Ascender says the Segoe TV font family was originally developed for MSNTV and features character design attributes that aid legibility on TV screens. The family provides an extended character set with over 370 glyphs per font, and is available for licensing in the TrueType font format.
The company notes that its fonts include pixel "hinting," which enables crisp, on-screen viewing at any point size. The hints, or typographic coding, adjust the characters in a font so the appropriate pixels are turned "on" or "off" at various point sizes for maximum legibility.
Segoe TV font samplesThe Segoe typeface family was originally designed by Steve Matteson and is used exclusively by Microsoft for its corporate branding and also in a wide variety of its software products, including Windows Vista and Office 2007, according to Ascender. (Steve Matteson, a well known font designer, is described by fonts.com as a practical-minded designer who believes that the "best typefaces are created with a specific goal in mind.")
The company offers a comprehensive font collection for use in digital TV, entertainment, and consumer electronics devices -- devices that share a common need for high quality fonts that are tuned for optimal display on their screens. Ascender says that its "small, fast font engine" handles a number of "thorny" issues associated with the digital display of text, including specific language support, suitability for unique display sizes and resolutions, and ROM and RAM constraints.
Among Ascender's products are the Microsoft Font Rasterizer, which offers support for patented TrueType hinting "not available in open source alternatives," and the FreeType Font Engine, described as a popular open-source system that is a good choice for "less demanding applications."
Segoe TV is immediately available. Licensing fees and other product prices were disclosed.
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