Secure | Enable | Interact NDS

Connecting tablet
      apps to television


Today's TV viewers want something beyond traditional television. To get a richer experience, they turn to some of the many companion devices flooding the market, be it a smart phone, tablet, or netbook computer.

This presents an opportunity for pay-TV operators and broadcasters looking to extend their brand to companion devices. They want to integrate television with social media, additional information, wikis, blogs, e-commerce and related video.

The NDS Service Delivery Platform™ (SDP) turns this opportunity into real added value for your platform. An end-to-end system, the SDP enables you to open your TV platform through standard, managed APIs hosted on a Developer Portal. App developers can then access the television resources on this portal to create contextual TV-centric applications that directly relate to the linear or video-on-demand (VOD) content your viewers are watching.

Expanding your pay-TV business

The NDS SDP provides a cost-effective way for you to leverage the large app developer community in bringing your brand, apps and content to any new companion tablet or mobile devices. This translates into real business benefits for your pay-TV platform:

  • Enables you to establish a presence on any connected consumer electronics device in the market without requiring expensive per-device integration
  • Opens a range of new revenue opportunities, such as advertising, electronic commerce or subscription upgrades
  • Allows you to use the existing application market eco-system, from SDKs to app stores, and draw on app developer community creativity
  • Gives you absolute control over the level of access that developers have to your digital TV headend
  • Supports a range of business models to help you control, manage and test new apps in a rapidly evolving market

 

 



All the benefits,
      none of the overheads


Your pay-TV business doesn't need to incur the operational cost of creating interactive applications for companion devices. The SDP lets you thrust this onus on the application developer community.

With millions of companion devices already out there, an established community of application developers is already in place, churning out millions of applications for a wide variety of services.

You don't even need to host the apps. Instead, they are hosted on existing app marketplaces such as Apple's App Store and Google's Android Marketplace.

The SDP therefore enables you to push a wide variety of applications onto any web-enabled CE device without any development or integration costs.


Bringing the best of the
        web to your TV platform


There is a huge amount of video and other information available online that complements your platform's linear content.

The NDS Service Delivery Platform uses RESTful APIs, enabling application developers to access its web services. They can then combine SDP APIs with APIs from popular internet services to create meaningful and contextual television applications.

By granting developers access to your "Developer Portal" there is no limit to the range of cool apps your subscribers can enjoy.

Second screen companion apps

Second screen applications take in a TV guide and augment it with information from websites as well as social network features.

Using their companion device, viewers
can interact with the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) that is supplemented with metadata from
third-party services. Subscribers
can tap on any channel
in the EPG to preview
a live stream of that
channel's output within
the app. If they like the
preview, they can "flick"
it from their companion
device towards their TV
to resume watching it on
the television.



 

 

 


And more apps...

Shop till you drop

Your subscribers can use their companion device to access online retail services that sell products connected to the show they are watching. Such applications could spawn a whole new world of TV product advertising and revenue opportunities for pay-TV operators.

Viewers could, for example, book vacations to destinations currently being featured on a show they see on TV. A "TV deal of the day" concept could also provide special offers on a VOD movie, or enable subscribers to purchase products that they saw on TV through eBay and Amazon.


       


Get social

Another popular genre of contextual TV applications revolves around social networks, the modern day "water-coolers" where people discuss what they are currently watching on TV. These discussions inadvertently create viewing trends that virally influence your other subscribers.

Your subscribers can follow Twitter trends centered on the
show they are watching. This is especially popular with soaps, news and reality shows where users discuss plotlines, performances and even follow global newsworthy events in real-time.

Users can tag content with hash tags then follow the tweets from those accounts. Tagged shows are shared with all users of the app so they can follow along. The application also creates a "tag-cloud" indicating the current most popular shows. They can then click on the biggest tag and tune to that channel.



More flexibility,
     more devices


Any operating system, any device

The SDP developer portal uses standard web services technology and APIs and includes a development sandbox. Application developers can use any standard tablet SDK to create compelling applications that work with any operating system, such as iOS and Android, and connected companion device.

Integrates with any digital TV headend

While SDP APIs are standard for the application development community, not all TV headends are the same. SDP integrates with different TV digital platforms using a set of platform-independent APIs that work with any headend; NDS or non-NDS, new or legacy.

The standardized developer APIs and SDP platform allow developers to integrate the similar app with any other pay-TV platform using SDP.

New functionality using existing set-top boxes

It doesn't matter whether your subscribers have high-end or low-end legacy set-top boxes, SDP works with all of them. When developers create new "second screen" companion apps to enrich your platform's TV experience, you can be sure the app will work across your entire subscriber base without needing to replace older set-top boxes.

 



In order to unleash the maximum creativity from
app developers, it is critical to provide an
environment that is appealing and makes business
sense so they can create applications that
synchronize with your pay-TV platform.


Seize
      the opportunity


The NDS Service Delivery Platform (SDP) ensures that you can extend your brand and content beyond the TV set while enriching your viewers' TV experience.

Better still, you can leave it to the experts—the third-party developers—to unleash a new wave of content related, contextual applications on your subscribers' companion devices and smart TVs.

Whether you are a platform operator, MSO or broadcaster, the SDP delivers a whole new level of intelligent connectivity.

To learn more about how NDS Service Delivery Platform can help you deliver TV apps that are compelling, cool and contextual, visit the Web page or contact us.






NDS customers worldwide