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The launch of ‘play cuatro’ is setting a new industry benchmark in online viewing of TV Series and live streaming of CNN+
Barcelona (November 5, 2009) -
Cuatro has announced the launch of a new ground breaking WebTV called ‘play cuatro'. The new service is powered by Flumotion's established content delivery network and pioneering WebTV technology. ‘play cuatro' is taking centre stage around current celebrations of the network's fourth birthday.
Cuatro has successfully established a strong online presence with a large following in social media and online portals such as YouTube. The Cuatro YouTube channel was created in 2007 and currently holds the title of being the second most viewed and subscribed in Spain. It is this increasing popularity of Cuatro's interaction with its online audience that was the driver to offer a branded, state-of-the-art WebTV, ensuring the user has a memorable and unrestricted viewing experience of Cuatro's full episode video content. The CNN+ live stream and most of the programmes offered on Demand are not geo-blocked and can be watched from any location outside of Spain.
"We decided to offer our popular programmes through our own branded WebTV to provide end-users with a more flexible and interactive viewing experience. Flumotion understood the essence of the Cuatro brand and was able to translate it into a state-of-the-art multimedia environment", explains Multimedia Director of Cuatro, Florence Conti.
The 3D interface features an easy and intuitive media centre like navigation. As opposed to text and static images the entire site focuses on video content as the primary focal point of the WebTV. The video wall provides a natural starting point guiding the user through the featured content. While in full screen mode the media centre navigation enables a lean back viewing experience, which is unique compared to solutions offered by other WebTV providers.
"We know that the end user experience is key in such a project, that is why apart from our pioneering streaming technology we also provide Cuatro with a customised and branded WebTV, that ensures the success among its audience and hence also its advertisers. Controlling the entire value chain allows us to innovate faster and offer more cost effective solutions. We were able to deliver the complete solution for ‘play cuatro' in a record time of 2 months", says Flumotion CEO, Jean Noel Saunier.
‘play cuatro' provides advertisers with advanced rich media solutions while promoting and strengthening the community among the Cuatro viewership. Videos are labelled according to popularity ("most viewed"), interaction ("most voted") and publication time ("most recent", "about to expire"). This information regarding content feed into a search engine within the portal and provide a more personalised viewing experience. The player allows users to promote content of ‘play cuatro' virally thanks to the inclusion of web 2.0 tools that allow content to be shared via social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, MySpace and others. Users can also keep informed by subscribing to the RSS feed, which can be received for an individual channel or all the channels.
The 360 solution of Flumotion improves Cuatro's workflow and establishes the optimal monetisation of content through an advanced rich media advertising system. Through the media back office Cuatro has control over the content and the advertising campaigns. Within seconds a new video can be uploaded, an ad can be changed or any TV broadcasts can be encoded and offered live within ‘play cuatro'. The combination of all these features makes the Flumotion online video service portfolio unique in the market.
About Flumotion
Flumotion is an award winning streaming software company that was founded in 2006 by a group of open source developers and multimedia experts. They developed their own open source multi-format video streaming software, closing the gap of competing industry standards and making streaming more accessible. Flumotion Streaming Software allows broadcasters and companies to stream content live and on demand in all the leading formats from a single server. Flumotion also offer a Streaming Platform and WebTV which reduce workflow and costs by covering the entire streaming value chain. This end-to-end yet modular solution includes signal acquisition, encoding, multi-format transcoding, streaming of contents and state-of-the art interface design. The advanced media back office allows for content management and optimal monetisation through rich media advertising. Leading companies such as Cuatro, Antena 3, Nestlé and Real Madrid trust Flumotion with the delivery of their high value content. Flumotion's scalable and cost effective technology enables telcos and hosting companies worldwide to create their own end-to-end video and audio streaming platforms. Partners include NTT Europe Online, Telefonica and British Telecom. More info at www.flumotion.com
FLUMOTION
Editorial Contact:
Julia Atzesberger
+34 935 086 350
press@flumotion.com
