MUMBAI: At the International Consumer Electronics (CES) Show in the US, Samsung Electronics and cable major Comcast announced their partnership.
The aim is to continue to revolutionise the way consumers access content and watch television with Xfinity TV. For the first time on a connected TV, the new Xfinity TV service will offer a rich, Web-like interface, enabling simpler navigation and the ability to seamlessly search across TV, DVR recordings, and video on demand among tens of thousands of content choices. A graphics-rich display will guide the viewer to content.
The partnership will also deliver a customised and integrated multi-platform viewing experience on Samsung Smart TVs and the Android powered Samsung Galaxy Tab.
On the tablet, the Xfinity TV experience is a virtual television guide and a mobile video player all in one. Xfinity TV digital customers will be able to browse, discover and sort video content, search for their favourite programmes, change the channel on a Samsung Smart TV in real time, and programme DVRs.
In addition, they will be able to watch streaming TV shows and movies On Demand directly on the tablet, and access that content across multiple devices. The service’s roadmap includes the ability to begin watching a favourite movie on the Samsung Galaxy Tab, then pause the movie and resume watching it on a Samsung Smart TV from the exact moment it was paused, and vice versa.
Samsung’s Visual Display Business president Boo-Keun Yoon said, “As we begin this exciting new decade, Samsung is also launching a new era of TV technologies that will delight and amaze consumers unlike ever before. To partner with the renowned Comcast brand enables us to deliver on our promise of giving consumers greater variety, easy access and control of the content they discover and deliver a more immersive and entertaining experience to Comcast customers.”
Comcast chairman, CEO Brian L. Roberts said, “Our partnership with an industry leader like Samsung is another important step in Comcast’s plan to totally reinvent how consumers watch television wherever and whenever they want. We have the technology framework in place to deliver new features to Comcast customers faster than ever, including on connected TVs, tablets and multiple devices, which is core to our strategy and a key facet of the future of television.”
The Xfinity TV experience will be distributed later this year on the Samsung Smart TVs and on the application store for the Galaxy products interacting through the Comcast set top box, giving consumers yet another access point for discovering and connecting to Comcast Xfinity TV services.
