Icareus has delivered the platform for HiTV, the national HbbTV/OTT Service. HiTV offers TV viewers more content and possibilities for content managing and interaction.
Three Lithuanian television companies – public broadcaster LRT, and two commercial broadcasters LNK, Lietuvos Rytas TV agreed to launch earlier in 2019, joint HbbTV/OTT service to be available without the need to install any app. The joint platform is operated by the Lithuanian Radio and Television Centre (Telecentras).
HiTV is available on all main SmartTVs including LG, Panasonic, Philips, Sony and Vestel TVs for free-of-charge. Access to the service is via red-button automatically shown to all viewers when they start watching their TV.
The service currently provides access to catch-up TV from several Lithuanian broadcasters including LRT, LNK, Lietuvos Rytas TV, most popular radio channels, Electronic program guide, weather. New features to be added soon include e.g. addressable TV advertising and start-over TV, replays the current TV show from its beginning. There are totally over 15 channels available via the service to all Lithuanian viewers.
“Telecentras is proud to be operating one of the first broadcasters’ joint HbbTV/OTT services in the world. At Telecentras we saw that combining forces will enable broadcasters to roll-out a quality HbbTV in Lithuania and to strengthen their position in the ever growing competition for consumers time. Icareus experience and extensive HbbTV product portfolio enabled us to launch the service in record time and on budget without the need to worry on the technical details”, tells Remigijus Šeris, general manager of the Telecentras.
HiTV is operated as software as a service from Icareus Suite TV & Online video cloud and includes a wide range of Icareus HbbTV application templates. Each broadcaster has its own customised and branded experience combined with an unified user experience to ease the service uptake. Integrations to audience measurement platforms ensure that viewing metrics taken into account on national TV ratings.
Icareus’ Director Mr. Mikko Karppinen says: “Services like HiTV is the way forward for national broadcasters. I’ve been privileged to be part of the project to see Telecentras’ vision to become reality. Leveraging the experience from similar projects delivered to e.g. Emitel and ATV, was vital for the successful deployment. We at Icareus are proud to be supporting Telecentras in building best-of-breed HbbTV and OTT services by providing our cloud based products and services..”
Icareus Suite Online Video and TV Platform (OVTP) was introduced to take the next step from broadcast to Hybrid TV (HbbTV) and furthermore to online video services. It is a complete cloud service to manage videos, channels, subscribers and OTT and hybrid TV applications. Icareus Suite cloud provides a high quality, scalable and robust cloud service even for global need. It is used in over 10 countries and serves over ten million unique SmartTVs on monthly basis.
More info: http://www.icareus.com/online-video-and-tv-platform/
JSC Lithuanian Radio and Television Centre (Telecentre) is a state-owned joint-stock company engaged in provision of radio and television programme transmission, TV broadcast transmission, data transmission, Internet and telephony services throughout Lithuania. Skilled specialists, the most advanced communication technologies and listening to customer needs contribute to high quality of the services supplied by Telecentre. More info: https://www.telecentras.lt/en/
