs, mobile, and TV. Customers include: A+E Networks, Astral, BT, Cablevision, CBC, Comcast, Cox Communications, E!, Engage Sports Media, the Golf Channel, Fox Sports, HIT Entertainment, Liberty Global, LSDLive, NBC Local Media, NBC Sports, Outdoor Channel, Oxygen, Rogers, Shaw Media, Style, Syfy, Time Warner Cable, Travel Channel Media, truTV, USA Network, Viaplay, and numerous others. With more than decade history of service, thePlatform is an independent subsidiary of Comcast based in Seattle, Wash. For more information: www.thePlatform.com.

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