Versatile Video-On-Demand Platform
A streaming platform that provides fast and high-quality transactional video-on-demand (TVOD) to its customers.
Industry
Entertainment
Team
4 members
Project state
Started in 2020
Country
Denmark
About a Project
Our customer is a Danish company that provides local markets and other Nordic countries with home entertainment solutions, including movie rental services. The services were offered primarily at video rental shops and didn’t allow business scaling. The company wanted to transform the current business model and create a video-on-demand platform to deliver movies and TV series via the Internet on a paid basis. The client chose Cleveroad as an experienced media software development company to jump-start a project with.
Project idea
Develop a streaming service allowing for delivering movie rental services online
Build a scalable and high-performing streaming solution with cross-platform capabilities in mind
Create intuitive and fast-loading UI designs that ensure brand excellence and user engagement
Project challenges
Creation of a video-on-demand platform localized for the Nordic region. Realization of the features enabling viewers to purchase or rent high-quality movies and TV series
Development of a VOD streaming platform that looks and works great across multiple screens, devices, and platforms. Functionality integration enabling video streaming from mobile devices to TVs
Designing a responsive on-demand video platform ensuring consistency across devices. Making a high-quality UI design to ensure solid groundwork for wide user adoption and high customer conversion
Results
A feature-rich VOD streaming solution aligned with the client's business model enables multi-tier revenue streams based on rentals and purchases. Long-term value creation through business digitalization
A video streaming service with cross-platform capabilities for TV, PC, and mobile devices. It allowed the customer to ensure substantial business growth by providing a comprehensive digital experience for users
The new UI design concept was approved by the customer and used in the frontend development of the VOD streaming platform. The high-quality user interface that meets the company’s marketing and customer service objectives
Business Challenges
Our customer is the TDC Group company, the largest Danish telecommunication service provider. In 2013, the enterprise acquired the rights for Blockbuster, an iconic US company known for video and game rentals, to launch a video streaming platform in the Nordics. The first business model was to let people rent movies primarily at video rental shops. The client wanted to digitize the traditional business to provide movie renting services online on the TVOD business model. Initially, the customer had ready-made Android and Android TV apps that didn’t meet the users’ expectations. The client wanted to update those solutions as well as create separate versions to make it possible to access video content seamlessly on different devices. So, the company needed an experienced technical partner who could:
Build a comprehensive TVOD streaming platform to digitize the traditional home video rental service. It was needed to deliver a high-quality product to replace the existing solution, attract new users as well as preserve the loyalty of the existing consumers to ensure business growth and expand its market.
Reengineer Android and Android TV apps to recreate a core business process and satisfy end-users expectations about the new product solution. It was also required to create versions to support more platforms to reach a wider audience and expand the market share to get more profit.
Develop a top-quality streaming platform that operates on the TVOD model allowing users to rent/purchase content on a pay-per-view basis. It was necessary to implement a flexible and scalable IT architecture design to ensure solutions perform successfully under high user growth.
Project in Details
Business Architecture
- Fully-featured and responsive transactional VOD streaming service. Users can join the platform and use it as a traditional home video rental service with the difference that the films are provided not on disks, but online. It allows viewers to watch high-quality movies and TV shows on demand.
- The enhanced search functionality is the core of the solution: it allows users to find the best matching films based on the filters applied. The search bar employs a specific algorithm to index many relevant parameters, including keywords, content descriptions, casting, categories, and genre.
- Online payment through the payment gateway was built into the platform. It was needed to enable users to rent or purchase movies for watching. Integration of the pay-per-transaction services allowed a one-time payment for viewing video content on-demand, whether temporarily (rental, pay-per-view) or permanently (electronic sell-through).
Product Essentials
Renting service is available in the app. Users can buy clip cards for renting up to three movies from all available on the platform. The card is a payment method that works on all devices and allows viewers to lease TV series. Once a user starts the rental period, they can watch a movie as many times as they want within 48 hours.
Payment system integration enables managing own Cards and purchases easily in one click. Users can add their own cards for payment and track the history of purchases made.
The video progress bar allows users to keep track of their watching process. Even if viewers closed a movie and decided to get back to it later. As the platform saves viewed movies and progress in a user profile, customers can play the video again at any moment. Or check how much time is left without even hitting the play button.
Lazy loading functionality and shimmering were also integrated to improve user experience. It enables cover flow when a large amount of content should be provided. The video content is loaded only when it’s being viewed or when it’s soon to show up as the user scrolls down. If the viewers don’t scroll down or the video content never approaches the viewport, the loading doesn't occur. The shimmering effect shows the users that the loading is taking place.
A parental control module is required to limit access to inappropriate content for the children. Movies are sorted out by rating: allowed for all, for all but kids under 7, under 11, or 15 years. Thus, parents can set restrictions for their underage kids in their profiles. If a movie falls into the 'restricted' category, the platform asks viewers to enter a password to get access to the video.
Setting up profiles allows users to manage their own accounts and have all account-related information accessible in one click. The viewers can also switch to a kid’s profile to manage and monitor children's activities within the platform.
Cross-platform capabilities were realized as a part of our customer's project vision. Users can watch their library via native apps for Android, iOS, iPadOS, Android TV, and tvOS. There is also a web version and support for video streaming from mobile devices to TVs via Chromecast and AirPlay
Offline data synchronization for use in the mobile app (iOS and Android) was configured. It allows for accessing video content when the internet isn't available. Users can download purchased or rented movies to watch them offline on their devices.
Development in Detail
- The customer required an outstaff team. First, we did a careful project analysis, including code review, tech stack review, and regular meetings with Tech Leads and Account Managers to adopt all the project’s needs. Then, we put a project team together with the experience and proficiency level needed for efficient working on the client’s project. The outstaff team was managed entirely by the client’s company. The Cleveroad experts were able to jump into an unfinished project, cover all the project challenges, and provide great results by releasing a solution meeting business needs.
- The Cleveroad’s design team changed the old UI and created a completely new user interface to enable seamless “service-client” interaction while preserving all the existing information. Our specialists focusing on responsive design undertook the task to streamline the UI for mobile and web solutions. Even though improved UI design was introduced to ensure consumer satisfaction, the visual style reflected in the user interface was fully preserved and in line with the сustomer’s vision.
- Our DevOps specialists introduced the AWS Services platform to migrate the VOD streaming solution from on-premise to the cloud and built a unified data platform. AWS CloudFront CDN was selected to make it possible to stream video on demand to any device in standard formats: MPEG DASH, Apple HLS, Microsoft Smooth Streaming, and CMAF. The selected network allowed for minimizing video delivery latency, lowering the probability of congestion and traffic loss, and providing high availability of video content.
- We were working on the product with cross-platform capabilities in mind to optimize the media experience for everyone. Our development team rebuilt Android and Android TV apps, created iOS and Apple's tvOS apps from scratch, and a web version considering best practices and patterns for software development. Cleveroad experts also integrated media players, using Chromecast SDK (for Android) and Airplay SDK (for iOS) to enable video content casting from mobile devices to TV ecosystems.
Technology stack
See the ways how the development team implemented the project’s requirements
Android
Kotlin
RxJava
RxAndroid
ObjectBox
Room
Retrofit
DRM
iOS
Swift
CoreData
RxSwift
Alamofire
DRM
Web Architecture
Node JS
Cloudfront
Lambda
Apollo
GraphQL
Elastic
Results Obtained
Business automation due to a digital solution
We built a high-quality TVOD streaming platform that allowed our customer to digitize the traditional video rental business and offer on-demand video services online. The solution considers all the needs and preferences of the target audience while strengthening the loyalty of the existing ones. The service has hundreds of thousands of subscribers in Denmark and is rapidly increasing a solid client base across Sweden, Finland, and Norway
Software maintenance costs reduction by half
The Cleveroad team performed a migration from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud. It allowed the customer to optimize the streaming operations, reach all-time low streaming latency, and scale up business performance while maintaining zero downtime when dealing with rapid user growth. As a result, the number of no-fault-founds was reduced by 8 times, with software solutions maintenance costs cut by 50%
Clients attraction/retention rate growth by 20-30%
The company received a high-performing product with cross-platform capabilities. The solution allows the company to broadcast quality video content to multiple users on a pay-per-view basis. The combination of convenient navigation and appealing UX design contributed to an increased user satisfaction rate several times over. Within six weeks, 10,000 people subscribed to the service. Blockbuster ensured high-quality delivery for users
Our client say
DenmarkCTO at Blockbuster, TDC
“We’re very happy with Cleveroad. They seem to work in the way that we do, and we have a close collaboration with them. Every day we talk to the developers and outline what needs to be done."
