Sunrise Taps Media Distillery to Enhance TV User Experience

Media Distillery, a provider of AI technology to understand what’s inside video, announces that Switzerland’s largest private telecommunications company Sunrise GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Global, has deployed EPG Correction Distillery™ to improve the video user experience for its digital TV customers.

Thanks to Media Distillery’s AI technology, which went live at Sunrise in May 2022, the operator’s DTV subscribers with the latest generation TV box now see accurate EPG start- and end-time information for their favourite programmes, at home and on the go with the Sunrise and UPC TV App. The solution is being applied to Sunrise’s 40 most watched TV channels. As a result, subscribers can select and view the most popular shows based on the precisely correct start- and end-times. Watching TV is therefore more enjoyable, the operator meanwhile benefits from improved customer satisfaction.

Media Distillery’s multi-year agreement with Sunrise is the first part of a new framework partnership between Liberty Global and Media Distillery which covers future additional Liberty Global network deployments. EPG Correction Distillery is fully integrated into Liberty Global’s next-generation Horizon 4 technology platform.

First Media Distillery-Gracenote solution deployment

Sunrise is also the first operator to benefit from the recently announced integration between Media Distillery and Gracenote, the content solutions pillar of Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN). With this joint solution, actual programme start- and end-times are automatically updated in the TV guide in near real-time for better content navigation, meanwhile having a single pre-integrated API yields resource efficiencies for the operator.

Chris van der Linden, Director of Entertainment Platforms at Liberty Global, said, “With our partnership with Media Distillery, we’re working with the industry’s leading experts in AI-enabled granular video understanding.”

“As it ingeniously harnesses video and data, EPG Correction Distillery has proven its scalability, making it the ideal technology to enhance user experiences for subscribers in all Liberty Global’s different operations; we look forward to continuing to work with Media Distillery as our multi-territory rollout progresses,” he adds.

Tina Rodriguez, Senior Director Entertainment at Sunrise, comments: "Inconsistencies between EPG information and the actual start and end-times of broadcasts can significantly impact the user experience – for example in replay mode or when setting recordings. EPG Correction Distillery helps us avoid these inconsistencies in the interest of a sustainable investment in customer satisfaction."

EPG Correction Distillery uses real-time analysis to make automatic adjustments across multiple channels to coincide with the actual start- and end-times of TV programmes as they are broadcast. As a result, users can navigate programmes more accurately, and enjoy a better viewing experience.

“We are extremely proud that EPG Connection Distillery is helping Sunrise deliver a more harmonious viewing experience to subscribers,” said Roland Sars, CEO of Media Distillery. “Looking at the broader picture, our partnership with Liberty Global is a source of huge pride to everyone at Media Distillery, and a launchpad for future collaborative innovation to delight subscribers across its regional operations,” he added.

The award-winning Media Distillery system uses Deep Content Understanding™ to identify and label features in audiovisual media automatically. TV service providers can leverage this to enhance the presentation of programmes and deliver better viewing experiences. Over 30 million homes worldwide are enjoying superior UX thanks to Media Distillery technology, whose customer base includes major operators such as Telenet, NOS, VTR Chile and YouSee.