VERANCE BRINGS WATERMARKING TO HbbTV, SIGNIFICANTLY EXPANDING THE REACH OF HYBRID TV SERVICES IN MARKETS WORLDWIDE

San Diego, CA, October 1, 2019 - Verance®, an award-winning provider of standards-based watermarking, today announced plans to bring its Aspect watermarking technology to Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV), providing a solution that will significantly expand the reach of interactive television services in markets worldwide.

Aspect uses Verance’s high-performance implementation of the standards-based watermarking technologies sanctioned by the HbbTV Association in their recently published “Application Discovery over Broadband” specification. It enables consumers to access HbbTV services on their television sets, even when they receive TV service through a legacy set-top box. By deploying Aspect, these services will be seamlessly delivered through any distribution path, where they can be discovered and accessed on watermark-enabled HbbTV televisions. Because Aspect watermarking is compatible with all distribution environments – cable, satellite, IPTV and OTT – it significantly increases the household reach of these services.

“We are pleased to extend the support of Aspect to the HbbTV ecosystem,” said Joe Winograd, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Verance. “Aspect is now a global watermarking solution that benefits the entire HbbTV ecosystem – programmers, manufacturers, advertisers and consumers, expanding the availability of advanced interactive television, on-demand viewing, audience insights and other HbbTV features.

The HbbTV Association is a global initiative dedicated to providing an open standard for the delivery of advanced interactive television services through broadcast and broadband networks for connected TV sets and set-top boxes. HbbTV selected the watermark technologies specified by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) as the basis for their Application Discovery over Broadband specification to facilitate interoperability and provide manufacturers and programmers with global scale and cost efficiencies.

Verance® Aspect™ is a global watermarking platform that powers broadband features on broadcast television by enabling advanced, census-like audience measurement, personalization, interactivity and addressable advertising across all screens and distribution paths. Aspect supports new and existing industry standards including ATSC 3.0 and HbbTV and is fully compatible with today’s ATSC 1.0 broadcasting environment. Leading programmers such as FOX, NBC and PBS are currently deploying Aspect.

Verance content measurement and enhancement technologies are at the forefront of innovation and set the industry standard for television, movies and music. Our solutions have been adopted by over 100 leading entertainment and technology companies and deployed in over 300 million consumer products worldwide. For more information, visit: http://www.verance.com