CASE STUDY

Established by the British War Office in 1943 British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) delivers the best of UK TV, sport, and music to British Forces and their families around the globe. BFBS approached Simplestream to rethink and expand the streaming service across multiple applications, with a few key objectives, primarily focusing on greater scalability for big live events delivered with several thousands of concurrent accesses.

The scope of the project quickly evolved into the creation of on demand assets directly from live streams, as well as expansion to further platforms and devices, allowing the armed forces to enjoy their favourite content anytime, anywhere.

Simplestream built a cloud-based solution on the foundation of App Platform, delivering bfbsTV, a strong and scalable set of streaming services accessible across mobile, tablet, laptop or connected TV devices.

With the ability for the end-user to shape their own experience through the video player – from EPG access and the selection of live channels to the consumption of multiple VOD assets – bfbsTV is now a richer-than-ever source of content. Besides live channels, it includes on demand content generated through Media Manager's Live2VOD module (available up to 7 days from broadcast), and a wide content backlog of box sets and series.

bfbsTV includes entertainment, music and live sports programming, with fully integrated Digital Rights Management (DRM) that enforces copyright and content protection. Most importantly, the closed app is fully integrated with the Defence Gateway, the one-step process for armed forces to access essential MOD online services.

British Forces can enjoy over 40 live channels, accessible through a variety of devices, including iOS, Android, Apple TV, Fire TV, Google TV, and Roku. The expanded services are a seamless, legal and highly secure way for armed forces and their families to access the very best of UK TV.

Unique challenges – including content security, 24 different time zones and complex content rights – were matched by a flexible, out-of-the-box solution that provides BFBS with premium streaming and OTT services.