E-Guide | Are Your Smart TV OTT Apps Up to Scratch? Four UX Must-Haves for Big Screens
The direction of travel for in-home streaming is clear. While mobile still dominates short-form viewing, Smart TVs now reign supreme in the living room. By 2026, at least 50% of global households, or around 1.1 billion homes, are expected to own one.
But with sky-high demand comes equally high expectations. On Smart TVs, every second counts. If users struggle to log in, cannot find content quickly, or encounter clunky playback, they will leave and may not return.
That is why we have created our new free guide: “Are Your Smart TV OTT Apps Up to Scratch? Four UX Must-Haves for Big Screens.” Drawing on years of experience building and optimising Smart TV OTT apps across platforms like Samsung, LG, Android TV, and Vizio, we have identified the UX essentials that can make or break engagement with your service.
What You Will Learn in the Guide
In under 10 minutes, you will gain actionable insights into the four areas where OTT apps succeed or fail on the big screen:
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Onboarding that converts. How to turn curiosity into commitment in under 60 seconds.
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Navigation that just makes sense. Cut the friction and help viewers get to content faster.
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Family-friendly and accessible UX. Why inclusivity is not optional and how to get it right.
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Performance that delights. Optimise speed, reliability, and smooth playback to reduce churn risk.
You will also discover future-proof trends shaping Smart TV experiences so you can stay ahead of user expectations.
If you are a niche or mid-sized OTT service, you are already competing with streaming giants like Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon. You may not have their budgets, but with the right UX, you can deliver a polished big-screen experience that keeps audiences engaged.
Get the Free Guide
Smart TV apps are not just another device. They are the place where your service needs to shine. Small improvements to UX can translate into big gains in sign-ups, retention, and satisfaction. Download the guide now and learn the four Smart TV UX must-haves that can help your OTT app truly compete on the big screen.
Want to discuss your Smart TV strategy and how to improve engagement on the big screen? Contact us to start the conversation.
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First Impressions on the Big Screen: How to Nail OTT Onboarding
When it comes to Smart TV OTT apps, every second counts. Creating a good first impression is essential. In a space where users expect near-instant access to content, a slow or clunky onboarding experience can mean the difference between a loyal subscriber and a lost viewer.
At Magine Pro, we’ve worked with dozens of niche and mid-sized streaming services to elevate their Smart TV experiences. In this post, we’ll walk you through the key components of a successful onboarding flow and the friction points to avoid—especially for apps designed for the big screen.
The Friction Factor
Smart TVs are not mobile phones. Typing, tapping, and navigating with a remote control is inherently slower and more awkward. That means any unnecessary step or small delay feels amplified. The goal of onboarding should be to remove as much friction as possible.
So what are the common friction points?
- Forced registration before browsing
- Manual email/password entry using the TV remote
- Settings that don’t carry over from other devices
- Poor navigation and confusing menus
Each of these adds seconds (or even minutes) to the time it takes for a new user to reach content. Let’s look at how OTT services can save valuable seconds to make a real impact on engagement and retention.
1. Let Viewers Browse Before They Sign Up
Many OTT apps still ask for full registration before the user can do anything. If you have a marketing budget the size of Netflix or Disney, that’s fine: you can safely assume viewers will know at least some of the flagship content in your service before they download your app. But for AVOD services, and even smaller SVODs who hope users will find them because they’re featured in the Samsung or LG TV app store, it’s essential to tempt viewers in. Help them quickly answer the question: Is this service for me? What kind of content do they have?
We recommend enabling anonymous browsing to give potential users a feel for the platform before making a commitment. You can even allow limited content playback (e.g., trailers or selected episodes) to spark interest before login.
Benefits of anonymous access:
- Reduces the initial barrier to entry for a smoother first-time experience
- Gives users a reason to register (after seeing something they want to watch) for increased conversion rates
2. Don’t Make Them Reach for the Remote
One of the worst parts of Smart TV onboarding? Typing. Even if you’re doing all the initial sign-up on a PC or phone, it’s still painful to enter your username and password one letter at a time with a clunky remote. That kind of experience sends users running – especially if they’re sitting down because they want to watch something now.
QR code login flows are a great way to solve this challenge. Your Smart TV app displays a code on screen, which the user scans with their phone. New users are directed to sign up on their mobile interface. Existing users just sign in on the phone, and the TV app is instantly paired to their account.
This approach works because it:
- Removes painful remote typing
- Speeds up access to content
- Feels modern and user-friendly
You can see how we implemented this in practice in our case study.
3. Strive for Consistency Across Devices
Smart TVs are rarely the only screen your viewers use. They may have set subtitle preferences or created profiles for their household when they signed up via a web browser or on your mobile app. Forcing them to repeat all those steps on a new device creates frustration.
It’s far better to eliminate friction by syncing personal settings automatically when a user logs into a Smart TV app, even for the first time.
Key preferences to sync include:
- Preferred language for audio
- Subtitle visibility and size
- Profile selection
When users feel like the platform “remembers” them across screens, it builds trust. More importantly, it reduces the time spent finding and fiddling with settings before they can start watching.
4. Design for the “10-Foot” Experience
Smart TV UX is not a scaled-up mobile UI. It’s a unique use case that requires a clear layout, strong visual cues, and intuitive controls. Users are navigating with arrows, not fingers or even mouse clicks.
During onboarding, these design principles matter more than ever:
- Use familiar patterns: Keep menu structures and focus states predictable
- Prioritise clarity: Avoid clutter or dense text, especially in sign-up/sign-in forms
- Highlight content early: Use hero areas, featured carousels, or video previews to draw users in
- Show progress: If onboarding has multiple steps, make it clear where the user is in the process
If you’re introducing features like profile creation or onboarding tips, make them skippable or time-limited—nobody opens a Smart TV app hoping for a tutorial!
Want some more tips for improving your UX across both big screens and small? Download our UX guide, Behind the Screens, for more design principles.
Onboarding That Converts: Our Takeaways
A well-designed onboarding flow is your first chance to impress. Done right, it can turn a curious viewer into a loyal user in under 60 seconds. Done poorly, it can lead to drop-off before your app even shows its strengths.
So here’s a reminder of our recommendations:
- Let users browse (and maybe even watch) before they register
- Use QR login to eliminate remote-control pain
- Sync preferences to make the experience feel personal
- Keep visual layout clean and familiar for Smart TV use
- Avoid anything that delays content access
At Magine Pro, we’ve helped streaming services, both large and small, rethink their Smart TV experience to drive engagement, reduce churn, and meet user expectations from day one.
The onboarding process is just one of the areas to focus on. Want to see how these tips work in a live Smart TV app? Book a demo with our team and learn how Magine Pro helps OTT services build high-performing Smart TV apps.
Speed Matters: How Performance Shapes Smart TV UX
Speed makes or breaks the Smart TV user experience. To build viewer engagement, it’s important to eliminate as much friction as possible in the viewing experience. And the performance, including response time and smoothness, of your apps is crucial to that.
Every Second Counts
Depending on the device model and app configuration, startup time can range from nearly instant to over ten seconds. How much difference does a few seconds make? Research shows viewers start to abandon a video that takes any more than two seconds to start. The abandonment rate rises by 5.8% for each additional second of delay.
At Magine Pro, we’ve spent a lot of time and energy optimising the performance of the big screen apps available with our white-label OTT platform. These help niche streaming services to reach a wide range of devices – from Samsung and LG, to Android TV, Vizio and more.
Here are some of the things we’ve done to cut playback friction for end-users. If your apps aren’t doing these, it may be time to make some important changes:
- Prioritise visible content. Instead of loading the entire page at once, we focus on loading only the visible parts of the screen, such as the first rows of carousels or featured content. Additional items are loaded dynamically as the user scrolls or navigates. This keeps the app feeling faster and more responsive while avoiding unnecessary loading times for content that users might never interact with.
- Preload video in the background. When a user opens a details page, there’s a strong chance they’re about to start watching. By discreetly preloading key playback data in the background, we reduce the time it takes for the video to start after they press “Play.” This minimises friction at a critical moment and creates a smoother user experience.
- Optimise buffering to balance speed and stability. A good user experience isn’t just about how quickly a video starts – it’s also about how reliably it plays. We buffer just enough content to help ensure smooth playback, while still keeping the initial load time short. If we buffer too little, users might experience interruptions or rebuffering after playback starts. If we buffer too much, the initial load time becomes unnecessarily long. On Smart TVs, where network conditions and device performance can vary widely, finding the right balance is crucial.
- Dedicate system resources to playback. Once the video starts, the app prioritises playback above all else. On lower-end Smart TVs especially, background activities like layout recalculations, animations, or fetching non-critical data can consume system resources that are much needed for smooth video playback. This can lead to dropped frames, audio sync issues, or even crashes – all of which harm the user experience. Dedicating resources to playback helps promote uninterrupted and high-quality streaming.
Create the Illusion of Increased Performance
Sometimes, you can make adjustments that create the perception of improved performance. For example, Magine Pro added support for a splash screen video, replacing the traditional static image shown when the app launches. Instead of staring at an unchanging screen, users can now experience an animation or short video, making the wait feel shorter and more engaging. This is a good example of perceived performance: even if the actual loading time remains the same, the experience feels smoother and faster. Especially on Smart TVs, where app startup can take a few seconds, this simple shift can significantly improve first impressions.
Adapt Animations to Match Lower-End Device Capability
Another important consideration is whether you can simplify animations within your apps. While smooth animations can greatly enhance the UX on high-end devices, older and low-end Smart TVs often struggle to render complex transitions or effects. Instead of forcing animations that end up looking clunky or laggy, it’s sometimes better to simplify – or even remove – movement altogether. In many cases, a cleaner, more static UI actually feels smoother and more polished than a jerky animation would. By adjusting animation complexity based on device capabilities, we ensure the app feels responsive and professional across a wide range of TVs.
Looking Ahead to the Future of Smart TV Video App Performance
Developing for Smart TVs is a constant battle between creating the best app experience for users on the latest high-end devices and maintaining support for older, legacy devices. If you’re wondering how the latest trends in big screen tech from the giants like Samsung and LG should influence your app development strategy, you should check out this blog from our Magine Pro colleague Rami Baarah. He looks forward to a future where performance tweaks like those we’ve described may become less necessary as on-board AI within the screens takes care of upscaling for us!
More Than Just A Pretty UI: Smart TV Performance Impacts the Bottom Line
Speed is more than a UX concern, it’s a business-critical factor because it directly affects viewer engagement, satisfaction, and retention. A sluggish experience can lead users to abandon your app before they ever see your content. At Magine Pro, we believe in performance-led design, where every interaction is optimised to drive value. Whether you’re building a premium VOD service or catering to a niche audience, investing in performance ensures your big-screen apps keep users watching and coming back for more.
Want to know how Magine Pro helps OTT services like Passionflix to master the Big Screen with apps for a wide range of Smart TVs? Download our e-guide: Go big or stay small? Why the Smart TV experience is essential for online streaming services.
The Return to TV: Why Viewers Choose Bigger Screens in the Streaming Era
Fifteen years ago, LG launched the first big-screen TVs with built-in streaming software, marking a pivotal moment in entertainment. Netflix, fresh from its DVD rental roots, embraced this shift and became a trailblazer in the streaming world. Reading this 2009 article from Wired is like peering into the past; There’s no mention of ‘apps’ or app stores, just “directly embedded software,” with a prescient observation about the future: “At this rate, those red Netflix envelopes in the mail could soon become a collector’s item.”
Fast forward to today, and the pace of change in TV viewing habits hasn’t slowed—it’s skyrocketed. Streaming services that focus solely on mobile devices or a limited range of TV platforms are at risk of falling behind. The barriers to distribution across all major TV platforms – whether due to cost, supplier limitations, or technical hurdles – are real, but the rewards of expansion are significant.
Video viewers are three times more likely to prefer watching on the Big Screen
This month saw the publication of the latest TiVo Video Trends Report with some eye-catching figures on big screen usage. Respondents to the Q2 2024 survey were around three times more likely to prefer watching video on TV than on smaller devices like phones, tablets, and PCs. This preference is especially pronounced for long-form content like TV shows and movies, while short-form content remains more popular on smartphones and tablets.
In the early days of OTT, the focus was on enabling viewers to watch content on any device, anytime, and anywhere, especially on mobile devices. While this on-the-go viewing experience remains appealing, the latest figures demonstrate that television is still the dominant choice for long-form content. As Smart TVs continue to evolve, equipped with major streaming apps for seamless access, their popularity is set to grow. In fact, the TiVo report also indicates that 45.1% of respondents cite built-in streaming apps as a key reason for purchasing a Smart TV, highlighting the enduring value of the big screen for viewers.
This growing preference for TVs as the primary device for consuming VOD content presents a substantial monetisation opportunity for streaming operators. By expanding distribution across more TV platforms, operators can tap into a broader audience and increase revenue streams. The pace of this shift is further reflected in data from Statista, in cooperation with NPAW, which examined VOD consumption per device worldwide. The findings indicate that TV remains a central player in the streaming ecosystem, increasingly squeezing out all other devices.
It’s no surprise then that the most common conversation we had with streaming services at IBC 2024 revolved around the evolving TV ecosystem and the challenges of building and maintaining bespoke applications across multiple platforms. Streaming operators are increasingly aware that viewers expect their services to be available across a range of devices, and they are eager to meet that demand. However, the landscape is becoming more complex, with companies like Amazon rumoured to be planning to introduce a new platform in 2025 and Samsung updating its operating system. This evolution makes it increasingly challenging for operators to manage and maintain their TV software ecosystems independently.
At Magine Pro, we understand these complexities and are equipped to help operators navigate them. Our extensive experience with multiple TV platforms, including Smart TV apps, positions us as a trusted partner for those looking to migrate to a more robust distribution model. While transitioning to a new platform can seem daunting, we can help mitigate risks and ensure a smooth process, allowing operators to capitalise on new opportunities.
Embracing change is crucial in the media and entertainment landscape. Learn more about switching to Magine Pro in our ebook, OTT Migration Made Easy. And if you’re interested in finding out about the benefits of being on the big screen, don’t miss our Whitepaper featuring case studies from the likes of US SVOD service Passionflix.
Why OTT services are switching technology platforms: The key trends driving change
If you’ve been operating your OTT service for a while now, but you’re struggling to take it to the next level, you’re not alone! Magine Pro’s CEO Matthew Wilkinson looks at the market demands that are driving OTT services to migrate away from starter-platforms in search of the features and functionality that will help them tackle churn, grow ARPU, and build customer satisfaction.
Making Headway in a Maturing Streaming Market
The streaming market is maturing. Hundreds of OTT services have launched in the past few years, from gigantic launches like Disney+ to smaller services that thrive by identifying a content niche and super-serving its fans. But many of these smaller niche services got their start in OTT on low-cost technology platforms like Vimeo or Viewlift. Now they’re finding the limitations of those platforms are acting as a brake on their growth.
Naturally, switching technology platforms comes with some discomfort. Most services will hold-off as long as they can. So what makes them finally take the plunge? From the many conversations we have with OTT services every month, here are some of the key reasons they’re looking to move to a more fully-featured OTT platform. Perhaps you can identify with some (or all) of these challenges?
Being Part of The Big Screen Battle
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- The number one complaint we hear from OTT services is that their current technology platform doesn’t allow them to reach popular Smart TV brands like LG,Samsung and Vizio. At a time when viewership on these devices is exploding, content providers can’t afford to miss the boat. Research suggests Smart TVs now account for half of all adult streaming viewing.
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- But even where platforms can provide a tick in the box for LG and Samsung, we hear from OTT services who are disappointed to discover app support only goes back a few years or lacks the feature depth coverage or quality. With the average Smart TV having an in-home shelf-life of closer to 7-10 years, it’s important to find a platform that offers apps for older models of device.
If you’re not sure whether it’s worth making the switch to a new OTT platform to get access to Big Screen apps, we highly recommend checking out the pros and cons in our whitepaper: Go Big or Stay Small?
Maximising Revenue With Hybrid Business Models
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Smaller SVOD services are looking to capitalise on the blended monetisation approaches adopted by their bigger rivals. They’d like to provide a multi-package offering, with cheaper subscriptions for viewers who are willing to watch some level of advertising, and a premium package for those who want (and can afford) to go ad-free. Or to segment their packages for different video content catalogues to offer, for example, a sports subscription, or documentary subscription as unbundled offers alongside a “total” subscription that covers both.
- Many OTT services that launched with pure SVOD now find it difficult to pivot because their technology platform doesn’t offer AVOD or doesn’t have support for ad-insertion based on the SCTE-35 markers that are used in broadcast television.
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As with big screen support, with AVOD the devil is in the detail. Platforms that promise AVOD support often struggle to offer billing adaptability. They force content providers to choose one business model per asset, rather than supporting a choice of ways to watch the same movie or TV show.
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At the business end, platforms often struggle with handling revenue assurance and churn prevention (active & passive churn). Often platform providers will only deliver simple dunning mechanisms, if any, rather than look at toolsets to actively manage passive and active churn.
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You’ll find lots of OTT case studies and advice on picking the right monetisation models in our Whitepaper, The Profit Playbook.
User Experience Challenges That Damage Engagement and Loyalty
As the streaming market matures, so do the tastes of viewers. We’ve all become used to the high-quality UX of the industry’s big players and expect the same wherever we watch.
We hear constantly from OTT services that are looking to switch to a new technology platform to gain support for premium features that improve UX and have a proven impact on engagement, features like:
- AI/ML-powered personalisation of content
- Automatic trailer previews & clear user calls to action
- Full multi-language localisation of apps, metadata, and content (including support for multi-track audio and multi-language subtitles)
These features are essential to ARPU growth and churn reduction. The image below shows even more UX elements you should look out for when shopping for a new OTT platform:
Perhaps you’re also coming to realise the limitations imposed by your platform in terms of app configurability? Do your apps look just the same as all the others? Do they really speak to your brand? To really stand out and grow in the market you need the ability to choose from more than a handful of fonts, menus and languages for localising your apps. Find out more about how to build apps that are truly tailored to your brand identity here.
Solving The Headaches of Niche Streaming Services
Do these challenges sound familiar? At Magine Pro, we’ve been where you are. Having operated a B2C streaming service before offering our OTT platform as a SaaS solution to other OTT services, we know that moving platforms is a daunting prospect. But the challenges outlined above show that it’s worth making the move to a new platform that offers big-screen apps, business model flexibility, and an attractive user experience.
The trick is to find a vendor that understands your challenges and offers all the features you need for now and the future, so you don’t need to contemplate another switch in two or four years’ time. Our team has significant experience in supporting other OTT services to migrate. You’ll find more information in this recent blog post, where our Head of Engineering and Operations, Marcus Lindén, outlines the key challenges involved and walks through some of the decisions you’ll need to make to smooth your migration journey.
Ready to Overcome Your OTT Platform Limitations?
To discuss with our experts how the Magine Pro OTT platform can help you overcome some of the limitations of your existing technology provider, book a meeting with our team.