RT-RK and iWedia launch joint OTT application for automotive

Operator TV Apps in sweet spot of car infotainment is a matter of time

Novi Sad, Serbia and Lausanne, Switzerland – September 7, 2022 – RT-RK, a leading embedded software development house with the background in digital TV, Android TV, and infotainment systems, and iWedia, a leading provider of software components and solutions for connected TV devices, announced today their joint offer for OTT application development for the car.

The solution resides on the iWedia’s core asset and IP, Teatro media player with multi-DRM integration, which builds the heart of many tier 1 operator TV deployments, and RT-RK’s know-how on (1) handling DRM, (2) support for ABR protocols such as MPEG-DASH and HLS, (3) large scale deployments of streaming TV in operator environments, (4) Android Automotive OS system integration expertise.

With the massive deployment of 5G infrastructure it could be expected that operator TV apps deployment in major car brands is only a matter of time. iWedia’s successful deployments with Sky Deutschland, Bouygues Telecom, or Hikari TV (by NTT Docomo) could nicely be integrated into advanced infotainment systems of OEMs with strong local presence, e.g Audi, Renault, or Toyota.

Hans-Jürgen Désor, CEO, iWedia, said: “As we project towards autonomous driving step-by-steps reality, it is increasingly clear that automotive OEMs must address customers’ need for more of quality content. We are confident that with our Player IP, our portfolio, background of over a dozen developed OTT applications for TV operators worldwide, RT-RK’s integration services and automotive perspective included, we can help OEMs bring new content in vehicles, helping them stay ahead of the game at a time when the competition is fiercer than ever.”

Milenko Beric, CFO, RT-RK, said: “Reception of the TV signal via IP has its specifics, because a car is a terminal in move, with a changeable quality of the signal reception. RT-RK has developed a solution to compensate for this inconsistency by evaluating the trajectory and making a prediction of the signal reception along the road, offering the end customer a sophisticated choice of either the continuous, possibly delayed high-quality signal reception, or a suggestion for an alternative road with the stabile signal reception, or simply a notification that there will be an interruption of the signal along the trajectory. This is our innovative added value to our already rich portfolio of integration of digital TV in Android and infotainment environments.”