WE CAN KEEP EVERY SINGLE PERSONWATCHING THE CONTENT ENTIRELY SYNCHRONISED
WATCH YOUR SPEED The key to success in developing a solution like Sceenic’s is managing latency and delay. Being slightly out of sync in a Zoom call is annoying enough. To hear your friend cheer a winning goal that you haven’t seen yet could ruin an evening – or a friendship. “What we do is bring all viewers to the same speed,” explains Williams. “If I’m using an Android device, I have a different latency from a person using an iOS device. We try to slow down the fastest person and bring the slowest up to their level. Then we keep them together all the time. “Everything happens on our servers, so we can keep every single person watching the content entirely synchronised. And we synchronise that with the player, as well.” Sceenic is one of a growing number of technology options for creating watch party features on your platform. Similarly, LiveLike is a company that has developed a whole suite of tools to increase audience engagement and communal viewing. The company has worked on top-tier sporting events like the Super Bowl, FIFA World Cup and NBA Playoffs, and even partnered with top broadcasters to develop services
out there, but one of the things that annoyed me was having live video of the other person on the screen – I don’t want to see my dad’s face covering the goal or be distracted because he’s picking something up.” The ScreenHits solution allows viewers to connect and see each other through their mobile devices, while simultaneously watching on another screen. The Sceenic technology it is built on was also used for the BT Sport implementation of BT Sport Watch Together, allowing locked-down fans to watch and communicate with each other in the same app. The company’s other media partners include T-Mobile Germany (Deutsche Telekom), NPO, LaLiga, Virgin Media Connect, WeLoveGaming Esports and FIFAe. Finding new ways to co-watch sports content has also become a priority in the last year, and broadcasters have been trying to make their fan experiences more communal. “We are a purely software company,” explains Sceenic COO, Jonny Williams. “What ScreenHits did was take our solution – our SDKs and APIs – and blend them into their own service. So they can have all this social interaction within their own platform.”
that include watch parties and gamification. It’s likely we’ll see tech companies offering these rich viewing features as the demand increases. TV anywhere – where your audience has the ability to watch anything they want, anytime they want – is no longer a novelty. But the successful VOD and streaming platforms will be the ones that enable audiences to watch with whoever they want, as well.
COMING TOGETHER Screenhits TV integrates
Sceenic’s watch party technology for a communal experience
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