Canal Digital Go Apple TV App
Dedicated Canal Digital Go app for Apple TV, designed to deliver a seamless viewing experience to subscribers, from live sports to catch-up TV.
Link: Canal Digital
Platforms: Apple TV
Release date: 2018
About Canal Digital
Canal Digital has a rich content offering, with over 100 TV channels available from all over the world. Canal Digital is the entertainment platform of choice for nearly 840 000 of households across the Nordic region. Through its streaming services, the company offers live TV, a weekly archive, and 28 000 videos on demand.
Canal Digital has offices in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. It’s a wholly owned subsidiary of Telenor, with headquarters in Fornebu, Oslo. Canal Digital Brand is used by both the Nordic satellite TV operations and by Telenor’s cable TV operations in Norway.
Project goal
Canal Digital Go was available on several platforms but was missing a very significant option – Apple TV. The application was critical for the Scandinavian market as the platform is very popular there, and without an Apple TV app, Canal Digital would find itself far behind the trend-chasing competition.
General problem
As Apple TV is one of the most popular platforms in the Nordics, it was crucial for Canal Digital to create a dedicated application as soon as possible.
And since our company already worked with Canal Digital for many years, the company entrusted us with another project.
Roles in the project
Client’s side:
Better Software Group:
Solution
Better Software Group developed the CD Go app for Apple TV. App functionalities include live content, VOD, catch-ups, EPG, parental control/kids mode, payments within the app, offline mode & downloading option, Airplay, and Chromecast. The app is compatible with the 4th Generation Apple TV box.
Apple system is constantly upgrading. Previously written in Objective-C – now it’s written in Swift. We have upgraded the technology stack accordingly so that the app is more modern and up-to-date technology-wise.
Another challenging part was the integration with DRMs and the development of the player itself. The Apple TV environment makes these integrations harder mainly because it operates under specific conditions. Fortunately, our broad experience helped us to successfully finish the project on time.
In the project, we also optimized Chromecast for STB solutions.
