Quickline UHD Android TV Set-Top Box
Delivering Next-Level TV Experiences in a Premium Set-Top Box
In today’s dynamic entertainment landscape, users expect more than just content — they expect fast, seamless, and intuitive TV experiences that work across live channels and on-demand platforms.
For service providers, delivering on these expectations means relying on future-proof technology that ensures long-term customer satisfaction and a competitive edge.
Our collaboration with Quickline, a leading Swiss telecommunications provider, reflects this exact vision.
By combining Android TV with TARA Systems’ technical expertise, we’ve helped shape a hybrid UHD Android TV Set-Top Box that stands out through performance, usability, and innovation. With features like ultra-fast channel zapping, replay TV, network PVR, fluid navigation, and smart content integration, the Quickline TV Box offers users a truly premium experience—and has already earned multiple awards for its outstanding TV service in Switzerland.
This success is built on a close, long-term collaboration driven by trust, innovation, and a shared commitment to quality. Together, we’ve developed a solution that not only meets modern user demands but raises the bar for what a set-top box can offer.
The following timeline highlights key milestones in this collaboration — showing how vision, expertise, and customer focus came together to deliver real value.
New features and UX interface in operation on the Quickline TV Box
image Source: Screenshot Quickline TV Box
Milestones on the Road to a Premium TV Experience
How Innovation and Expertise Shaped the Hybrid Quickline TV Box
Project Start
- Collaboration with partners for backend, playout, STB software, data analysis, and Google Android TV.
- Agile development approach based on SAFe for flexible solutions and quick response times.
- Periodic meetings for Program Increment (PI) planning (see image).
- Active partners at the Quickline TV Box Project: Broadcom, Broadpeak, dietzel.consulting, Divitel, five nine, Google, NeXora, Quickline, SeaChange, Sagemcom, Universal Electronics, Verimatrix and us.
Player for DVB and OTT
- Inaris DVB software enables DVB playback with subtitles, Teletext support, and ultra-fast channel switching (<0.3s) using multiple tuners.
- Customized HLS Player optimizes OTT live TV, replay, and recordings with fast switching and adaptive streaming and supports WebVTT subtitles.
- Content protection using Verimatrix.
Metadata and Backend Access
- Metadata powers Quickline TV, including channel line-up, EPG, network PVR, Video on demand (VoD) and personalized settings.
- Abstraction API – called Tango - unifies metadata access to enrich Android TV’s Input Framework.
Improving User Experience
- Enhanced monitoring and analytics capabilities of deployed devices facilitate us to identify areas for improvements.
- Intensive optimization results in improved performance, stability, and user experience through e.g. faster backend interactions, enhanced app startup, channel switching, and optimized EPG navigation.
Ensuring High-Quality Standard
- Multi-level test strategy includes automated unit, regression, and end-to-end tests across various platforms, continuously improved via Jenkins and GitLab CI.
- Manual tests, such as subtitle-video synchronicity checks, ensure quality before each release.
Launch to Production
- Step-by-step rollout through alpha and beta groups enables real-world analysis and user experience optimization.
- Quickline launches their Ultra HD STB the Quickline TV Box.
Extending Features
- Microservices extend existing TV backend systems. Lightweight microservices in Go, combined with NoSQL and Docker, enable scalable and efficient integration of new TV features.
- The new Replay Guide helps users easily find relevant content with recommendations, most-watched events, and category-based filtering (sports, movies, series).
- Update to ATV9 (Pie), with its focus on content, allowed us to bring the Replay Guide even closer to the user and make it accessible directly from the launcher.
Broadening the Content Offering
- Inaris HLS Player used for the newly integrated SRF series portal.
- Offering blue Sport channels by integrating the Blue WebApp. For playback we used the ExoPlayer with PlayReady content protection and provided a JavaScipt interface to the WebView.
- High-performance Inaris Media Player ensures smooth UHD viewing, reinforcing Quickline’s strong market recommendation rate.
Top Ranking and Expansion
- Stability and UX improvements boosted Quickline’s NPS, earning it the #1 ranking in BILANZ’s September 2022 TV category survey.
- Quickline expanded nationwide in Q3/2022, allowing customers to retain services even after moving.
- Replay Premium launched in Q4/2022 for ad-free viewing, while Inaris Media Player was optimized for seamless ad insertion.
Integration of New UX
- Quickline marked 30 years, celebrating innovation and customer satisfaction.
- A major UX overhaul introduced an improved menu, Discover Page, Replay Guide, and detailed program/series pages.
- Continue Watching was introduced on the TV Box.
- Play Suisse integration enhanced content accessibility.
Optimizing Usability
- The user interface has been further improved with easier recordings management and quicker radio access including genre and language filters.
- The advanced search now allows users to find content by title, actor, genre, and more with greater precision.
- Detail pages have been expanded to include episode overviews, cast information, and related content for a richer experience.
Sports Highlights
- Low-latency streaming ensures near real-time sports viewing (introduced for the EURO 2024).
- Quickline becomes the first TV provider in Switzerland to integrate handball live streams.
- Expanded content offerings include Play SRF live sports.
Further Awards
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About Quickline
The Quickline Group is one of Switzerland’s leading full-service providers of entertainment and communication. The Quickline Group is an association of 25 independent network operators. It supplies around 400,000 households in the Swiss telecommunication market. Together, the services internet, TV/radio, landline and mobile telephony are marketed under the Quickline brand.
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Learn more
For more information see:
- The official Quickline TV Box website (German)
- The official Quickline TV product page (German)
- Broadband TV News article about Quickline UHD Box (English)
