Hat Trick As Civolution's Syncnow Scoops Three Awards At IBC 2012

written by: Richard Kastelein

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Published on Thursday, 13 September 2012 18:16

Civolution, the leading provider of technology and solutions for identifying, managing and monetizing media content, today announces that SyncNow™, its Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) solution, won three awards at IBC 2012: Best Interactive TV Technology or Application in the CSI Product of the Year Awards, the prestigious IABM Award for Excellence, and the highly coveted IBC Design Award, as Technical Partner to winner to Red Bee Media and FX UK.

"We are very proud to have received such powerful acclaim for our SyncNow ACR platform,'' said Alex Terpstra, CEO, Civolution. ''In the fast-moving TV anywhere, multi-screen media eco-system, this confirms that the innovative ACR technology and solutions we deliver are answering today's market needs and expectations. By making connected devices and applications content-aware, SyncNow ACR technology enables broadcasters and content owners to revolutionize the television experience. The level of personalisation that can now be offered to viewers - deeper level of engagement with the program creating a rich and immersive experience - enables content owners, operators, advertisers, app developers to collaborate on exciting new business models. The inspiring discussions during our 2nd screen summit at IBC makes us believe that 2nd screen is here to stay. We are clearly entering the era of truly interactive media experiences."

Based on powerful watermarking and fingerprinting technologies, SyncNow is an automatic content recognition technology platform which powers a wide range of devices, applications and services. SyncNow ACR solutions include:

SyncNow - 2nd screen, which enables automatic identification of the TV channel being watched, thecontent being played and accurate time-based events for live and time-shifter content.

SyncNow - Smart TV, an integrated application for connected devices such as smart TVs and set-top-boxes, allows content (re)placement or precise triggering of events based on identifying the viewed content in real time;

SyncNow - Smart Services, server-side content identification and triggering services that provides real-time recognition of broadcast content such as advertisements, movies, TV series, sport or any relevant video fragment. The services leverage Civolution's extensive and growing broadcast monitoring infrastructure, which monitors close to 2,000 TV channels worldwide. It enables companion app providers and social TV platforms to work more deeply with advertising agencies and brands to monetize their app platforms while advertisers can easily trigger targeted ads. Advertisers can build attractive, synchronized, interactive and multi-screen ad campaigns, enable direct product purchases from companion devices or facilitate automated click-through to commerce sites or branded micro-sites. 

The success of the solution can be appreciated through various use cases.  For example:

In January 2012, Red Bee Media announced that it used Civolution's solution to power its 2nd screen application for FX UK's TV show, ''The Walking Dead''. The app features a game element which encourages users to share their results over social networks, and has proved to be a great success with tens of thousands of downloads. With the ability to sync through standard broadcast or through time-shift, users found the app hugely entertaining, adding a new dimension to the series. Red Bee Media, FX UK and Technical Partner Civolution won the hotly contested Content Creation category of the IBC Innovations Awards.

At NAB 2012, DG announced it had used the solution to pioneer an industry-first monetizable dual-screen video ad platform. The platform allows applications running on 2nd screens to automatically recognize content on the main TV, and then synchronize with that content. Upon synchronization, specific and relevant content is automatically triggered on the companion device enabling consumers to benefit from a deeper level of brand engagement without disruption to the main TV screen.

Other examples of successful deployments of the solution include ExMachina, HyperTV, ConnecTV, Ensequence and more. Civolution is also currently enabling a number of other broadcasters and app developers with SyncNow deployments that will be unveiled for the upcoming TV season.