waipu.tv Collaborated with TARA Systems for a Swift and Seamless Teletext Integration
About waipu.tv: waipu.tv is a German Internet television and video-on-demand platform, offering its services exclusively in Germany. It is a brand of Exaring AG. In the second quarter of 2024 reached 1.7 million subscribers, underscoring its strong and growing presence in the competitive German market.
Project Overview: waipu.tv aimed to enhance its user experience by integrating Teletext into its streaming platform. Despite being a legacy feature originating from the analogue TV era, Teletext remains a valued and essential tool for many viewers. Recognizing its enduring popularity, waipu.tv aimed to incorporate this beloved feature to its modern digital TV service, ensuring that customers could enjoy the familiarity and comfort of this traditional television feature within a cutting-edge streaming environment.
Challenges: Integrating Teletext into an Android TV app posed significant challenges. The primary issue is that OTT streaming protocols do not inherently support Teletext functionality. Additionally, many modern remote controls lack the digit and color keys traditionally used for navigating Teletext pages. waipu.tv needed to find a solution that would seamlessly incorporate Teletext into their existing infrastructure, without requiring extensive modifications or additional support, while also maintaining a user-friendly experience.
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Solutions and Features Provided by TARA Systems
Teletext Integration: We provided our client/server-based Teletext solution tailored to address the challenges of supporting Teletext on OTT streaming platforms and overcoming the limitations of many modern remote controls. This solution includes a sample Android Teletext application, which waipu.tv seamlessly integrated into their TV app.
Page Catching: Our Teletext solution includes a user-friendly page navigation feature, allowing users to intuitively browse Teletext pages. By using cursor keys to highlight page numbers and pressing the OK button to select, navigation is made simple and efficient.
Teletext Converters: Our Teletext Converters operate on waipu.tv’s backend server, processing thousands of Teletext pages per second in real-time. The system is designed with enhanced caching and optimized backend storage access to ensure high performance. Advanced monitoring capabilities enable waipu.tv to maintain consistent availability and peak performance for their Teletext service.
Instant Teletext Access: A standout feature of our solution is the ability for users to instantly access all Teletext pages, including sub-pages, without any delay. Traditional Teletext systems encounter delays after a channel change due to the need to reload pages. Our technology eliminates this waiting period without requiring page caching on the client device, significantly enhancing the overall user experience.
Implementation and Results
Deep Integration: waipu.tv’s Teletext feature is seamlessly integrated into their existing TV app, rather than being offered as a standalone application. Users can access Teletext directly within the familiar user interface, ensuring a smooth experience. This feature is designed to work harmoniously with other platform functionalities, such as live TV, on-demand content, and DVR services. As a result, users can effortlessly switch between watching content and accessing Teletext without needing to exit or launch a separate application.
Market Innovation: waipu.tv became the first OTT platform in Germany to offer Teletext, allowing customers to enjoy this familiar service within their modern streaming environment. Teletext is supported for more than 40 TV channels. The addition of a “TXT” button in the playback bar provides users a quick and easy access to Teletext, further enhancing the viewing experience.
Advanced Functionalities: waipu.tv’s Teletext offers a range of advanced features designed to enhance the user experience. These include split-screen mode, where Teletext is displayed on one part of the screen while the video remains visible, zoom mode for better readability, and mixed mode, which overlays Teletext information onto the live video. These features can be easily accessed through specific keys on the remote control. To assist users in navigating these functionalities, a help screen can be accessed by long-pressing the OK button on the remote. This help screen displays a picture of the remote control, highlighting the keys needed to control these advanced features.
Conclusion
This success story highlights the impact of technology and strong partnerships in creating exceptional value to customers. The collaboration between Exaring AG and TARA Systems, both based in Munich, exemplifies the benefits of a strong local partnership. This regional connection has fostered a deep mutual understanding between the two companies, both experts in their respective fields, leading to the successful integration of cutting-edge Teletext features into waipu.tv’s platform.
Our advanced Teletext solution has empowered waipu.tv to deliver a unique blend of traditional and modern TV features, setting a new benchmark in the streaming industry. The integration of our Teletext solution into waipu.tv’s platform was completed swiftly, with minimal support required from our side. We are thoroughly impressed by the speed and efficiency with which the waipu.tv team integrated our Teletext solution into their TV app, and we extend our heartfelt congratulations to them on this remarkable achievement.
Read more about our Teletext offering: