IFA 2012 – BERLIN. Deutsche Telekom is launching a range of innovations for its Entertain TV including live streaming to smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
Entertain to Go gives customers access to 40 TV channels and the online video store on their home network. A new free Entertain remote control app turns the smartphone into a remote control, with voice control making operation even easier than before.
The new TV apps on the IPTV set-top box offer more options including fa Media Center , daily news updates from ARD Tagesschau and the Bild.de newspaper site.
“Entertain has freed viewers from rigid broadcast schedules. With Entertain to go we are taking the next logical step and give television independence of device and location,” said Niek Jan van Damme, Deutsche Telekom board member responsible for the German market. “With it we underscore our position as innovation driver in Germany’s TV landscape.”
Entertain to Go delivers streaming live and on-demand television to PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones. Initially only on the home network but in the near future the service will also be available via the operator’s mobile network turning the service into a fully fledged TV Everywhere offer.
At launch, Entertain to Go offers 40 channels including public broadcasters ARD, ZDF and 3sat as well as private channels that include ProSieben, Sat.1 and Kabeleins.
Entertain to Go customers will also have access to the online video store, not only on the subscriber’s home network, but also via Telekom’s mobile network.
The service will be available at the end of the year as an add-on option for EUR 4.95 per month.
Entertain is also launching new TV apps, which are available immediately including Bild.de, Tagesschau, ADAC, Sport 1 and many more come free of charge for all Entertain customers.
The so-called Media World menu takes users to a choice of around 20 apps at the start, with more being added all the time. This is where the Media Center, with 25 gigabytes of free cloud storage and the e-mail function, will also be available in future. Users can arrange the applications on the interface to suit their own personal wishes.
The free Entertain remote control app transforms the smartphone into a remote control: the Media Receiver can be fully controlled with the new application. The smartphone also becomes a keyboard, to input search terms for example. The highlight of the remote control app is its voice control, which allows users to operate with voice commands, for example to switch over programs simply by saying the name of the new program. The free app will be available for Apple’s iOS from the fall and for Android smartphones shortly after.
Telekom’s hybrid Entertain Comfort Sat product gives customers a mix of satellite TV and IPTV, including Sat TV, add-on options such as Liga total (football), Big TV and HD package, online video store and TV archive, Internet with up to 16 Mbps/s and VDSL option as well as all Entertain convenience functions. With the product, customers have access to more than 280 TV channels via the Astra position at 19.2 degrees East, over 50 of them in HD. Entertain Comfort Sat is scheduled for availability at the end of the year for €39.95 per month.
