I’ve been waiting for some time to do an article on an exciting new product offering from WOW! It’s called “Ultra TV”, and has some pretty terrific features. This product has been in the development pipeline for well over a year, and represents a significant departure from traditional video offerings from WOW! and other providers.
First of all, I’d like to give you a peek at the product through this video:
Pretty Cool, yes? That’s the feature sets in a (rather entertaining) nutshell.
I’d like to let you in on a bit of the “back room” process WOW! went through to get this product to our customers.
First, the problem: We felt we needed to offer additional features (like whole house DVR, additional recording capability, recording capacity, etc.) to our product line, as well as transition to IP based video without a wholesale changeout of technology. And, oh by the way, let’s streamline the programming guide and maybe combine functions such that we don’t need several pieces of equipment to offer the video, data, and phone bundle that our customers overwhelmingly opt for rather than single services. After shopping the typical sources for customer equipment (the Cisco/Scientific Atlanta and Motorola cable equipment duopoly), we came away disappointed and frustrated, both for reasons of cost and functionality.
Our intrepid team of Cash Hagen (CTO) and Gary Nilsen (Video Engineering VP), determined to work with Arris, one of our excellent equipment vendors, and design some gear from the “ground up”. It turned out that Arris had some prototype equipment in development that would provide the underpinnings for all that we were looking for, so Gary and his team, as well as Cathy Kuo (CMO) and her marketing team, joined hands with Arris on the development of new hardware and software that would give our customers an “Ultra TV” experience.
Once the product was defined and “over the crest” of the development cycle, we deployed Alpha and Beta tests as the software and hardware matured toward a releasable product, learning a great deal along the way. In addition to fixing “bugs”, we learned what worked well and what worked less well for uers. Those “betas” began in test homes back in June of last year, and there have been many code revisions and improvements over the course of eight months to get the product to this point. Arris has been a great partner in the development process, but any product development this complex takes time.
We hope and expect that it was worth the wait. The product provides tremendous flexibility for users and allows for future enhancements on a largely “software driven” platform. And because it embraces standards like DLNA (See blog discussion here), it will be compatible with certain feature sets of other equipment which embrace those same standards. More of a “computer home hub” than a set top box, it represents a significant departure from previous video offerings, and we hope that our valued customers will be pleased.
Until next time….
Loading ...