Online video business solutions provider Piksel has revealed how it has helped cable MSO Liberty Global’s subsidiary, UPC Slovakia, deliver its content to a range of connected devices, including smartphones, tablets, and laptops, away from subscribers’ homes and on the move.
Piksel provides hosting and backend services management for Liberty Global, and achieved the improvements by enhancing the Orion Enterprise Service Platform (OESP) that underpins Liberty Global’s Horizon Go app – the multiscreen extension for its hybrid Horizon set-top box.
OESP now includes a new intuitive and interactive user interface, the ability for phone users to use their device as a remote control for the main Horizon box, and the ability to use a “Push to TV†function within the app. Additionally, improvements to the digital rights management (DRM) system mean that the app now supports PlayReady and Widevine in parallel.
UPC Slovakia is the tenth Liberty Global affiliate to offer Horizon Go functionality, and Piksel’s enhancement of the platform means that Liberty Global customers of the other nine affiliates will also be able to watch programmes across multiple devices and operating systems.
Additional features of the recently-rebranded Horizon Go include the fact that content can now be accessed through a unitary app (instead of the two previous Horizon TV Remote and Horizon TV apps); improved navigation and search functions; a personal TV guide with individualised channel order and sorting; and the ability to watch TV programmes and films on up to three mobile devices simultaneously, depending on local rights.
