Give Viewers a Live-First Experience: Introducing the FAST Channel Feature from Magine Pro
Linear-style content is making a comeback, and for good reason. With so much content available on demand, many viewers crave simplicity, curation, and the ease of just tuning in. That’s where Magine Pro’s new FAST channel feature comes in.
Available across web, mobile, and Smart TV platforms, this new feature allows our customers to create a fully integrated FAST (Free Ad-Supported Television) channel directly within their streaming service. It brings the spontaneity of live viewing to an on-demand experience.
What Is a FAST Channel?
A FAST (Free Ad-Supported Television) channel mimics traditional TV experiences by offering a continuous, scheduled stream of content, without requiring users to search, browse, or choose. This encourages click-in, reduces decision fatigue, and helps to drive longer session times.
Why Add a FAST Channel?
Whether you’re operating an AVOD, SVOD, hybrid, or niche content platform, a FAST channel can add real value:
- Drive Instant Engagement
Give users a “just press play” option that removes friction and increases watch starts. - Boost Ad Revenue & Session Length
Longer viewing sessions mean more ad impressions and better content exposure. - Maximise Existing Content
Turn your VOD library into a curated, always-on experience without new content production or rights complexities.
Where It Appears
On Magine Pro-powered platforms, the FAST Channel feature is intelligently integrated into your service UI:
- Smart TVs: A live channel collection carousel displays the current broadcast alongside the next upcoming title, giving viewers a clear snapshot of what’s on now and what’s next.
- Web & Mobile: The same live channel carousel is available here too, showing the current and upcoming content. Users can also access an EPG view with a full schedule spanning the past 7 days and the week ahead.
Supported Devices & Versions
The FAST channel feature is supported globally across all major platforms.
- Web
- Smart TV (LG, Samsung, Vizio)
- Android & Android TV
- iOS
- Apple TV (tvOS)
Give Your Viewers a Reason to Press Play
Sometimes, the simplest choice is the one that sticks. With Magine Pro’s FAST channel feature, you can deliver a lean-back, live-first experience that complements your on-demand catalogue and keeps users watching longer.
Want to know more about the FAST channel feature? And whether it’s right for your service? Contact the Magine Pro team.
Keep Preferences in Sync Across Devices: Introducing Persistent Audio & Subtitle Settings
In today’s multi-device world, viewers expect a smooth, consistent experience across every screen. That’s why we’ve introduced Persistent Audio & Subtitle Preferences—a powerful new feature that ensures your preferred language, audio setup, and subtitle settings follow you across all supported devices, eliminating friction and enhancing accessibility.
Whether you’re watching on a Smart TV, laptop, mobile phone, or streaming box, your personalised settings are always ready—no need to reconfigure every time you switch devices.
The Problem We Solved
We’ve all been there: you set up your ideal viewing preferences on one device, only to find yourself starting from scratch when you switch to another. This disconnect between devices creates unnecessary friction, especially for:
- Multilingual households juggling different audio tracks
- Viewers with hearing impairments who rely on subtitles
- Audiophiles who invest in premium sound systems
- International audiences accessing content in non-native languages
Persistent Preferences solve this problem by saving your preferences centrally and applying them consistently across all your devices.
How Does the Persistent Preferences Feature Work?
This enhancement stores audio and subtitle preferences in the user profile using our backend API. Once a viewer sets their preferences—such as a preferred subtitle language or audio configuration—they’re saved and automatically synced across all supported devices whenever the user logs in.
✅ Preferences saved on one device appear on all others
✅ Applies instantly with no manual setup required
✅ Even works during API outages—settings are retained locally for that session
Your audience gets a consistent, personalised experience—no matter where they press play.
Why Persistent Preferences Matter for Your OTT Service
- Personalisation That Scales: Viewers feel instantly at home on every device
- Seamless Device Switching: Start watching on TV, continue on mobile—preferences stay put
- Accessibility-First: Subtitle preferences are always honored for users who depend on them
- Profile-Based Settings: Each user profile keeps its own persistent configuration
How to Enable Persistent Preferences
The best part? No configuration is required. This feature is automatically enabled for all customers using the latest app versions.
For custom web app customers, persistent preferences are applied by default in hipster-player v12.8.9 or above. If needed, the feature can be disabled by passing disablePlaybackSettings: false to loadWithPreflight.
Available On:
- Smart TVs (LG, Samsung, Vizio) – v4.9.0 and later
- Web Browsers – v15.32.0 and later
- iOS (coming soon)
- Android (coming soon)
- Android TV (coming soon)
- Apple TV / tvOS (coming soon)
Built on a Strong Foundation of Audio & Subtitle Excellence
This feature is the latest enhancement in Magine Pro’s comprehensive suite of audio and subtitle capabilities:
Advanced Audio Support:
- Dolby AC-3 (6-channel) for cinema-quality sound
- Flexible audio routing via HDMI, ARC, or receivers
- Multiple stereo and 5.1 surround sound tracks in different languages
Robust Subtitle Integration:
- Multiple subtitle tracks with language selection
- UTF-8 encoding for accurate character display
- Standard SRT formatting for clean presentation
- Frame-perfect subtitle-to-audio synchronization
Deliver Consistency, Eliminate Friction
Persistent Audio & Subtitle Preferences make your streaming service more inclusive and user-friendly. Whether it’s for accessibility, localisation, or seamless multi-device viewing, this feature ensures every viewer gets the experience they expect—every time.
Want to learn more about how to enhance your platform’s UX? Contact us or follow us on LinkedIn for product updates, feature launches, and streaming insights. You can also download our UX/UI guide to explore how the Magine Pro platform helps deliver an exceptional streaming experience.
Enhance Your Mobile App Experience with Featured Posters
When it comes to streaming, first impressions matter—especially on mobile. With smaller screens and limited browsing space, it’s essential to capture your user’s attention instantly. Magine Pro’s Featured Poster feature helps you do just that by prominently positioning key visuals at the top of the mobile app, delivering a sleek and modern look while enhancing content discoverability.
How Does the Featured Poster Work?
The Featured Poster is an image type designed exclusively for mobile phones, allowing OTT services to showcase selected content strikingly. By placing an eye-catching poster at the top of the mobile app, this feature provides a high-impact visual experience that guides viewers to premium content and can improve user engagement.
Why Featured Posters Matter for Your OTT Service
- Enhanced Content Discovery: A prominent visual display at the top of the screen makes it easier for users to find highlighted content.
- Professional & Modern Look: Elevate your mobile app’s design with a sleek, visually compelling layout.
- Greater Control Over Presentation: Choose whether to overlay metadata or allow the image to speak for the content.
How to Enable the Featured Poster Feature
Setting up the Featured Poster feature in the Magine Pro Console is simple and customisable. Follow these steps to integrate it into your service:
- Add a Featured Poster Image: Upload a poster image in the Featured Poster field of your asset.
- Create a Feature Collection: Navigate to Collections and create a new Feature Collection.
- Set Mobile Display Preferences: In the Collection UI, go to General > Mobile Image Type and select “Long View Carousel” for mobile rendering.
- Metadata Management:
- If your poster does not contain text, you can add a title and metadata through the Collection UI.
- If your poster already contains text, we recommend adding metadata only for larger screen formats such as tablets, web, and TV screens (Android TV, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV).
- Save & Apply: Ensure the Featured Hero Collection is placed at the top of the mobile app’s view.
Supported Devices & Platforms
Magine Pro’s Featured Poster is designed exclusively for mobile phones (iOS & Android), ensuring an optimised browsing experience for mobile users.
Best Practices for Using Featured Posters
- Choose High-Quality, Engaging Images to make an impact.
- Keep Metadata Clean & Readable—avoid duplicate text if your image already contains a title.
Start Enhancing Your Mobile Streaming Experience Today
A well-designed Featured Poster can transform your mobile app’s look, making it more visually appealing and guiding users toward your most important content.
Ready to make your app more engaging? Activate the Featured Poster feature in your Magine Pro Console today. If you want to explore more ways to optimise your OTT service, reach out to discover how Magine Pro’s OTT Platform and features can help.
For the latest updates on Magine Pro products and features, follow us on LinkedIn and subscribe to our newsletter for insights delivered directly to your inbox.
Magine Pro’s top 5 platform updates you need to know about!
At Magine Pro, we’re constantly working on new ways to improve our tech and OTT platform. It’s our priority to ensure our partners can provide a seamless video streaming experience by utilising all the latest technical innovations and tools available in the market. Most importantly, we base all our product enhancements on data and learning provided by our partner services, alongside client and customer feedback.
In 2019, we made a whole host of platform updates and enhancements. Take a look at our top five that have improved our OTT offering in the past year:
Dynamic Ads Insertion in Live stream
Our partners are now able to serve dynamic ads on Live channels without relying on VAST tags. This means ads are dynamically transcoded within the live stream so it no longer requires ad integration and can’t be dismissed by ad blockers. Ads are also targeted and served independently.
TVOD expansion for monetization
We expanded our TVOD offering, which means our partners have more options available when it comes to monetizing their content. Business models now include Free, Recurring, Non-Recurring, Pay-Per-View, Unlimited, as well as new options such as Default, Pass and 3rd party.
Expanded support for live events
We also extended the content catalogue and monetization opportunities for our partners who offer Live events. Live events can now be categorized separately in their service to VOD or linear content, which makes it much easier for their users to select and purchase a single or set of Live events.
Marketing campaigns & developing Reseller partnerships
We’ve made it easier for our partners to set up marketing campaigns that allow new users to access their service without having to input their payment details upfront. Our partners can now link service access to marketing campaigns such as redemption of gift cards, promotional codes, and coupons, etc.
Our partners are also able to acquire new paid users from 3rd party solutions that resell their subscriptions.
Customising services via the Magine Pro Console
We’ve also expanded the level of customisation our partners can make to their services via our own CMS, the Magine Pro Console. Our partners now have more control to fully customize their service with a simple pick and choose tool. Service look & feel, content customized highlight, content engagement options, user access settings, 3rd party solutions integration… and much more.
In addition to these, we’ve also enhanced related content, web apps integration, parental control, dynamic links and in-app and cloud messaging among other things. If you would like to learn more about our platform updates, please get in touch. You can also find out more about Magine Pro video streaming services, and in particular how we can help you build your own OTT business, here. Head to our experience page to see our case studies and learn more about how we’ve helped our partners build successful and global OTT businesses.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the Magine Pro newsletter to stay up-to-date with our latest news, products, and to find out which industry events we’ll be attending in 2020. You can book in a meeting now on our events page, meet the team and demo our video services firsthand.