Synamedia inks key Asian deals with Astro, Airtel
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Editor
| 24 April 2019

Maintaining its drive as it makes its mark as an independent company, Synamedia has entered into a number of key strategic partnership in Malaysia and India to deliver what it calls ‘seamless’ premium video experiences.

In the former territory, Synamedia is working with Astro Malaysia Holdings (Astro), the country’s leading content and consumer company, to secure, distribute and monetise premium video experiences across all screens while deepening viewer engagement. This includes a uniform look-and-feel across multi-devices; enhanced search; enriched metadata; and instantaneous playback using Synamedia’s adaptive bit rate streaming. Astro Go video streaming services and existing DVR customers will continue to have access to all stored and scheduled recordings on the new platform.

Customers can upgrade to new hybrid DTH and IP enabled 4K UHD set-top boxes with the new UX and cloud-based recording (cDVR) features. This allows users to access the recordings on their DVR at home as well as using the Astro Go app.

“The adoption of a seamless user interface and the deployment of the new 4K UHD set-top-boxes with cloud-based recording will improve the customer experience substantially,” said Astro CEO Henry Tan. “We believe this improvement will spur growth opportunities in our SVOD, TVOD and OTT services.”

In India, telecoms operator Bharti Airtel has renewed its long-term partnership with Synamedia to drive digital TV innovation. The new multi-year contract builds on Airtel’s 12-year partnership with the companies that have now been merged into Synamedia and what is being called two firms’ shared focus on driving digital TV innovation while protecting content and revenues.

This extended contract will see Synamedia working closely with Airtel on enhancements to its multi-lingual EPG and additional features and functionality that will boost the overall experience for Airtel’s video customers. Airtel will continue to use Synamedia VideoGuard to safeguard its investments in live sports, news, entertainment and other premium content delivered to its 16 million DTH subscribers, and manage and monetise premium experiences on set-top boxes using Synamedia’s Foundation platform.

“Synamedia continues to be a strategic, long-term partner for Airtel. Our two companies share a common vision centered on innovation designed to boost customer experience and revenues while also protecting content investments, commented Airtel CEO DTH Sunil Taldar. “Synamedia’s engineering teams are second to none, meaning that we can always rely on them to deliver superior and robust solutions.”