Rolling out the OTT red carpet for the 67th Emmy® voters: Digiflare and Verizon create first-of-a-kind viewing platform for the Television Academy

PLAYA VISTA, Calif. and TORONTO, Sept. 8, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- In a television first, the Television Academy eschewed traditional DVD screeners and instead provided the more than 18,300 voting members in the 67th Emmy® Awards Show with a range of viewing options via the Web, iOS, Android, Roku and Chromecast.

Digiflare, a TV apps company, and Verizon Digital Media Services teamed up to deliver a comprehensive video-streaming solution that allowed the Television Academy to securely deliver their content, as well as a high-quality viewing experience for all of their voting members. The new digital, mobile-first platform allowed voting members to access all the episodes they needed to see before casting ballots.

The move to digital drove down production, distribution and environmental costs, and it allowed the voters to vote in more categories. Traditionally, each Television Academy member had been able to vote for a maximum of four Blue Ribbon Panel categories during Primetime Emmy balloting. Once a member chose the categories, the Television Academy mailed multiple DVDs to each member. This year, final-round voting was expanded beyond the four-panel limitation to enable eligible voting members to vote in all 15 program categories. The increased voting pool was the impetus to build a viewing platform capable of screening all Emmy-nominated content.

"We wanted to give our members a simple way to view Emmy nominees' programming across all of their devices at their convenience, without needing to produce hundreds of thousands of additional DVDs," said Maury McIntyre, Television Academy President & COO. "This new platform allowed us to streamline the voting process, while meeting today's viewer's expectations of instantaneous, seamless and secure digital experiences."

To launch the viewing platform in time for voting, the Academy selected Digiflare's Videa™ platform and Verizon Digital Media Services' Video Lifecycle Solution. Digiflare's Videa™ platform is a highly scalable, highly flexible system for designing, developing and deploying the applications that are providing Television Academy voters with a flawless viewing experience across web browsers, mobile phones, tablets and connected televisions.

"Voting members accessed content for their consideration whenever and wherever they wanted to," says Bob Toohey, President of Verizon Digital Media Services. "We were thrilled to partner with the Television Academy and Digiflare to offer a rich and seamless streaming experience to some of TV's most sophisticated audiences."

Verizon Digital Media Services' Video Lifecycle Solution handled all aspects of preparing and delivering the content, starting with a cloud-based workflow for securely ingesting, encoding and encrypting the shows nominated for an award. From there, the content was cached and streamed from Verizon Digital Media Services' worldwide content delivery network for quick-starting and buffer-free viewing no matter where or on what device the voting member chose to view the content.

"Here at Digiflare, we're proud to be part of this move to bring the organization devoted to the advancement of the television industry together with the modern TV viewing experience," says Digiflare CEO Mano Kulasingam.

Using the combined offering, the Television Academy was able to roll out a polished, multi-platform solution in just two months. The quick delivery of the applications was due in part to the ease of integration between Digiflare's Videa™ solution and Verizon Digital Media Services' Video Lifecycle Solution.

About Digiflare

Digiflare Inc. is a Toronto-based TV apps company. We combine inspired design with innovative technology to turn any device with a screen into a TV. The biggest TV networks, pay TV operators, and media companies trust and rely on our engineering expertise, collaborative process, and our experience-tested team to build and launch their next-generation TV Everywhere and OTT services.

About Verizon

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ), headquartered in New York, employs a diverse workforce of 178,500 and generated more than $127 billion in 2014 revenues. Verizon Wireless operates America's most reliable wireless network, with 109.5 million retail connections nationwide. Verizon also provides converged communications, information and entertainment services over America's most advanced fiber-optic network, and delivers integrated business solutions to customers worldwide. For more information, visit www.verizon.com/news/.

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SOURCE Verizon

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