Pixsan and Simple.TV Announce Strategic Partnership and initial Freeview integration

Pixsan Digital Software Ltd, a UK based specialist digital TV software development company, today announced that is has partnered with Really Simple Software, Inc., makers of the award-winning Simple.TV streaming DVR, to bring Simple.TV to the European, Middle East and African markets. Furthermore, Pixsan also says it will be ready with a Freeview version of the Simple.TV DVR and service over the summer. Pixsan is actively seeking Operators, OEMs and retailers to adopt Simple.TV in their Digital TV product line-ups.

Two product versions are planned: A Simple.TV powered Set Top Box (STB) and a Simple.TV adaptor. In either product type, Freeview programmes are received, encoded and stored to a hard drive in an MPEG4 file format. Users then access that stored content across the cloud by the box or adaptor streaming the content to their favourite devices such as iPad, Roku, or other popular streaming platforms that support HTML-5. The key difference between the two products is whether the end user already has an existing TV service: In the case of the STB, the user can choose to use Freeview for use at home and on the move, whether in the house or traveling. If he or she chooses the adaptor, there is the great choice of Freeview programming on multiple devices without the need to change the main living room service being used eg Sky, Virgin or Freesat. Both products allow for remote management of new and existing recordings from chosen screens.

“We have been working with the Simple.TV product for some time and we think it’s a really easy and robust way of accessing great content in multiple ways,” said Jon Williams, Managing Director of Pixsan. “We at Pixsan are already using the early stage products in our homes now and we’re hooked! We have built many DVRs and iDTVs and we think this is a great service feature for our OEM customers.”

The partnership will enable Pixsan to provide VAR services to Operators, OEMs and retailers for Simple.TV across the entire EMEA region. Said Mark Ely, CEO of Really Simple Software, Inc: “Pixsan is ideally placed to help our expansion of the Simple.TV proposition across new and emerging markets. They have exceptional experience in the areas of broadcast STB and TV, having provided deployments in most of the key DVB countries. In addition, Pixsan are experts in OTT streaming integration, making them an ideal partner for us in the burgeoning hybrid device market.”

Pixsan and Really Simple Software plan to further the co-develop the Simple.TV technology and service as a platform proposition, allowing public service broadcast (PSB) television to work seamlessly with OTT TV applications and multiple devices.