Simplestream’s Cloud TV platform powers TracePlay

Tuesday, March 28th, 2017
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LONDON — Simplestream, a leading provider of video services for the media and entertainment industry, announced today that its Cloud TV solution has been chosen by MTG-owned Trace, the urban music and entertainment global media group, to power its new subscription video on demand (SVOD), live TV and radio offering TracePlay.

Trace has been a leader in the urban music and entertainment world for over a decade. From Africa to Europe, the United States, the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, Trace offers direct and live access to 10 music and sports TV channels, 31 FM and digital urban music radios, as well as a selection of urban series, films and documentaries in English and French.

The innovative TracePlay service will launch on desktop, iOS and Android mobile and tablet devices, and Apple TV and will be progressively available to the entire world starting with 80 countries (the UK, Ireland, United States, Africa, the Caribbean, all French-speaking European countries and the Netherlands). The service is slated to be available on additional devices such as Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Smart TVs later in 2017.

In less than 12 weeks, Simplestream built the comprehensive TracePlay service featuring:

  • HD live channels and VOD with high quality adaptive streaming
  • 2,400 VOD assets at launch
  • Tools enabling Trace to create multiple thematic content packs based on deep metadata that provide viewers multiple personalised ways to discover relevant content across all screens
  • Region-based content controls that enable Trace to customise and tailor how content is presented and featured to enable real-time changes that best reflect audience consumption patterns
  • Completely cloud-based content ingest, transcoding and service management
  • Localisation of all available content in English and French to accommodate the growing global viewership
  • Powerful subscriber management and support for multiple currencies to drive customer acquisition and retention

“Simplestream has been an amazing partner,” says Olivier Laouchez, Co-Founder, Chairman & CEO of Trace. “The flexibility of their Cloud TV platform and the company’s talented design and development teams have enabled us to launch our exciting new service on time and in budget. I look forward to this multi-year and multi-territory relationship to help establish TracePlay as a leading SVOD and live platform for urban music and entertainment”.

“TracePlay is a really innovative and disruptive service that we are hugely excited to be part of,” commented Dan Finch, Chief Commercial Officer of Simplestream. “TracePlay is truly global: it is multi-device, multi-lingual and it will appeal to a huge audience in more than 200 countries. We see this as total validation that, for highly complex projects, the cloud is the only way to go. This 12-week ‘multi-everything’ build also proves that, thanks to our long-term investment in cloud video technology and solutions, Simplestream is capable of handling the industry’s most complex digital transformation projects – and we can do it fast!”

Simplestream’s Cloud TV solution is built on top of its Media Manager platform, a comprehensive suite of powerful cloud services that underpin a number of the most compelling and interactive video services in the industry. This modular range of virtualized components enables fast service deployments, robust scalability and the flexibility to integrate with any existing technology platform. Modules include: Live, Live to VOD, VOD to Live Playout, Asset Management, Syndication, Live Clip Editor, customer management and Hybrid TV.