“Restart” is one of the innovative features of Telekom’s new Entertain TV.
More content than technical qualities
On May 1, Telekom Entertain will be the new Entertain TV. The new offer was presented shortly before the start of the telecoms committee, Niek Jan van Damme. According to van Damme, around 2.7 million customers are now watching television over Entertain. The three-million mark will be cracked in this year. The pioneering tradition continues the new Entertain TV, which can be booked in the future with the Magenta One tariffs of the Telekom at a price of EUR 14.95 in addition to any current fixed-line Internet tariff.
Search with many references
At the same time, the vendor saddles technically from the IPTV infrastructure of Microsoft, which in recent years has been considered inflexible in professional circles, to a new Playout system from Huawei and a new IPTV receiver based on Linux. However, the customer is reluctant to get the technical changeover, apart from a completely new appearance of the menus and a clearly shrunk receiving box, but still a hard disk as a recording medium rotates - the 500 GB Harddrive is now even changeable
Start menu with tips and quotas
Otherwise the TV technical innovations are limited. For video enthusiasts: No, the new box is not UHD-capable and no, it can also not send 10 bit or HDR videos to the TV. For this, the Telekom solves the border between SD and HD channels and from then on each viewer just the picture resolution and quality that his Internet connection can optimally receive.
Full-featured app
Telecom managers also reported progress: 30 million households should be technically capable of receiving high-definition IPTVs. By 2020, the figure is expected to grow to 35 million and thus into an almost comprehensive coverage.
An important reason to take the new Entertain once more under the magnifying glass is opened up for video readers also away from UHD. Who in the current issue 5/2016 the contribution "Zappst you still or do you already?" Has found in the new Entertain TV some answers to the questions from the current article. It was about TV-Mediatheken and the possibilities in IPTV or cable offers after timed TV contents to search. To date - to say the least - they are modest. With the new Entertain TV, Telekom is now releasing some functions that catapult the TV experience further towards the Internet.
The first is "Restart" and is to solve the tiresome 20.15 clock problem: With many programs it will be possible in the future to start a running program later, but to see it from the beginning. Entertain TV makes it possible, by all programs on the servers of the Telekom are temporarily stored and from there be strered as long as they are still on television. This only works if you start the stream of a program as long as it is not finished.
After all, this works with all major American broadcasters - including the RTL group, which is otherwise very closed when it comes to the time-delayed use of their content. In the case of the private users, you can not fast-forward in the restart content, too, and you have to enjoy full-length advertising blocks.
The second top feature listens to the name "Replay" and stands for an overarching media library search over the last seven days. The electronic program guide "extends" its timeline into the past and marks all programs with a small clock that can be retrospectively delayed.
This includes the two public service broadcasters, the channels of the Pro7Sat1 group and a whole host of other private programs. Who is missing is RTL. Their contents are hardly accessible on a TV platform in a time-delayed manner, and if, then in no case together with the broadcasts of the competition.
However, the replay function does not work again. If you have found a program in the back EPG and calls it up, then opens the respective channel media library, where the stream starts. The handling and the look & feel differ as clearly as the picture quality, if one times the Tagesschau and sometimes "Judge Salesch" by Replay-seeker calls.
Thus the replay function is actually no more than a very illustrative search for broadcasts, which were broadcast in the last week and stored in media books. But also no less, which leads directly to the next point: The overarching search. The IPTV system is now fully melded to the fox of the masterclass. If you search for TV shows, actors, directors or even genres, the TV browser actually scans all available sources of content: the EPG as well as TV media counters and all available online videotheques. The new Entertain TV already has a few in stock at the start. Maxdome, Sky On Demand and Watchever are present alongside the Videoload of Telekom. According to the managing director Michael Hagspihl responsible for the Telekom-private customer business, Obendrein runs discussions with Netflix and Amazon, so that the search in the abashable time should also spit out their film and series offer
The overarching search is a real advantage of the new Entertain TV over all other Smart TV, cable and IPTV platforms. There is usually only content that can be found in the individual vendor apps; only a few pay packages are rarely linked to EPG or archive searches.
Video tip
Further innovations are more of a cosmetic nature, but they also bring new access to current TV content. The new main menu, for example, does not primarily show a great navigation bar through all the functions of the box, but lists current top programs, series or film tips as well as news about TV and music stars. If you switch to the TV program, then the contents menu shows the current top 3 broadcasts, ie the programs that are currently being viewed by most Telekom Entertain customers. This gives you an overview of the current TV hits as a viewer. A personalized homepage à la Netflix, with TV or film recommendations, which correspond to the view habits of the spectator, does not bring the new system with it.
One of the biggest deficits the previous Entertain was the far-reaching lack of a second-screen application - there was indeed an app, with which one could watch TV on the mobile phone, but that was it already. The new app can continue - for an extra charge.
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But their connectivity with the running program on the TV is the real treasure in it. If TV receivers and tablets are registered in the same WLAN, the mobile device is used as a remote control and as a monitor for EPG and other additional information on the current program. With fingertips, this can also be taken to the mobile screen and look there, or with another tapping back to the TV. Of course, the touchscreen keyboard is also suitable as a convenient input device for the search.
Technically, the new Telekom Entertain TV is absolutely in line with the times, with its comprehensive search and the restart function, it shows the entire TV and provider industry the way to the Internet TV era. But it also presents the specialties of American media law on the Silbertablett: Telekom is allowed to create a Cloud copy of running broadcasts for the Restart function, but this has to be deleted after the end of the program
Anyone can record RTL broadcasts to their hard drive whenever they like, but a basic backward EPG fails due to the refusal of RTL and Co. to provide their content flexibly for the benefit of the viewer. This is not new, hitherto you were not pushed at every second operation step with your nose. But this is again a great compliment for Entertain TV - never was a TV reception path as far as technically feasible.
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