Brightcove Partners with Vudu to Bring Ad-Supported Internet Video to the Living-Room TV

Broadband video publishing solutions provider, Brightcove, announced a partnership with over-the-top-TV specialist, Vudu, Tuesday, which the companies say will enable Brightcove customers to distribute their video content directly to the living-room television set via Vudu's platform (note: Vudu claims to have relationships in place with every major US movie studio and over 50 independent studios, enabling its OTT service to offer over 15,000 on-demand movies and TV episodes, of which around 1,800 are available in HD; the service is delivered via the company's 1080p-enabled Vudu BX100, Vudu XL and Vudu XL2 set-tops, which it says support native instant-start HD, as well as HDX, and "automatically upscale" standard-resolution video). The first Brightcove-powered content offerings to be available through Vudu's service as a result of the new deal are current music videos from Sony Music. The videos--which are available under the auspices of Sony Music's MyPlay Video Network affiliate program--are accessed via a special MyPlay application, which is located in the Vudu service's Vudu Labs area (note: the latter is intended to complement the service's core pay-per-view VOD offering with interactive and multimedia functionality).

According to the companies, their partnership will support multiple advertising platforms, allowing Brightcove customers to maintain their existing broadband video monetization strategy and infrastructure while expanding their distribution reach. Vudu is the first company to support Brightcove-powered, advertising-supported content distribution on a set-top box, the companies say. "For the first time, content owners can simply and easily make all of their online video available on the television without changing their monetization strategy," Edward Lichty, Vudu's EVP of strategy and content, said in a prepared statement. "Through our integration with Brightcove's online video platform, we are combining the selection and control of the online video experience with the visual richness and lean-back satisfaction of the television experience." Added Chris Johnston, Brightcove's director of technology partnerships: "Expanding online video distribution beyond Web sites to the living-room television has been challenging. The partnership announced today with Vudu is a significant step forward for media businesses that want to centrally manage distribution and monetization across the Web while also taking advantage of the high-quality TV experience Vudu enables."

According to the companies, the integration of their offerings utilizes Vudu's Rich Internet Applications (RIA) platform to "add a new level of on-demand video to the Vudu service by enabling ad-supported content." Vudu says that the RIA platform allows it to support dynamic ad logic and live ad calls to content owners' existing advertising platforms, while enabling those content owners to retain complete control over their advertising inventory. RIA, which was launched late last year, is billed by Vudu as a standards-based platform that makes Web-hosted rich applications and services easily available through its service's Vudu Labs area. RIA applications currently available on Vudu Labs include YouTube, Pandora, Picasa, Flickr and around 120 channels of free, online video.