OTT Archive - TeraVolt

19. November 2020

TeraVolt wins ZDF budget for further development of the TV media library

Hamburg, August 19, 2020 – ZDF awards the budget for the technical development of its HbbTV and Smart TV media library to TeraVolt. The Hamburg-based agency for digital TV products has thus prevailed in a Europe-wide tender.

TeraVolt is to optimize the ZDF Mediathek primarily for HbbTV and Smart TV portals and selected platforms such as MagentaTV (Telekom) or Sky. Continuous further development is also necessary because ZDF has gained more and more users via smart TVs in recent years.

"ZDF plays in the premier league of German television, and we are proud to now be part of the team ourselves," says Tobias Fröhlich, founder and CEO of TeraVolt. "We are looking forward to this exciting task and the new challenges. At ZDF, we see many opportunities to drive further innovation and the dovetailing of linear television and video-on-demand."

The ZDFmediathek offers content from the main ZDF program, the digital channels ZDFneo and ZDFinfo, the children's program ZDFtivi and selected partners such as 3Sat and funk. In addition, the catch-up TV service offers an extensive live streaming service and the latest "heute" news.

About TeraVolt

TeraVolt GmbH is an owner-managed agency for enhanced TV based in Hamburg, Germany. Founded in 2006, TeraVolt specializes in the development of forward-looking digital TV experiences. The agency offers its clients customized solutions, from market-specific consulting to the creation, and technical implementation of innovative products. The product portfolio includes services, consulting, and applications in the areas of managed platforms, enhanced TV, monetization, and OTT. TeraVolt is headquartered in Hamburg and consists of an experienced management team and 45 strategy, product and, technology experts.

27. October 2020

Tagesschau app now also available on Android TVs in Germany

Hamburg, 27.10.2020. ARD's Tagesschau app is now also available on Android TV sets in Germany. Android TV users can now use the app on their TV sets. It includes current videos and programs in general or topic-specific sections, as well as a live stream from the news channel tagesschau24.

Founded in 1951 and produced by NDR in Hamburg, the Tagesschau is the oldest and still existing show on German television. It is by far the most important news and information broadcast in Germany.

The implementation of the app on Android TVs was made possible by TeraVolt GmbH, an agency for digital TV products. The Hamburg-based company took the concept of the already existing tagesschau app for Apple TVs as a basis and made appropriate adjustments for Android. Users can now navigate through various videos and content while another video or live stream is running in a mini-player at the edge of the screen.

"We are proud to be able to help ARD further distribute its content. By the end of the year, we estimate that almost two million households in Germany will be equipped with an Android smart TV. This fact gives the implementation additional relevance," comments Oliver Koch, Managing Director and co-founder at TeraVolt.

With this figure, Koch is alluding to a large-scale reach study conducted by TeraVolt. The Hamburg-based company forecasts that by 2023, around 3.8 million households will be equipped with Android TV.

20. May 2020

German launch: Disney+ behind Netflix in terms of user experience – but on a par with Amazon Prime Video

Foto: Kon Karampelas (Unsplash)

Hamburg, 19 March 2020 – Netflix in front of Disney and Amazon: The video-on-demand platform Disney+ will have as good a user experience as Amazon Prime Video at its German launch on March 24. However, the mouse company is still a long way from the industry heavyweight Netflix. This is the result of a large-scale study by TeraVolt GmbH, in which they analyzed various streaming services in 28 categories for their user experience.

In this study, Netflix scored 83 out of a total of 100 possible points, followed by Amazon Prime Video (68) and Disney+ (67.5). The streaming service Apple TV+, which was only launched in November, is lagging behind with only 49 points.

Disney+ scores particularly well in administration, which includes the management of login data and subscriptions. Here, Disney achieves 95 percent. Content discovery (83%), for example, the presentation of content and autoplay, as well as personalization (74%), and performance (79%), are also in a very good range for newcomers. However, there is a backlog in demand for video playback (69%) and cross-device use and downloads (68%). As a result, Disney+ is on a par with Netflix only in the administration and content discovery clusters, but clearly lags behind in all others. On the other hand, Disney leaves at least Amazon Prime Video behind in terms of personalization and content discovery.

In its study, TeraVolt examined and compared a total of eight streaming services. The German and European services Joyn and SKY were successful, but could not keep up with the budgets of American companies. Nevertheless, the performance of Joyn was particularly noteworthy. The young streaming service scored particularly well in terms of administration, but also in terms of performance, explains TeraVolt managing director Tobias Fröhlich: "Joyn has only been on the market for just under a year, and Prosieben.Sat.1, unlike Netflix or Amazon, has only limited financial possibilities. Taking these circumstances into account, Joyn is doing well and has created a great perspective for the future. Sky has also done a lot for the user experience in the past few years, but in comparison, it still has some catching up to do."

The clear loser of the study is Apple TV+. This is particularly bitter for the company that was once a showcase for usability. For example, in the areas of cross-device use, downloads, and personalization, Apple leaves its users unsupported unless they are using the service on an Apple device. But perhaps that is also a business strategy to boost hardware sales.

About the methodology: TeraVolt subjected each of the streaming services to a practical test and evaluated them according to 28 different criteria that can be assigned to the superordinate categories of performance, content discovery, video playback, cross-device and download, administration, and personalization. The results refer to the desktop version in the Internet browser or the respective smartphone app.

14. February 2020

Problem Solved: TeraVolt Enables More US Content in TV Media Libraries

Hamburg, February 24th, 2020 – In the future, TV broadcasters will find it much easier to integrate US films and series into their HbbTV media libraries ("Hybrid Broadcasting Broadband TV"). This means on SmartTV devices with HbbTV, which have both digital television and the Internet.

The integration of US content into these media libraries has so far often failed because of the required DRM protection ("Digital Rights Management") for this content, a digital copy protection system with which content from overseas in particular is encrypted. The broadcasters were therefore faced with a dilemma: either they invest in a service provider who would design an HbbTV app tailored to DRM for them, or they do without this specially protected content.

This problem is now a thing of the past. TeraVolt GmbH, an agency for digital TV products, has succeeded in harmonizing DRM-protected content and HbbTV media libraries and playing them out on suitable SmartTVs. HbbTV provides the technical basis for this and allows the combination of DRM-protected content in a freely available HbbTV offer to be implemented in the German SmartTV landscape. Currently, this solution is being used by the family channel Super RTL, for which TeraVolt has built and continuously supports its own HbbTV media library. The concept can be transferred to any other media library and is therefore also interesting for other TV stations for which TeraVolt was able to solve a problem that had existed for years.

Oliver Koch, managing director and co-founder of TeraVolt, is correspondingly proud of the work that has been done: "It took a lot of effort and brainpower to make this DRM standard usable, which opens up completely new possibilities for our customers. In addition, there are hardly any other competitors offering such a solution, but there is all the more demand in the market. Our DRM solution can therefore develop into a real USP."

The bottom line is that TeraVolt is killing three birds with one stone with its new HbbTV solution: rights holders, for example, of US series, are gaining in reach as their content is distributed even more widely. The licensees, i.e., TV stations such as Super RTL, can in turn implement more content in their own HbbTV media libraries and play it out directly to their viewers. And the viewers themselves are provided with a more diverse range of offers from which they can choose.

17. October 2019

TV Platforms in Germany – how is TV watched in the living room?

In order to provide our customers with the best possible advice, we have combined the available sources on the technical range of the various devices in a market model that has been intensively reviewed and commented on by an expert panel.