Trident Embeds Audible Magic Digital Fingerprinting Technology into Its Digital TV Platform

Monday, August 29th, 2011
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OEMs and Application Developers Can Easily Offer New Capabilities for Social TV, Direct Ad Response, and Personalization

LOS GATOS, Calif. & SUNNYVALE, Calif. — IBC 2011 — Audible Magic today announced that Trident Microsystems (NASDAQ: TRID) has integrated its SmartID automated content recognition system onto its digital TV (DTV) platform. Based on Audible Magic’s patented digital fingerprint content identification technology, the SmartID system will help Trident OEMs and ODMs and their application developers more fully capitalize on new opportunities in the emerging social TV, interactive advertising, and personalization markets.

For these developers, one key asset of the SmartID system is its ability to support both on-demand and continuous-identification modes. This makes it easy for applications to identify live television shows, movies, music, and advertising TV viewers watch, regardless of the media source: linear television, Blu-ray players, VoD, or over-the-top streamed media from companies such as Netflix or Hulu. As well as being critical to developing new applications for social TV, interactive advertising, and personalization, this capability is also essential to the integration of companion screen devices into the interactive viewing experience.

In addition to automated content recognition, the SmartID system offers developers other valuable features, such as:

  • Frame-accurate synchronization using Audible Magic’s SmartSync capability, making it easy for developers to time events based on specific locations within a video such as polls, contests, and the timing of ads and other related content
  • Local device and cloud-based media recognition services
  • Audible Magic’s SongID feature, allowing viewers to immediately identify a song when they hear it on TV using just a click of the remote control
  • Minimal memory and CPU footprint that allows the SmartID system to scale from low- to high-end DTV systems
  • An API for developers that is easy to integrate with their applications

“Social TV, interactive advertising, and personalization are three enormous market opportunities for Trident, our OEMs and ODMs, and the apps developers who work with them,” noted Dirk Wieberneit, Senior VP and General Manager for TV business unit of Trident Microsystems, when making the announcement. “To take full advantage of these opportunities, suppliers and developers must offer excellent content recognition capabilities. And, with the exclusive addition of Audible Magic’s SmartID system, we believe that we have the most robust and accurate technology of this kind on the market.”

“Including digital fingerprinting on Trident’s DTV platform will do for smart TVs what GPS did for mobile phones,” added Jay Friedman, VP Marketing for Audible Magic. “Developers created thousands of geo-location apps never imagined before GPS became a standard feature of mobile phones, and–with the addition of digital fingerprinting–we expect to see a similar story unfold in the DTV environment.”

Come visit Audible Magic at IBC 2011, September 9-13, Hall 13 Stand 384. Learn about and see demonstrations of Audible Magic’s technology for Smart TVs and Companion Screen devices. Use code 17530 to get free entry to IBC courtesy of Audible Magic.