Red Bee Media is to use Civolution digital audio watermarking technology in a companion app developed for FX UK.
The app has been developed in support of the critically acclaimed fantasy drama The Walking Dead, which returns to UK screens on February 17. A game element will allow users to predict the number of zombie kills in each episode and then share the results over Twitter and Facebook. Previous kills can also be watched and comments about the series followed on Twitter.
The Walking Dead app will be available free of charge from 3 February and will be available on both iPhones and iPads.
“The convergence of mobile and social technological innovation and consumer adoption is effecting dramatic changes to nearly every aspect of the industry,” said Bill Patrizio, CEO, Red Bee Media. “It is now widely acknowledged that multi-tasking in front of the TV is increasingly commonplace and research tells us that 60% of people in the UK concurrently watch TV and go online at least two or three times a week.
Civolution’s technology makes it possible for audiences to accurately sync the second screen experience to the television programme, both live and on demand. Digital audio watermarking embeds indelible and imperceptible metadata about each show, such as timecode, which is then extracted and interpreted onto the second screen device. This is the first time that digital audio watermarking technology has been deployed commercially as part of a TV companion app in the UK.
The Walking Dead companion app has been developed using Red Bee Media’s RedDiscover technologies, which was announced earlier this week.
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