Playout · Distribution · Monetisation

Your TV station. In one portal.

SmartPlay is the complete platform for running television channels online. Bring in your programmes, build the schedule and put the channel on air. Carry it in your own brand to every phone, browser and smart TV, hand it to partner platforms, fill its breaks with ads chosen per viewer, and see who watched and how well it played.

Talk to us From a file to every screen
Origin one stream in SmartPlay Playout Advertising Measurement SmartCast viewers

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24/7
playout from your own schedule
1 stream
on the backbone, whatever the audience
Per viewer
ad decisions, in every session
Your brand
on the portal, the player and the remote

Three things, done properly.

One portal for your team. One platform behind it, run by Viewcast.

01

Run

Programme and play out your channels

  • Upload programmes; transcoding and packaging start by themselves
  • A weekly grid that fills your days, or build a day by hand
  • Bumpers, idents and a slate between programmes
  • A guide built from the schedule
  • Dashboard, live preview and Multiview

02

Reach

Every screen, every partner

  • SmartCast to your viewers (OTT): one stream on the backbone, served near the viewer
  • Legacy egress to partner platforms: RTMP push and HLS pull
  • Your own player with casting, remote, guide and catch-up
  • Subtitles, QR codes and on-screen graphics

03

Earn

Monetise and measure

  • Server-side ad insertion: every viewer their own ads
  • SCTE-35 break markers any ad system can read
  • Waterfall: paid, direct, promos, filler, slate
  • Impressions counted once, by SmartPlay itself
  • Audience, quality of experience and usage

Run.

Programme your channels and put them on air, around the clock.

Your whole station at a glance.

Every channel, what is on now, and whether tomorrow is ready.

A channel page in the SmartPlay portal: live preview, engine status, delivery addresses and the schedule for today and tomorrow.
A channel page: live preview, engine status, deliveries and schedule.
Dashboard
Live channels, now playing, guide status and your library in one view.
Tomorrow, checked
A warning a day ahead when a channel has no playlist.
Live preview
Watch any channel in the portal, with its engine status: what is playing, what is next and whether subtitles are on.
Every address, live
Each delivery address with its own status, so nothing goes silent unseen.
Publish
One click puts a channel in front of your viewers, and Unpublish takes it offline.
Multiview
All live channels on one screen, with an audio meter per tile and 2×2, 3×2 or automatic layouts.
Playout and relays
Play your own schedule as one continuous live channel, or carry a channel made elsewhere as a relay.
Never empty
A slate, your own holding clip, fills any moment with nothing scheduled.

Plan once. Air every day.

In SmartPlay the schedule is the single source of truth for a channel: the playlist is built from it and the programme guide is derived from it.

The weekly grid: blocks per weekday with their rules, and the palette of series, labels and titles they draw from.
The weekly grid: blocks, rules and the pool they draw from.
Weekly grid
Seven days by twenty-four hours, set once. Blocks start at a set time on the weekdays you choose and repeat every week.
Five rules
Series picks up the next episode where it left off; fixed title, rotation, fill and repeat do the rest, with a repeat guard on every pool.
Month preview
Thirty days of exactly what will air, before anything is written. Warnings tell you when a series runs out and on which date.
Rolling schedule
Days are built ahead automatically, thirty by default, and topped up every day.
Day builder
Drag titles onto a timeline or a table. Every gap is listed and filled, by hand or in one click, until the day reads "No gaps".
Locks and templates
Lock a day or a window and the rest is rebuilt around it. Save a day as a template and apply it across any date range.
Dry run first
Preview the exact playlist before it is written, then publish. Publishing updates the on-air guide.
Bulk build
Fill up to 400 days at once from your library, shuffled with an anti-repeat window. Days you built or locked stay as they are.

From file to air.

Upload, and SmartPlay does the rest. Then decide what viewers see between programmes.

Playout media in the portal: ready titles with their durations and roles.
Playout media: ready titles with their roles and durations.
Upload anything
One file or a whole folder, with progress and time remaining. Uploads go up in 16 MB parts and resume exactly where a dropped line stopped them.
Automatic processing
Transcoded to your quality ladder and packaged for HLS by itself. A tick marks the title ready to schedule.
Labels and roles
Your own tags in 24 colours, visible on the timeline. Each title is main content, a short feature, a promo or a house ad.
Bumpers
At every programme change: your own clip, or a branded card that names what is on now, next and later.
Idents and slate
Your ident around short features, promos and house ads. The schedule reserves the time, so the day still closes on exactly 24 hours.
One format, all channels
Apply a channel format to every playout channel in one step, from one station library of idents, stings and backdrops.
Video on demand
A VOD library for finished titles, with draft, publish and archive.
Subtitles per title
Add tracks per language right in the library.

Your name on every screen.

Portal, player and phone remote carry your station. No code needed.

Player design in the portal, with the live preview beside the settings.
Player design, with the live preview beside it.
Identity
Station name, logo, three brand colours and your own login welcome, with a live preview.
Channel bug
Your logo permanently in the corner of the picture.
Player design
Frame, watermark, control bar, buttons, seek bar and typography.
Remote design
The phone remote in your colours and words, with the sections you choose.
Your team
Viewer, editor and admin roles for every user.
Your quality
Pick the ladder, 240p to 1080p, and the bitrate of each rung.

Reach.

Every screen and every partner, from one stream.

Ten thousand viewers. One stream.

A CDN sends a copy to every viewer. SmartCast sends your channel once onto the backbone and replicates it hop by hop, and end nodes close to the audience serve the viewers.

How SmartCast works
A CDN 80 Gbit/s one copy per viewer SmartCast 8 Mbit/s one stream on the backbone

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Illustration: one HD channel at 8 Mbit/s, ten thousand viewers. 10,000 copies at 8 Mbit/s is 80 Gbit/s.
One stream per channel
On the backbone, whatever the size of the audience. The backbone carries one 8 Mbit/s stream for ten viewers or ten thousand.
Nearest end node
The master hands each player its own playlist and points it to the closest end node. The video flows from there; the master never touches it.
Steered per playlist
The master decides playlist by playlist, so if an end node fails, the next playlist points elsewhere.
Counted in delivery
Every join and leave is reported back to the master, with no cookie, player script or plugin, and nothing for an ad blocker to remove.
One switch
Switch SmartCast on per channel: no ports, no addresses, and you get a watch link.

On your platform. And on theirs.

SmartCast takes the channel to your own viewers. Legacy egress hands the same channel to partner platforms and to the broadcast chains that already exist, chosen per channel, from the same schedule.

One channel one playout bus SmartCast to your viewers (OTT), at scale Legacy egress · to partner platforms RTMP push HLS pull SRT / MPEG-TS

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Schematic. Outputs are chosen per channel in the portal and run beside playout.

SmartCast

To your viewers: OTT

  • Viewers watch over HLS on any phone, browser or smart TV, with adaptive quality
  • One stream per channel on the backbone; end nodes close to the viewers serve them
  • Every join and leave counted in delivery itself
  • One switch per channel; you get a watch link

Legacy egress

To partner platforms

  • RTMP push: destination, stream key, one switch
  • HLS pull: a link on your own domain, with a secret path and the ladder you choose; rotate it any time
  • Dedicated SRT and MPEG-TS feeds into a broadcaster's existing encoders, multiplexers and playout chains
  • Runs beside playout: switching an output off never stops the channel

Channel Store

More channels, no playout

  • A curated library of live channels, searchable by name, id and country
  • Add a channel to your account as a relay in one click
  • Publish it next to your own channels
  • Feed health checked at the source

Deliveries and guides

For partners

  • Send a feed straight from a source to a partner, with live status and a pull link per output
  • Share your programme guide as XMLTV, with your overrides and blocks
  • Hand a partner the stream with its break markers, and their ad system fills the breaks
  • "Stop all deliveries" asks you to type the channel name first

A player that feels like yours.

Your brand and your channels, on the phone and on the big screen.

The phone remote, designed in the portal, with its live preview.
The phone remote, designed in the portal.
Watch anywhere
One web player for every channel: channel list, live, picture-in-picture and fullscreen. It installs on the home screen and opens like an app.
Adaptive quality
Starts on Auto and follows the connection; viewers can fix a quality or set their default.
Cast to the TV
Chromecast and AirPlay. While casting, the phone becomes the remote.
Phone remote
Scan a QR code once: now playing, channels, volume, favourites and the guide, in your colours.
TV Guide
Channels against the clock from yesterday to seven days ahead, built from your schedule. Now and Next refresh every minute.
Catch-up
Recorded programmes carry a marker in the guide, and viewers press Re-watch.
Subtitles
Tracks in any language, uploaded as WebVTT or a common subtitle file and converted automatically. A separate track, never burned in, and the viewer's choice always wins.
Kept in sync
An automatic timing check compares where speech starts with the subtitle lines. A track a second or more off is held back until the file is corrected.
Live subtitles
Speech to text on a live channel, delivered as whole readable lines, translated sentence by sentence and timed on the picture's own clock.

Turn viewers into visitors.

QR codes and graphics drawn into the picture, so they show on every screen.

A QR card on air on the TV, the page it opens on the phone, and the scan count.
Scan for tickets: the TV, the phone and the count.
QR codes
For a brand, sponsor, campaign, event, artist or venue, with your destination, as PNG or SVG.
Every scan counted
A tracked short link counts the scan, then forwards. Disable a code and it stops forwarding.
QR card on air
Heading, style, place and size; how long it shows and how often; over programmes, over the ads or always, with start and end dates.
What you see goes out
The card is burned into the picture by SmartPlay, in the same spot in HD and 4K, and the preview is the server's own render.
Lower thirds and tickers
Plus logo bugs, and now, next and later filled from your guide, with a live preview.
Bound to what airs
Static, tied to a programme or tied to the ad breaks, and saved as templates to reuse across channels.

Earn.

The same programme for everyone. The right ads for each of them.

Every viewer gets their own ads.

SmartPlay writes the ads into each viewer's playlist on the server. The player plays one stream, with no ad logic in any app.

One manifest cue out cue in Live Ad pod Live

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Schematic. The break is spliced into the playlist between a cue out and a cue in, so the run of segments never leaves the stream.
SCTE-35 markers
Every scheduled break becomes a CUE-OUT and CUE-IN pair, written in three forms so any ad system can read it.
Waterfall
Paid sources first, then directly sold spots, then your own promos, then filler, and the slate covers whatever remains.
Per session
Ad decisions and frequency are made per viewing session. Viewers who join mid-break get the rest of it, and everyone returns to the programme together at the cue-in.
Standard ad serving
VAST: the ad server says which video, how long and where to report. Campaigns carry several creatives, such as 15- and 30-second versions.
Ready before the break
The ad mill transcodes every creative to the channel's format and cuts it to its segment grid ahead of time, so no viewer waits for a transcode.
Break layouts
Positions with their own length and allowed sources. The marker sets the length, nothing runs past it, and no spot plays twice in one break.
Impressions
One impression each time an ad is delivered into a session, counted once per session, ad, break and hour by SmartPlay itself. Advertiser tracking links are called as well.
Safe by default
Ads go in only when insertion is on for the channel and the feed is healthy; otherwise the stream passes through untouched.
You sell, or we sell
Revenue models are built in: sell your own ads, or let us sell them for you. Or hand the stream with its markers and slate to a distributor who fills the break.

Know who watched. And how well it played.

Measured in the player while people watch, and counted in delivery wherever SmartCast carries the channel.

Analytics in the portal: audience and quality for the last 30 days, with sessions over time.
Analytics: audience and quality, for any period.
Audience
Viewer sessions, watch hours, live now and peak, average delivered bitrate, and a line per channel.
Quality of experience
Rebuffering, startup time, error rate and the quality mix.
Reach
Geography, device and platform, and bandwidth.
Any period
Today, 7, 30 or 90 days, or all time, per channel. The page tells "no data yet" apart from "analytics unavailable" and shows how fresh the data is.
Live dashboard
Your numbers, updated as viewers watch.
Usage
Viewer hours and gigabytes delivered, metered hourly from the same player reports, with a CSV for every closed month.

How do you count your own viewers without cookies?

On SmartCast, every end node reports join and leave events over a TLS backchannel, so the count comes from the delivery layer itself, with no browser cookie, tracking pixel or third-party script.

A viewer on a television, on a set-top box or in an app that has no cookie store at all is counted exactly like a viewer in a browser, because the counting never depended on the browser.

We describe it as a measurement architecture and nothing more: IP addresses are personal data, and what that means for your consent obligations is a question for your counsel.

Questions about the count

Is the viewer count a sample or a model?
Neither. Every viewer arrives through an end node, and that end node reports the join and the leave over a TLS backchannel. We count in the delivery path.
Are viewers on televisions and set-top boxes counted?
Yes, exactly like a viewer in a browser, because the counting never depended on the browser. There is no cookie to set, no pixel to load and no third-party script to block.
What does the portal show per channel?
Viewer sessions, watch hours, live now and peak, delivered bitrate, quality of experience, and geography, device and platform, for today, 7, 30 or 90 days or all time.
Is measurement priced separately?
No. Measurement and per-channel reporting are included.
Does counting without cookies settle consent?
We describe it as a measurement architecture and nothing more: IP addresses are personal data, and what that means for your consent obligations is a question for your counsel.
Platform join and leave events, over a TLS backchannel Endnodes viewers

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Schematic. Node positions illustrate the hierarchy; they are not an inventory.

Partners · resellers

Sell SmartPlay under your own name.

A reseller account runs its own clients on SmartPlay. Each client is a full station, with its own channels, users and brand, and you keep the overview.

Clients
Create broadcaster or relay accounts, each with its own login.
Their brand
Logo, three colours and login text per client, with a live preview.
Quotas
Channels, viewer hours and gigabytes per month, with usage against limits as bars.
Their team
Logins as viewer or editor; suspend, reactivate or archive a client, and suspending keeps the data.
View as client
A read-only look at each client's account and branding.
One roll-up
Every client's usage per month, with CSV export.

Viewcast · service

Watched over, around the clock.

Operations

Viewcast's command center

  • Every delivery on air, and whether it delivers
  • Alerts grouped into incidents, each with its fault code, its meaning and the first step
  • Critical and recurring incidents investigated by the platform, with the cause named and every fact timed and sourced
  • The repair proposed, checked and reviewed, with a person giving the final go
  • Playlist and subtitle alarms that warn before viewers notice

Support

Help that asks first

  • Co-browsing support: nothing is seen until you click Allow
  • Password and payment fields masked in your own browser
  • A Stop button that stays on screen, and taking over needs a second, separate yes
  • Every session logged under the helper's name

Academy

Learn on your own screens

  • The SmartPlay Academy inside the portal, under Help
  • Paths for broadcasters, and for relay and reseller accounts
  • Each lesson works on the real screens and ends with a task on your own account
  • A guided tour of the portal
Uptime: the record and the target

From a file to every screen.

  1. 1

    Content

    Upload, transcode, package, label, subtitle.

  2. 2

    Schedule

    Weekly grid, day builder, channel format, guide.

  3. 3

    Playout

    One continuous channel, with slate, bumpers and QR cards.

  4. 4

    Delivery

    SmartCast to viewers; legacy egress (RTMP push, HLS pull) to partners.

  5. 5

    Viewers

    Your player, cast, remote, guide and catch-up.

Ads per viewer

Breaks from the schedule, filled per session by the stitcher.

Measured in the player

Audience, quality of experience and usage from one source.

Watched over

Your team in the portal; Viewcast operations behind it.

Technical specifications

Content

Upload
Files or folders, 16 MB parts, retry and resume
Processing
Transcoding to your ABR ladder, HLS packaging
Quality ladder
240p, 480p, 720p, 1080p; bitrate per rung
Roles
Main, short feature, promo, house ad
Labels
Own tags, 24 colours
Relays
Channel Store, feed health at source

Scheduling

Weekly grid
7 × 24 h; series, fixed title, rotation, fill, repeat
Rolling schedule
Days built ahead, 30 by default, topped up daily
Bulk build
1 to 400 days, anti-repeat window, dry run
Templates
Any date range, with recurrence
Guide
Built from the schedule; XMLTV export, overrides
Channel format
Bumpers, idents, slate; cards 2 to 30 s

Delivery

SmartCast (OTT)
To viewers over HLS, adaptive bitrate; one stream per channel on the backbone; master, end nodes, replication per hop
Audience
Joins and leaves counted in SmartCast delivery
Legacy egress
To partner platforms: RTMP push; HLS pull with rotatable URL
Outputs
Beside playout; an output off never stops the channel

Viewer

Player
Web player, installable on the home screen
TV
Chromecast and AirPlay
Remote
Phone remote by QR code
Subtitles
WebVTT per language, auto-converted, sync check, live subtitles
Catch-up
Re-watch from the TV Guide

Advertising

Insertion
Server-side, per viewing session
Markers
SCTE-35 CUE-OUT / CUE-IN, three forms
Ad servers
VAST; waterfall with slate fallback
Breaks
Positions with length and allowed sources
Reporting
Impressions and tracking links

Platform

Accounts
Multi-tenant; resellers with sub-accounts
Roles
Viewer, editor, admin
Branding
Portal, player, remote, channel bug
Measurement
Player telemetry, QoE, hourly metering
Support
Consent-based co-browsing, Academy

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