thePlatform Expands Video Publishing Support for Wide Range of 'Over-the-Top' Services

SEATTLE, June 23 /PRNewswire/ -- thePlatform, the leading white-label video publishing company, announced today that its video publishing system can enable customers to publish video across a wider range of popular over-the-top (OTT) services and IP-connected set-top boxes, TVs and Blu-ray Players. With a decade of experience managing cross-platform video publishing initiatives for leading media and entertainment companies, thePlatform outlined its intent to help customers leverage the expanding number of IP-connected home entertainment systems, including the upcoming Google TV platform.

According to The Diffusion Group's (TDG) report, Broadband-Enabled TV: Evolution of OTT Hardware Platforms, more than 360 million households worldwide will own the components necessary to enjoy OTT video services on their TVs by 2014 – across games consoles, Blu-ray Players, hybrid set-top boxes, Internet set-top boxes, media-centric PCs, and networked digital TVs. Today, thePlatform enables hundreds of media companies to publish and monetize billions of professionally produced video views annually across PCs, TVs and mobile phones. While the majority of the video managed by thePlatform is now delivered to PCs, thePlatform expects that mix to shift dramatically in the coming years with the advancement of more IP-connected devices in the home and more video-centric mobile devices.

"Media and entertainment companies are looking well beyond today's PCs and conventional set-top-boxes to reach their audiences," said Ian Blaine, CEO of thePlatform. "At the end of the day, our customers produce and distribute compelling video that they want to monetize, and it's our job to alleviate the complexity to make that happen across any device or platform. Our support for these OTT services is just the beginning, and we look forward to assisting our customers' efforts across any number of next-generation, IP-connected devices."

"Boxee's mission is to create the best experience for enjoying TV shows, movies, and video from the Internet on a TV, no matter what the source," said Avner Ronen, CEO and co-founder, Boxee. "This new relationship with thePlatform means that media and entertainment companies can now easily add Boxee as a distribution point to expand their audiences and generate more revenue from advertising and rentals/purchases."

mpx Beta Publishing Profiles, Feeds Service, and Player Development Kit: Support for OTT

Unlike other video management systems, thePlatform's mpx Beta allows customers to upload multiple media files simultaneously and easily distribute video to websites, mobile phones and other IP-connected devices with a few simple clicks. For example, thePlatform was the first online video publishing company to introduce a profile for the newly released Apple® iPad™ back in February of this year. Today, the company unveiled publishing profiles for several new OTT platforms and stated its readiness to support publishing profiles for Google TV when that service launches.

mpx Beta uses a unique and highly efficient, non-linear "publishing profile" approach that considers a video's destination point first – in effect, reversing the common workflow for video publishing. Once configured, this "smart publishing" methodology automates the required steps for video management, including file creation, transcoding, thumbnail generation and more. In the end, this intuitive design eases video publishing requirements, simplifies the process, and makes the system more accessible to a broader set of users.

In addition, customers can use thePlatform's Feeds Service to deliver video into various playback environments and thePlatform's Player Development Kit (PDK) to build their own HTML5- or Flash-based experiences for consumers.  

With today's announcement, thePlatform has enabled premium video management and publishing to the following OTT services, catering to the varying software and hardware offerings by each:

• Boxee, Inc. (video service and upcoming Boxee Box by D-Link) with details at www.boxee.tv;
• DivX, Inc. (IP-connected consoles, TVs, Blu-ray Players and more) with details at www.divx.com;
• Free Stream Media Inc.'s FlingoTV™  (upcoming video service) with details at www.flingo.tv;
• Roku, Inc. (line of Roku players) with details at www.roku.com;
• Syabas Technologies (upcoming popbox) with details at www.popbox.com;
• TiVo Inc. (line of IP-connected boxes including the TiVo Premiere) with details at www.tivo.com;  
• VUDU Inc. (line of VUDU-enabled TVs and Blu-ray Players from LG, Mitsubishi, Samsung, Toshiba, and VIZIO) with details at www.vudu.com.  

thePlatform currently provides online video management services to numerous programmers, leading media companies, and five of the top cable TV service providers in North America. In order to support the increasingly complex needs of customers to manage cross-platform video publishing, thePlatform provides robust customer support, including professional services, account management, and industry-leading 24/7 technical support.

Additional details about thePlatform and its cross-platform solutions can be found at www.thePlatform.com.

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: Associated Press, Big Ten Network, Cablevision, Canwest, CBC, CBS College Sports, CNBC, Comcast, Corus Entertainment, Cox Communications, ExerciseTV, Fox Sports Network, HIT Entertainment, NBC Local Media, PBS, PBS KIDS Sprout, Rogers, Sony BMG, Starz Play, Time Warner Cable, Travel Channel Media, and numerous others. With a 10-year history of service, thePlatform is an independent subsidiary of Comcast based in Seattle, Wash. For more information: www.thePlatform.com.

All product and service names listed in this release remain property of their parent companies and do not indicate official support or endorsement for thePlatform or its products and services.

SOURCE thePlatform