MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, July 19, 2018 – Tightrope Media Systems today announced Cablecast Screenweave, a collection of intuitive apps that extend the seamless, multi-platform content publishing workflows of the Cablecast Community Media platform to popular OTT player appliances. A powerful add-on for the Cablecast Reflect cloud-based streaming service, Cablecast Screenweave lets community TV broadcasters easily and efficiently bring their live channels and on-demand content libraries to users of Apple TV® and Roku® devices.
By offering stations’ public, education and government (PEG) access channels through these market-leading OTT platforms, the Cablecast Screenweave apps allow viewers to watch live and on-demand content from their local community broadcaster from the comfort of their couch even without a cable television subscription. Users can browse categorized collections of VOD clips, search the station’s VOD library for topics of interest, and switch easily between the station’s live feeds – all with the quality advantage of high-definition video.
“Many community stations aren’t able to broadcast in HD or to offer on-demand content through their cable channel,” said Steve Israelsky, President, Cablecast Community Media. “While broadcasters could already deliver live HD and VOD as online streams through the Cablecast platform, Cablecast Screenweave now lets them bring these benefits to viewers’ living rooms while also expanding their audience to include ‘cord-cutters’ and ‘cord-nevers’ who don’t have cable TV service.”
Cablecast Screenweave continues and expands the Cablecast platform’s fully-integrated “program once, publish everywhere” multi-platform distribution simplicity. An intuitive web-based management portal lets stations configure Cablecast Screenweave by linking it to their existing Cablecast Broadcast Automation system, customizing which metadata fields the apps will display, incorporating their own branding and defining criteria for categorizing their VOD collections. After the initial configuration, no further actions are required by station staff to publish content to the OTT platforms. Permitted programs added to the station’s schedule are automatically repurposed and made available on the cable channel, the station’s Cablecast-powered website and the Cablecast Screenweave apps at once.
“Our mission has always been to make broadcasters’ lives easier and automate as much as possible, allowing them to reach viewers in more places on more devices in a seamless workflow without any additional effort,” added Israelsky. “Cablecast Screenweave further expands that simplicity to Apple TV and Roku delivery.”
Cablecast Screenweave works in conjunction with the Cablecast Reflect service, which lets community broadcasters deliver live streams and VOD programming to a virtually unlimited number of online, mobile, and now OTT viewers. Shifting the burden of streaming delivery from the station’s own infrastructure to the cloud, Cablecast Reflect enables them to reach larger audiences at higher quality while increasing reliability and minimizing impact on local network performance. Cablecast Screenweave is free of charge for Cablecast customers with an ongoing Cablecast Reflect subscription, including support for up to three channels per station.
Viewers can immediately download the Cablecast Screenweave app for free from the tVOS App Store on Apple TV units, with the Roku version soon to be available through the Roku Channel Store. Once installed, the apps will use geolocation to automatically present the user with a choice of the closest public access channels offering Cablecast Screenweave support, and will remember the user’s selection for future viewing.
About Cablecast
For over 20 years, the Cablecast Community Media platform from Tightrope Media Systems has enabled exceptional workflow efficiency, usability and versatility to help local cable channels, campus television and other community media providers engage their viewers in the evolving media landscape. The comprehensive Cablecast product line provides complete, tightly-integrated broadcast solutions including station automation, playout servers, Internet video on demand and live streaming.
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