Showing posts from tagged with: Airmont

Airmont’s Streaming Optimization

Article by Chris Clifford

25.06.23

STREAMING AHEAD

Live TV on board without interruptions, and with all the extra features you’d expect

Airmont has revolutionised the streaming and TV experience on private or chartered yachts with their innovative solution, and by offering live TV channels available anywhere on the open sea and without technical interruptions.

For many people, watching TV programmes or streamed films is a way of relaxing while on holiday. The introduction of high-speed internet via satellite creates a desire to watch TV everywhere a yacht travels.

Airmont, a leading French technical company, has developed cutting-edge software and hardware solutions allowing yacht operators to make use of their existing internet connection seamlessly without exceeding the Gbyte plan of the subscription. Their expertise lies in providing exceptional streaming capabilities for passengers on various modes of transportation, including yachts, but also business jets. The technology is proven with more than 10000 hours of use at sea and in-flight, since 2019.

The key to Airmont’s live TV solution is its Streaming Optimization service, which focuses on transparently optimizing video streaming experiences. This service lies on their patented technology “Airmont- Cast” and leverages the popular “cast” icon, so users can watch their own subscribed streaming content on the yacht’s screen. Traditional streaming services often require substantial bandwidth, which can be a challenge in remote areas or when relying on satellite connections. By subscribing to Airmont’s Streaming Optimization service, yacht owners and charter guests can enjoy uninterrupted, high-quality screen time while utilizing significantly less internet bandwidth.

The solution is easy to deploy over the existing internet connection of the yacht. It requires one Airmont Gateway per yacht and can be displayed via Apple TV, iPad, or even directly on LG smart TVs. Airmont Gateway is available in three modes: Airmont Gateway Mini, supporting two simultaneous streams, Airmont Gateway 4G, similar to AG Mini with battery and 4G modem; and the most popular solution for yachts, Airmont Gateway Multi, supporting up to 10 simultaneous streams. Once onboard equipment is selected, it is necessary to subscribe to the Streaming Optimization service which is available with a comprehensive set of ‘service levels’, providing various levels of compression, and capabilities such as automatic Fall back to L-band satellite links like Iridium or Inmarsat.

This solution brings the comfort of home entertainment straight to the yacht. Passengers can easily access worldwide live content, including popular channels such as CNN, Bloomberg, and Cartoon Network. Many other channels are available for all screens on board with cleared rights making it a perfect service for chartered yachts.

The combination of uninterrupted streaming, optimization of bandwidth usage, and additional features such as worldwide Live TV packages, has positioned Airmont as a leader in delivering exceptional entertainment experiences on yachts.

To try the service, Airmont offers a simple all-in-one Discovery Kit, composed of one Airmont Gateway Mini and 50 hours of streaming optimization on up to 2 streams, the Airmont Optimization Discovery Kit can be purchased online for a price of 850 EUR.

For more details visit www.airmont.com

Streaming technology onboard

Article by Chris Clifford

18.05.22

Streaming seems to be simple but fulfilling this expectation can be a real technical challenge, especially where only satellite internet is available and the bandwidth is limited

Airmont is a French technology company which develops innovative software solutions and services to enable seamless on-the-move digital experience on sea, land or air throughout the world. Their patent ‘Data Casting’ represents the cornerstone of its technology aimed at making passengers’ streaming a reality on yachts, aircrafts and trains. The service ‘STREAMING OPTIMIZATION’ based on this technology, focuses on seamlessly optimizing the video streaming experience by relying on the popular ‘cast’ icon user interface of the passengers’ streaming apps. It is particularly beneficial to drastically reduce the cost of streaming over expensive internet connections like VSAT and HTS satellite links.

So with Airmont’s Streaming Optimization service, owners and guests on the yacht can both enjoy uninterrupted quality ‘screen time’, and use much less internet bandwidth thanks to the data compression technology.

But what is the technical background of casting your content?
Applications on smartphones and tablets remain the easiest way to select streaming content. Companies have designed their applications for intuitive user interfaces tailored to a touch screen. Accessing this streaming over a TV can often be more complicated without this touch screen ability. However, there is a simple solution to get the interface of smartphones and tablets on a big screen and this is where the Airmont technology comes in to play.

Casting
Casting makes use of your smartphone, tablet or even computer to select the content shown on the TV screen. But even if the end goal is the same, the user should understand that there are two types of casting: mirroring and application cast.

Mirroring sends the content of your personal device to the TV screen but it suffers from two major drawbacks. First, users can only mirror their whole screen including virtual keyboard and all control panels rather than just projecting a dedicated

application. Second, the personal device is the one getting the content and transmitting it to the user. This limits the resolution of the stream and forces the user’s device to be permanently connected.

Application cast is a much more efficient way of casting video streams. The portable device only sends information about the desired video. The Chromecast will then open the right application (Netflix, YouTube, Disney+ etc.) with the ID sent by the portable device and will get the stream. The portable device is not needed after that, users can disconnect it from the local network or use their phone for other purposes without any interference on the TV broadcast. The resolution is also set to fit the target screen.

Application cast is preferable but how can you use it? What do you need to configure it on your phone or tablet to be able to cast? That is the beauty of it - nothing. Everything is done automatically once the user’s smartphone is connected to the local wifi. When an application that can be cast is started on your device (like Netflix, YouTube, Disney+… ), the device will discover the cast compatible devices on the local network and the following cast icon will appear on the personal device:

The user just needs to press the cast icon to ask the cast device to get its content. It is that easy to access to your streaming content on a TV screen. But with limited internet connection, like on the satellite internet link of a superyacht, guests may suffer from buffering, disconnection and inefficient bandwidth sharing between streaming applications. For example, Netflix requires 5 Mbps for HD streaming and 3 Mbps for SD streaming.

With Airmont’s patented solution, by subscribing to “Streaming Optimization” service, yacht passengers can benefit from the cast user-friendly interface and enjoy their streaming content in Full HD at only 2 Mbps, or in SD at 700 kbps, while all streams are managed using minimal bandwidth, limiting satellite internet costs.

To learn more about Airmont’s streaming technology
please visit: www.airmont.com

Airmont’s Streaming Optimization

STREAMING AHEAD

Streaming technology onboard

Get ONBOARD