SoftAtHome, an independent software company for broadband, video, and analytics, has announced its newest product based on RDK open source software for the global video industry, as part of its video portfolio.
As an RDK preferred member since 2014, SoftAtHome has enriched the joint platform for broadcast, broadband and OTT operators with critical new features including: multicast; DVB; live DASH streaming; enhanced navigation on the TV screen using the voice assistant; secured-data user profiling leveraging artificial intelligence; universal search aggregation with metadata; and integration of new premium video streaming apps.
The partners note that subscribers expect to have access to more and more services from different video platforms. Operators must find solutions to manage this increasing complexity. RDK is a shared software platform that provides software building blocks and standardized components to manage complex video and management functions such as content rendering and security, device management and networking.
RDK says its open source approach enhances quality and encourages cooperation between operators. With the vast majority of the code base handling commonalities, via the platform operators can focus their resources on developing unique selling propositions for their market. Many stakeholders can integrate into an RDK-based service, but with the new platform, now there is a new off-the-shelf RDK video solution for operators.
At the latest RDK America summit, that took place virtually, SoftAtHome presented its RDK video-based product in a fully working implementation. See the video here: https://rdkcentral.com/summit-virtual-content/softathome-video/.
In the new platform, SoftAtHome’s ImpressioTV UI works with RDK for an advanced and user-friendly TV experience. This white-labelled experience includes multi-user profiling for better recommendations and is built with data privacy by design. It fits operators’ needs to optimize user-experience, proposes personalized content while keeping data private with a mix of several technologies and AI algorithms.
To make navigation on TV screens even more user-friendly, SoftAtHome has also integrated its AI-based voice control assets into the RDK solution. SoftAtHome considers voice to be a must-have feature for controlling everything in the digital home, from the set-top box, the TV screen, the speakers and to all connected things with push to talk or far-field experience.
In a dynamic video industry with the proliferation of new premium video streaming app providers and the associated investment of billions of Euros, SoftAtHome sees room for operators to position themselves as super video aggregators. With its broad ecosystem, RDK offers a complete set of robust, opensource tools to address this challenge. SoftAtHome complements these with its upcoming product adding fast time-to-market, "thus providing the best of all worlds," according to the company.
Steve Heeb, president of RDK Management, commented: “Thanks to SoftAtHome’s long experience in the telecommunications industry plus video and broadband software expertise, they provide the means for service providers to take the lead in video content distribution becoming a super Video aggregator delivering an outstanding experience based on the RDK platform. We are proud to have SoftAtHome embracing RDK.”
David Viret-Lange, CEO of SoftAtHome, added: “Thanks to our universal search and recommendation engine to simplify content discovery, we enable operators to become super video aggregator exploiting the sweet spot at the juncture of on-demand and live content. Adding new premium video streaming apps will require only the decision to activate the feature within an RDK based deployment.”
Learn more at www.softathome.com and www.rdkcentral.com.