Advanced Television

Middleware

Sky Q upgrade as Disney+ goes HDR

Sky Q is adding a raft of new features in the biggest change to the set-top-box since launch. A new expanded view UI, new show and sports centres, intuitive smart buttons and improved voice discovery will make it easier for users to browse, find and watch content. It’s HDR content is also growing, with Disney+ […]

July 8, 2020

Finders are Keepers – the EUROMEDIA UI and Search debate

Viewers have dozens of choices of content providers and thousands of choices of pieces of content. No wonder the quality of the UI and the search and discovery deployed by a provider can be crucial in determining QoE and, thereby, churn levels. What are the remaining impediments – technical and commercial – to universal search? […]

July 1, 2020

Survey: 84% interested in searching content from every source

TiVo has analysed consumer data from the US and Canada to track changes in an evolving media landscape during the Covid-19 pandemic In the latest TiVo Trends Report, the company has added its own internal viewership data to the report. More than 4,500 viewers were surveyed for the report. Key findings include: – Pay-TV subscribers […]

June 30, 2020

BBC’s Beeb voice assistant goes beta

Beeb, the new voice assistant from the BBC, first announced in August 2019, is to be made available in  an early version to UK-based members of Microsoft’s Windows Insider Programme, a community of people who regularly test out new technology. In a Blog Post, Grace Boswood, COO, BBC Design + Engineering, says that since its […]

June 3, 2020By Colin Mann

BBC launches Programme Explorer tool

The BBC has made more than 200,000 radio and TV programmes from its archive more accessible with a new online tool called Programme Explorer. The tool scours existing radio and TV programmes from across BBC online – including Sounds, iPlayer News, Sport, Weather and more – to find every available programme relating to a search. […]

June 1, 2020

Synamedia, HPE OEM deal

Video software provider Synamedia has signed an OEM agreement with edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-service company Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to use HPE ProLiant servers to power its solutions and further advance its video network portfolio. It suggests the agreement will help customers optimise capital expenditure (CAPEX) with faster deployment, increased productivity, simplified operations and enhanced end-to-end security. […]

May 4, 2020

ThinkAnalytics increases revenues 30%

ThinkAnalytics has revealed that its revenues increased 30 per cent year-on-year for the fiscal year ending December 31st 2019, particularly driven by strong demand in the US for the ThinkAnalytics personalised content discovery platform and ThinkInsight, its real time dashboard and big data analytics solution. Reflecting the firm’s substantial investments in the US and the […]

April 29, 2020

Forecast: Voice assistants to overtake population by 2024

A report from Juniper Research forecasts that consumers will interact with voice assistants on over 8.4 billion devices by 2024; overtaking the world’s population and growing 113 per cent compared to the 4.2 billion devices expected to be in use by year end 2020. Despite this, monetisation of the voice assistants themselves remains a challenge. […]

April 28, 2020

Roku OS 9.3 enhances voice & customisation options

Roku has announced Roku OS 9.3 will start rolling out to Roku devices in the coming weeks. The free, automatic software update focuses on helping consumers get to content quickly via Roku Voice enhancements, improving overall performance, new customisation options and more. “The Roku OS continues to get better with a specific focus on delivering […]

April 1, 2020

Study: Netflix best VoD UX

With its European-wide launch set for March 24th, the Disney+ SVoD platform has a user experience equal to that of Amazon Prime Video, but still clearly lags behind industry leader Netflix, according to a large-scale user experience study conducted by digital-TV product agency TeraVolt. In the survey, which analysed the user experience of various streaming […]

March 19, 2020