CES 2016: Rovi launches Rovi Sports, Fan TV


Details

Michelle Clancy

| 07 January 2016




Rovi has introduced Rovi Sports, a metadata product that offers personalised discovery experiences before, during and after the game. And, it has introduced its advanced Fan TV platform, for entertainment discovery.



Powered by the Rovi Knowledge Graph Engine, Rovi Sports provides descriptive information about sports, leagues, teams and players, and will enable consumers to identify the most interesting plays of the game in real-time.

Rovi also connects related content from multiple media types, including TV, movies, sports, music, games and books; offers applications including over-the-top (OTT) linking to live content, notable plays and athlete career highlights; and provides live statistics such as real-time scores and roster changes, as well as real-time schedule updates that can be used to adjust DVR settings to accommodate shifting game start and end times.

“For centuries, sports have defined cultures and societies around the world, representing an enormous percentage of entertainment consumption,” said Kathy Weidman, senior vice president and general manager for metadata, Rovi.

“This is especially true in the age of digital viewing, with 75% of all sports content being consumed on smartphones, smart TVs and tablets. As the leader in entertainment metadata, Rovi is committed to applying our dynamic metadata capabilities to categories that are the most meaningful to viewers. Sports fans are fiercely passionate and loyal to their favourite athletes and teams, and we are excited to be part of the ecosystem that will enrich the viewing experience for fans as they enjoy their favourite sporting events.”

Rovi has also integrated Fan TV with the Personalised Discovery Solution, consisting of entertainment metadata, contextual search and recommendations and natural language conversation services. With the fully integrated platform, Rovi’s Fan TV can power entertainment discovery and content consumption across any screen via set-top box, connected TV, mobile, tablet and Web.

“The power of Rovi’s Fan TV platform is that it enables global service providers, developers and our channel partners to tap into our market-leading technologies either as a full-service solution or for a specific feature to improve their own products,” said Gilles BianRosa, vice president and general manager Fan TV, Rovi. “The need for powerful and simple discovery has grown dramatically as entertainment options have multiplied to include hundreds of channels along with a sea of apps and on-demand catalogues. The strength of the Fan TV platform lies not only in each component being best-of-breed, but also in the flexibility that enables customers to customize and implement the platform in a variety of different ways.”

Service providers, content owners, developers and channel partners are also able to select key features and functionality for integration into their product offerings via Fan TV’s turnkey APIs and SDKs.

The news comes shortly after research from Rovi showed that globally, respondents report watching four hours of entertainment per day. Altogether, video-watching is the third biggest time commitment that subscribers in the US, Europe and Asia make, after work and sleep.