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Adobe Systems announced that Adobe Pass, a key component of Adobe’s Project Primetime, has already established itself as an industry leader in TV Everywhere services.
Used to authenticate the live streaming of NBC Olympics coverage, Adobe Pass is now supporting more than 40 sites and mobile apps from 25 top programmers. Adobe Pass is integrated with more than 150 cable and satellite operators, enabling TV content across devices from major networks including Fox, ESPN, CNN, TNT, MTV, Disney and NBC Olympics, Adobe officials said.
Boasting a tenfold increase in authenticated streams in the first six months of 2012, Adobe Pass was used for a number of high-profile events this year, including NCAA March Madness, UEFA Euro 2012 soccer, the NBA playoffs and the London 2012 Olympic Games. Approximately 98 percent of U.S. households are now able to access premium content via the Adobe Pass Service, which will also power live college football and other major events for Pac-12, ESPN and the Big Ten this fall season, Adobe said. Adobe also announced Adobe Pass 2.0, which was successfully tested during the Olympics.
Adobe Pass supported NBC Olympics’ verification efforts for its coverage of the London Olympics, which resulted in more than 88 million authenticated streams to U.S. viewers, the highest number recorded for a single event in TV Everywhere history, the company said. Desktop consumption in the U.S. reached 70 percent of authenticated streams while smartphones and tablets supported a combined share of 30 percent with iOS leading by 81 percent and Android serving 19 percent of the streams, Adobe said. A total of approximately 7 million TV subscriber households accessed authenticated streams online, the company said.
“As multi-platform video consumption continues to grow rapidly, content providers have to be able to reach audiences and deliver seamless authentication experiences to ensure TV-level scale across all major platforms and device types,” said Pritham Shetty, vice president of product management and engineering for Video Solutions at Adobe, in a statement. By working closely with our broadcast partners and introducing new innovations in Adobe Pass, Adobe is removing major adoption barriers and making the use of TV Everywhere incredibly easy for consumers.”
Meanwhile, Adobe Pass 2.0 offers innovative capabilities that advance the success of TV Everywhere to reach across all platforms, provide seamless consumer experience and TV-level scale. Adobe 2.0 was successfully tested and showcased during the London Games and is expected to drive mainstream adoption of TV Everywhere for day-to-day content consumption across devices, Adobe said.
New features in Adobe Pass 2.0 include:
- Auto-Authentication: Support for Auto-Authentication in Adobe Pass 2.0 enables automatic recognition and authentication of customers, who receive both their TV and Internet service from the same provider, based on their IP or MAC address. The feature, which makes the authentication process much easier and more seamless, was used by Comcast and Cablevision during the London Games and saw an authentication success rate that was 23 percent higher than pay TV operators that didn’t take advantage of the capability.
- Free Preview: The new Free Preview feature offers consumers temporary access to premium TV content online for a predetermined amount of time. The feature ensures that consumers have instant access to TV content without having to wait until the user credentials are verified.
- Server side API: Coming this fall, Adobe Pass will make it even easier for programmers to support a broad range of devices via a clientless implementation. This new server side API enables content providers to integrate authentication within native applications ensuring faster time-to-market and allowing customers to expand the reach of TV Everywhere to the broadest possible audience.