Comcast Wins Four Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards

Comcast Corporation today announced that it received four EmmyAwards for Technology & Engineering from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS).

In a year marked by the pandemic, and a global shift to working from home, these Technical Emmy Awards demonstrate Comcast’s continued commitment to innovation and technology leadership.

The awards, granted for four key innovations in video and advertising delivery, reflect Comcast’s focus on not only innovating for customers, but also for industry partners who leverage Comcast’s technology platforms to better serve their customers.

“In a year during which the vast majority of our workforce quickly transitioned to working from home, we stayed focused on developing and deploying new innovations for our customers and partners,” said Tony Werner, President of Technology, Product, Xperience at Comcast Cable. “We are deeply grateful to the Academy for recognizing our work with these four Emmy Awards, and are incredibly proud of our colleagues who worked tirelessly for our customers and partners throughout this remarkable time.”

The Emmy Awards were for:

• Large-Scale Deployment of Server-side Ad Manipulation and/or Playout for Adaptive Bitrate Video Distribution. This technology enabled Comcast to insert advertisements in the cloud or server side for IP Streamed Video content, greatly improving the streaming TV experience for our customers by reducing video buffering caused by advertisements.
• Development of the Event Signaling and Management (ESAM) API Standard. Won in partnership with The Society of Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE ISBE), CableLabs and Charter Communications, this new ESAM API standard (SCTE 250) enabled programmers to imbed standardized triggers within to alert multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) of relevant programmer rules – and the ability to pull in additional metadata – for each piece of video content.
• Pioneering Deployment of the Event Signaling and Management (ESAM) API. Comcast was the first to deploy the technology from the new ESAM API standard (SCTE 250) from the previous award.
• Development and Pioneering Deployment of Synchronized Local DMA Advertising Capability for DBS MVPD’s. This was awarded to Effectv for industry leadership over the last seven years supporting its I+ platforms, specifically for affiliate partners AT&T, DISH and Verizon. This technology converts a single nationally distributed satellite signal into discreet DMA deliveries, allowing local commercials to be inserted at the DMA level, providing advertisers complete market reach.

This year’s recipients will be honored at the 72nd Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards Ceremony scheduled for October 10, 2021. Over the past several years, Comcast has won a number of Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards. In 2018, Comcast received an Emmy Award for Standardization of HTML5, Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) and Media Source Extensions (MSE) for a Full TV Experience and in 2017 received an Emmy Award Contextual Voice Navigation for Discovering and Interacting with TV Content for the Xfinity X1 Voice Remote. In 2016, the Academy’s Technology & Engineering Achievement Committee selected Tony Werner to receive the prestigious lifetime achievement award, noting the pivotal role he has played in advancing the industry’s technological growth.