Germany’s largest cable operator Kabel Deutschland wants to accelerate the deployment of its video-on-demand (VOD) portal Select Video on its cable network and provide almost its complete customer base with the service by the end of its business year 2014/15.
8 million households in the cable company’s footprint will gain the possibility to access the video library with movies and series as well as TV programmes from more than 50 TV partners by March 31, 2015. The partners include commercial TV groups RTL and ProSiebenSat.1 as well as pay-TV broadcasters. The reach will correspond with more than 90% of its cable customers.
In contrast to conventional streaming offerings, the VOD content from Select Video is not distributed to customers through the open internet, but directly through the cable network, mainly in HD quality. The internet connection is only required for navigation signals, for example starting, pausing, fast forwarding and rewinding, and searching through the available content.
Select Video is integrated as a standard feature in the current models of HD receivers and HD recorders provided by Kabel Deutschland.