9 NEWSFEED Updates & upgrades
SKY HIGH: The broadcaster is using the popularity content like Game of Thrones, for which it holds rights, to capture the streaming market
SKY EXPANDS STREAMING OFFERINGS
Sky has launched a new streaming oering in the UK. The NOW TV Smart Stick service will allow streaming and downloading of UK TV content, with a portable plug-and-play stick that plugs into a TV’s USB port. The Smart Stick service oers voice search, live pause and packages for accessing Sky’s premium channels and services. The service will aim to oer an alternative to Sky’s long-running, and more expensive, set-top box service.
Later this year, Sky plans to oer services which will allow customers to access its full range of channels without a satellite dish, and the company has incorporated the Netflix service into its usual bundle of channels for the first time. Additionally, Sky Deutschland has launched a new streaming service in Switzerland called Sky Show. Like Sky’s NOW TV in the UK, Sky Show requires no long-term contract. It is available in iOS
and Android, as well as Chromecast and Airplay, and will later be rolled out onto smart TVs, Apple TV and Sony PlayStation. Sky has been aggressively looking for ways it can capture the streaming market. As the rights holders for series like Game Of Thrones and Westworld , as well as Sky’s own original series, it has sought to capitalise on that content in the face of a general turning away from set-top box driven pay TV services.
INTERRA’S QOE MONITORING WITH AWS
Interra Systems has made its QC and monitoring systems interopearable with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elemental Media Services, including AWS Elemental MediaConvert, AWS Elemental MediaLive and AWS Elemental MediaPackage. The new integration aims to leverage the power of the cloud to expand the oerings provide by Interra Systems’ Baton QC and Orion-OTT QoS and QoE measurement products. Baton is a hybrid QC platform available both on-premises and in the cloud, which
supports a range of media formats and oers quality checks, including data verification, audio language detection, PSE correction, and loudness detection and correction. Baton’s scalable architecture lets users expand their set-up as QC needs grow. Orion-OTT checks content integrity and network performance of adaptive bitrate content. The solution also supports passive monitoring of origin server performance and service on end-user devices.
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