Rovi Debuts Fan TV-Based Discovery SystemRovi Debuts Fan TV-Based Discovery System

The company's Fan TV Platform aims to provide content discovery across multiple sources of content. It is available on a SaaS basis, or providers can integrate elements into their own guides.

Brian Santo, Senior editor, Test & Measurement / Components, Light Reading

January 6, 2016

2 Min Read
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Rovi is offering the integrated, cross-provider content discovery platform everyone knew it was going to introduce the moment it bought Fan TV back in 2014.

Rovi Corp. has integrated Fan TV's user interface with its Personalized Discovery Solution, consisting of entertainment metadata, contextual search and recommendations and natural language conversation services. Fan TV can point to content that can be accessed on any screen via set-top box, connected TV, mobile, tablet and web, Rovi said.

Ever since viewers started supplementing their pay-TV packages with over the top (OTT) services, while others cut the cord entirely, there's been a need for a guide that can simultaneously sift through the contents of multiple video services as if from a single menu.

The company is offering the platform on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis, or as modular API components that service providers, content owners, developers and channel partners can use to stitch Fan TV capabilities into their own guides.

Modules include advanced discovery services like contextually aware and semantically intelligent personalized search and recommendations, content and device management features, and rich entertainment metadata. The platform also offers subscriber analytics, a natural language conversational interface, as well as discovery across linear TV, video-on-demand, DVR and over-the-top services.

Providers can deploy Fan TV as an app on various streaming devices, including iOS and a recently launched Android TV app, with others coming soon.

Rovi said Dish Network LLC (Nasdaq: DISH) and Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC) are currently using components of the platform, and that it is working with several channel partners to develop guides.

Want to know more about over the top? Check out our video channel here on Light Reading.

 

Rovi also does business with Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications and Sky. The company recently stopped selling Fan TV boxes. (See Rovi Drops Fan TV Set-Top)

Separately, Rovi introduced Rovi Sports, a metadata product that provides descriptive information about sports, leagues, teams and players, and links to other Rovi products. The idea, Rovi said, is to connect sports fans to content beyond the game they're watching. For example, the metadata could point to other live content, clips of notable plays or athlete career highlights.

Rovi also provides live statistics such as real-time scores and roster changes, as well as real-time schedule updates that can be used to adjust DVR settings to accommodate shifting game start and end times.

— Brian Santo, Senior Editor, Components, T&M, Light Reading

About the Author

Brian Santo

Senior editor, Test & Measurement / Components, Light Reading

Santo joined Light Reading on September 14, 2015, with a mission to turn the test & measurement and components sectors upside down and then see what falls out, photograph the debris and then write about it in a manner befitting his vast experience. That experience includes more than nine years at video and broadband industry publication CED, where he was editor-in-chief until May 2015. He previously worked as an analyst at SNL Kagan, as Technology Editor of Cable World and held various editorial roles at Electronic Engineering Times, IEEE Spectrum and Electronic News. Santo has also made and sold bedroom furniture, which is not directly relevant to his role at Light Reading but which has already earned him the nickname 'Cribmaster.'

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