Sports Technology & Communications News from Around the World

As the most expensive Olympics ever, the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi is having to deal with controversies and security issues, but the Russian government and Vladimir Putin are sparing no expense to ensure everything goes according to plan. With more than two weeks of winter sports, the events will be viewed by hundreds of millions of people around the world. This includes an estimated 158 million people in the United States throughout the games. Once again the coverage in the US is going to be presented by NBC Olympics, a division of the NBC Sports Group.

To make the broadcast available on as many platforms as possible, NBC Olympics has selected Adobe (News - Alert) Primetime, a TV publishing and monetization platform for programmers and pay-TV service providers, to provide multi-screening options across desktops and mobile devices on multiple platforms including iOS, Android (News - Alert), Mac OS, Windows, and others. Using this technology NBC is going to make its broadcast content available live and on-demand on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports Live Extra App.

The Primetime solution gives content owners a platform for creating value for pay-TV services by reaching viewers on any IP connect screen. With the increased adoption of smartphones, tablets and faster wireless networks, viewers no longer have to be tethered to their television in order to watch live broadcasting. With Primetime, NBC Olympics will have massive scale, instant access, free preview, TV-like advertising, high quality viewing experience and outage protection.

"We are pleased to be working once again with Adobe and are confident Adobe Primetime will allow us to ignite even more excitement among fans watching the Games on the multi-platform offerings of NBC Olympics," said Rick Cordella, senior vice president, digital media, NBC Sports Group.

Primetime gives programmers and operators modular capabilities to stream, protect, analyze, and monetize content across multiple devices broadcasting live, linear, and video-on-demand programming.

Key features of this platform include:

• Player SDKs to get the software development tools to build and deliver a premium video experience across every device.
• Ad decisioning to improve efficiency and visibility with campaign management, creative trafficking, forecasting, inventory management, and reporting.
• Deliver premium content on virtually any device with the a secure, flexible, and user-friendly TV Everywhere authentication.
• Increase viewer engagement and boost revenue with dynamic ad insertion that seamlessly blends with live or on-demand TV content across devices.
• Get real-time insight on video quality, viewer engagement, and ad impressions, and troubleshoot issues before they arise as well as understanding how the audience watches and engages with premium television, film, and ad content.
• Digital rights management (DRM), essential video analytics, and Quality-of-experience (QoE) monitoring.

"By using the Adobe Primetime video platform, NBC Sports will be able to reach more screens and deliver premium video experiences to digital viewers of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games," said Jeremy Helfand, vice president, Primetime, Adobe.