The importance of delivering on demand entertainment

The importance of delivering on demand entertainment
Cloud-powered solution StreamingBuzz enables operators to provide a full entertainment system 

Richard Humphreys |


This article first appeared in the Winter 2017 issue of The Record.

Enhancing the passenger and guest experience before, during and after their trip is increasingly important. But placing a screen on every seat is both costly and complex, as well as adding weight onboard.

StreamingBuzz offers an end-to-end cloud service with a streaming platform for the delivery of all live and on-demand content, secured by world-class protection, to an international audience on any device. The entertainment solution enables bus, coach, airline, cruise ship, ferry, train, tram and oil rig operators and the automotive industry to provide their passengers with a full entertainment system worldwide. It gives passengers access to features including movies, television series, games, customer surveys, location-specific route information and more – via a browser or native app on their own smartphones, tablets and laptops.

The solution removes the cost of placing a screen on every seat by using a ‘bring your own device’ approach. It provides all the benefits of a full entertainment package at a fraction of the cost, without the complexity of installing a ¬hardware-based system or the high costs of maintenance. It also enables operators to save a huge amount of weight onboard and inflight, reducing their fuel consumption and their carbon footprint.

Openmatics, a connectivity expert of ZF Friedrichshafen, is using StreamingBuzz to deliver its Roadcaster onboard entertainment system to its bus and coach operator customers. “Our solution harnesses technologies from StreamingBuzz and the power of Microsoft Azure to handle streaming and digital rights management for blockbuster Hollywood movies, the latest must-watch TV series and more, and can be configured for use in both online and offline environments,” says Thomas Rösch, managing director of Openmatics.

StreamingBuzz’s fully automated studio-grade workflows are completely built, managed and run in Microsoft Azure, which reduces the complexity and costs of cross-platform delivery. The workflows have integrated, dynamic, on-the-fly content ingest, encoding, transcoding, content protection, storage, CDN, payment, billing, reporting and analytics (big data, media intelligence, metadata).

The solution takes advantage of several Microsoft Azure services including Azure Media Services, IoT Hub, SQL Data Warehouse and Stream Analytics. StreamingBuzz will soon unleash artificial intelligence and cognitive services such as facial and emotion recognition, machine learning, chatbot, 360° virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality to further streamline boarding, check-in and baggage processes and make the experience more pleasant, efficient and safe.

“This is a great example of how our partners are developing Microsoft Azure solutions to help businesses in every stage of their digital transformation,” says Tony Emerson, worldwide managing director, media and cable at Microsoft.

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