We are very excited to announce today that Discovery Networks International (DNI) will be the first customer to adopt the Brightcove App Cloud mobile app platform to develop and manage dual-screen catch-up TV services. The first DNI broadcast network to take advantage of App Cloud's Dual-screen Solution for Apple TV will be DMAX Italy, a free-to-air channel. The free DMAX dual-screen app for the iPad and iPhone is expected to be available for download from iTunes later this Fall.
App Cloud's Dual-screen Solution for Apple TV enables media publishers to develop rich content apps for the iPhone and iPad that simultaneously control full-screen video streaming on HDTVs through Apple's AirPlay technology. DMAX Italy's dual-screen app will allow viewers to easily discover and stream full, ad-supported episodes of past and current seasons of popular Discovery programming, such as Dirty Jobs, LA Ink and Miami Ink, using their iPad or iPhone directly to an Apple TV-enabled HDTV. Viewers will be able to use their iPhone or iPad to select the program they want to watch, then playback will begin on the television via their Apple TV. From there, they will be able to enjoy complementary content on their iPhone or iPad, such as actor bios, recaps, images and more, along with remote control functions like stop, pause, fast forward and rewind.
Our CEO, Jeremy Allaire, walks through a cool demonstration of our dual-screen solution in the video below.
DNI will also take advantage of the App Cloud platform to build and launch an interactive, video-rich app for Android smartphones and tablets in the future. Both the dual-screen iOS app and Android app will also leverage App Cloud's seamless integration with the Brightcove Video Cloud online video platform, which is used to power video content across DNI's Web properties.
This news is particularly exciting as Discovery hopes to capitalize on the growing consumer trend toward "multi-screening" or viewing complementary content on TVs and tablets. Our CEO, Jeremy Allaire, recently blogged about the need to re-conceptualize the TV as an application platform, meaning we should think of TV screens and monitors as “the final frontier in Internet-based software applications, not as devices to watch and consume video content.”