Interactive Hotel TV Solution

Interactive television is a multimedia portal of a hotel and one of the main tools for presenting information to a guest. Thanks to an efficiently organized interactive television, the television receiver is transformed from a TV channel viewing tool into a multi-tasking infotainment complex that can not only make a guest’s stay more interesting in the room, but also bring real profit to a hotel.

Since it's inception and till now, interactive television has come a long way. Initially, ITV solutions were designed to provide fairly simple functionality for centralized management of a fleet of televisions and the sale of paid film content. Modern ITV is already a multifunctional multimedia complex, which has wide integration capabilities with information, multimedia and engineering systems of a facility. Modern ITV solutions don't require the use of unique prefixes of the manufacturer, they are implemented at the program level and use the computing power of the hotel TV itself. It means that the integration of the solution takes place at the level of the software and hardware architecture of the television receiver itself, without using special interactive blocks, so-called Set-top-box. Thus, interactive television becomes a kind of application displayed on a TV screen, the functionality of which is limited only by the developer’s imagination and the effective application of a particular technology.

There are projects in which there is a need to use STB, it is caused by the task of launching an interactive system on outdated or non-specialized television receivers, as well as in the absence of information transmission media over a LAN. In case of impossibility of data transmission over a LAN, systems based on DOCSIS technology are used, allowing to organize a network by means of coaxial cable. Of course, such systems are inferior in functionality to their fellows but are an effective solution for a certain range of customers.

If we consider the main design tasks, then in general forms they come down to integration with the television park, television broadcasting media, implementation of the solution into the information infrastructure of the facility, as well as production and content filling. The centralized management interface is also important, it must be intuitive, a service personnel must be able to manage the complex, monitor and perform content download and editing without difficulty and specialized skills.

Depending on the needs of a customer, we are ready to provide an appropriate interactive solution. In the simplest versions, it may be the optimal functionality that provides an interactive menu with a set of information about a hotel and services, realizing the possibilities of integration with PMS. Deploying a serious complex, we implement a wide range of features that allow you to watch TV channels on guests' mobile devices, view content from mobile devices, manage engineering systems, deploy WiFi coverage through built-in access points, etc.

Sometimes there are cases when it is impossible to realize the needs and wishes of the client within the standard set of functions of a particular ITV system, in such cases our company, in collaboration with suppliers of television equipment and interactive complexes, develops specialized modules that meet the necessary needs. Such cooperation allows us to provide a customer with a really working solution that has received positive conclusions from R & D suppliers and has been tested in their laboratories.