- As part of its new vuTyme iTV platform, a patented technology called DVR-Lite is providing an in-room viewing experience for guests that is equal to or better than what they have at home
- Patented technology also minimizes operating costs for hoteliers
August 16, 2016 – Broomfield, Colo. – Hoteliers wanting to offer more like-home services to their guests can now add partial DVR functionality to their guestroom TVs. As part of its vuTyme iTV platform launch at HITEC, ADB is enabling guests to pause live TV just like they do at home. Called DVR-Lite™, the system also supports rewind and fast-forward functionality.
“ADB has been delivering award-winning television viewing experiences to homes for two decades, and as such we are bringing the services people use most at home to hotel rooms with vuTyme,” said Chris Dinallo, ADB SVP of Business TV. “Sixty-two percent of hotel guests say they want a guestroom TV experience similar to what they have at home, and 38 percent want one even better than they have at home. When we demonstrated DVR Lite’s capabilities at HITEC 2016, enthusiasm for the product was off the charts.”
Consider these recent research findings:
- The “2016 In-Room Entertainment Preferences Study” shows that 51.1 percent of Millennials are “very interested” or “extremely interested” in the ability to pause live TV. The same goes for 49.2 percent of Gen Xers, while only 17.5 percent of Boomers are hyped about the service. When it comes to hoteliers, 65 percent surveyed said they see Pause TV functionality as important and 25 percent view it as very important.
- Nielsen’s first-quarter 2016 Total Audience Report shows that 158 million U.S. adults use DVR services monthly, and 72 percent of homes have either a DVR or access to subscription-based video-on-demand services, up from 67 percent in 2015. Nielsen noted an important milestone in US media: the availability of SVOD programming (Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime) is now equal to DVR penetration, with both available in 50 percent of US TV households.
DVR-Lite enables time-shift playback using off-the-shelf SDHC memory cards versus expensive spinning hard drives and does so using patented technology that greatly improves life-cycle and reliability. With the use of the patented technology within DVR-Lite, guests can “trick-play” (or rewind/fast forward at varying speeds) more TV shows more often before the memory on the SDHC wears out. In fact, DVR-Lite increases the life span of the device from four to seven times. This means hoteliers do not have replace SD memory cards for many years, resulting in better in-room viewing experiences for guests and lower operating costs for hoteliers.
“We are quickly learning that Millennials are different from other age groups and they value in-room entertainment services more strongly than older guests,” Dinallo said. “In order to be successful, a hotel built to service the Millennial traveler needs to be equipped with a robust and feature-rich in-room entertainment offering. What they need is vuTyme.”
vuTyme is ADB’s 4th generation end-to-end, managed-services iTV solution for hotels. It delivers a complete set of services like live TV, VOD, PPV, concierge, digital signage and targeted advertisements PLUS it offers exciting features such as Searchable Interactive Program Guide (IPG), Over-the-Top (OTT) services access like Screencasting from BYOD, direct-to-guest messaging through the TV, local attractions map with QR Code, Pause/Rewind/Fast-Forward LIVE TV, and much more. Unlike other providers who claim to be cloud-based, vuTyme operates in the cloud, requiring no hotel head-end equipment and featuring minimal in-room devices. The only hardware on-site is a compact set-back box which is discretely mounted behind the TV.
With its U.S. headquarters in Broomfield, Colo., ADB has installations in more than 80 countries, with over 60 million devices deployed.
About ADB
ADB is Connecting Lives and Connecting Worlds with innovative software, systems and managed services for personal TV, business TV, broadband and industrial IoT. We understand how multimedia convergence is changing consumer consumption and driving demand for powerful, flexible and cost effective connectivity and services.
Our Connected Solutions bring together our proven expertise and 20 years of award-winning industry firsts, enabling our customer’s to build successful businesses, harness greater efficiencies and deliver the connected experiences consumers crave. We know what success looks like because we are empowering some of the world’s leading content distributors, pay-TV service providers, broadband operators and appliance manufacturers, including: A1 Telekom Austria, Border States Electronic, Brighthouse Networks, Canal Digital, Charter Communications, Cox, Graybar, NC+, Swisscom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenet, Time Warner Cable, Vodafone and Whirlpool.
ADB has a passionate and dedicated team of more than 550 people, including a 350 strong engineering team. The company is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland and has offices throughout Europe, Asia and North America.