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.
Preparing for the Next Wave of Smart TVs: How to Navigate OS, AI, and UX Trends
In the battle for eyeballs, the big screen seems to be winning. YouTube’s CEO, Neal Mohan recently confirmed that TV screens have overtaken mobiles as the primary device for YouTube viewing in the US. And while the US leads the way, this shift is happening globally. Research from Ampere Analysis (Feb 2025) shows 76% of internet users in Europe now own a Smart TV. That’s a 25% increase over the past three years, mirroring a 25% rise in share of viewing for these devices since 2021.
At Magine Pro, we’ve been developing Smart TV streaming apps for over 12 years, giving us a front-row seat to this transformation. As more consumers shift to the big screen, we hear one major concern from OTT service providers: How can they stay ahead of the curve when Smart TV technology is so fragmented and constantly shifting?
Every year, CES and other tech expos are filled with announcements from giants like LG and Samsung showcasing features and upgrades aimed at driving consumer TV sales. Meanwhile, the already crowded Smart TV OS landscape keeps expanding. How are OTT services supposed to keep up? Should they invest resources into supporting multiple operating systems for reach, or focus on the latest trends to future-proof their apps?
To help answer these questions, I’ll break down some of the biggest trends likely to shape the industry in the next few years. Importantly, I’ll look at how smaller OTT services can prepare for them. In this blog I’ll explore:
- AI-Based Upscaling
- Auto-Translation
- Voice & Gesture-based Control
- Emerging Operating Systems
If you’re reviewing your OTT service’s Smart TV strategy, you can also download our e-guide: Go big or stay small? Why the Smart TV experience is essential for online streaming services.
Now let’s get stuck into those emerging trends!
AI-Based Upscaling: Seamless Smart TV UX Without The Compromises
For years, Smart TV app performance has been constrained by device limitations, bandwidth restrictions, and processing power. High frame rates, smooth animations, and seamless transitions require significant resources. As developers, we’re often forced to sacrifice visual fluidity to maintain stability across different TV models. But AI-based upscaling is set to change that, shifting the burden of performance optimisation from app developers to TV hardware itself.
AI-powered upscaling, like Nvidia’s DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), has already transformed the gaming industry, using machine learning to boost resolution and frame rates in real-time. Now, Smart TV manufacturers are integrating similar technology to fill the gaps in frame rates and motion smoothness. This means that an app running at 30 frames per second (FPS) today could soon appear just as fluid as a 50FPS app, without developers needing to rewrite code or optimise animations for every individual device.
At Magine Pro, we see this as a major leap for OTT UX on Smart TVs. Historically, upscaling on TVs has focused only on the video, forcing app developers to strike a balance between animation quality and responsiveness in the UI, sometimes choosing simpler transitions or reducing visual effects to maintain app stability. With AI-enhanced motion processing becoming standard in new TVs, we expect this to allow for more upscaling in the app UI, allowing the next generation of streaming apps can be more dynamic, visually polished, and immersive, without compromising performance.
Key Takeaways for OTT Services
So what does this mean for OTT providers currently planning their Smart TV strategy? You can afford to focus less on maxing-out your FPS across multiple TV platforms to compete with the big names in streaming. Concentrate instead on creating consistent, scalable experiences and building engaging, visually rich interfaces, knowing that AI will handle the performance lift on supported devices. As AI-based processing becomes the norm, even smaller streaming services will be able to deliver a premium app experience, without the premium engineering overhead.
It’s not just about smoother UI animations. AI-powered upscaling could transform how OTT services approach video delivery for Smart TVs. If the TV itself can take lower-resolution streams and enhance them to near-4K or even 8K quality, operators can optimise their encoding strategy accordingly to cut CDN costs without sacrificing viewer experience.
On-Device Subtitle Translation: Lowering Barriers to OTT Localisation
Localisation has long been a challenge for OTT services expanding globally. Now, once again, hardware integration with AI could alleviate some of the hard work for content owners, getting the Smart TV hardware to perform automated, real-time translations directly on the device.
AI-driven translation tools are already familiar in web browsers. Now Smart TV manufacturers are beginning to integrate real-time subtitle translation directly into their operating systems. This means that rather than requiring streaming services to upload a separate subtitle file for every supported language, TVs will be able to dynamically translate dialogue into the viewer’s preferred language on the fly.
For OTT providers, this could significantly reduce localisation overhead—especially for smaller services looking to scale quickly into new markets. Instead of managing, storing, and encoding hundreds of subtitle variations, services could rely on the TV’s built-in AI to generate subtitles in real-time, unlocking faster time-to-market for new territories.
However, this shift comes with new UX considerations. If Smart TVs are generating and overlaying subtitles at the OS level, OTT services must ensure that their UI design doesn’t create conflicts. If a platform hardcodes subtitles into the video stream or places on-screen graphics in common subtitle areas, there’s a risk of clashing visual elements—leading to a messy, unreadable experience for viewers.
Key Takeaways for OTT Services
At Magine Pro, we know Smart TV apps must be built with flexibility in mind, ensuring subtitle placement adapts dynamically to maintain a consistent UX on all devices as individual manufacturers change their functionality. With Magine Pro’s white-label OTT platform, streaming services get expert guidance on Smart TV UI adaptations, ensuring their apps remain consistent and future-proofed as on-device AI capabilities evolve
While the AI-powered upscaling we already covered is an easy win for streaming services, AI-generated translations introduce a new layer of complexity. Generative AI is still imperfect, and OTT providers will need to weigh the benefits of rapid market expansion against the potential risks of inaccurate subtitles.
Voice and Gesture Control: The Future of Hands-Free Smart TV Navigation
For decades, the TV remote control has been the primary way viewers interact with their screens. But as Smart TVs become more sophisticated, voice and gesture-based navigation will revolutionise how users browse and control streaming apps. While these technologies are still evolving, major Smart TV manufacturers are already investing in AI-driven interfaces that allow users to interact with their TVs in more natural and intuitive ways.
Voice control is already mainstream – AI assistants like Alexa and Siri are now household names. On Smart TVs, voice-enabled remotes now let users search for content, change channels, and control playback with simple voice commands. Some platforms now also use camera-based tracking or motion sensors to allow viewers to navigate menus with hand movements instead of button presses. LG’s Magic Remote, already supported in the Magine Pro OTT Platform, is a step towards this, allowing users to employ their remote control like a mouse rather than being restricted to sequential up-down-right-left navigation.
Both voice and gesture control offer convenience and, for those who struggle to use traditional remotes, accessibility. However, there are still significant challenges with these technologies, especially when it comes to accuracy, consistency, and user adoption.
New search and navigation methods may require a rethink on button layouts, hover states, and menu navigation to accommodate touch-free interactions. Gesture-based navigation could also introduce new UX challenges, such as avoiding accidental selections or ensuring that on-screen prompts guide users effectively.
Key Takeaways for OTT Services
At Magine Pro, we believe OTT services should monitor these developments closely and ensure their apps are designed with flexibility to accommodate future interaction models. Since these technologies are still evolving, smaller OTT services should wait for greater standardisation before investing heavily. For now, it’s important to focus on creating clear, structured UIs that are adaptable to evolving Smart TV capabilities, as well as concentrating on improving metadata to power voice search and ensure content can easily be found by voice assistants. As an added benefit, the metadata work will also enhance personalised content recommendations for increased engagement in the shorter term.
Navigating The Shifting Smart TV OS Landscape
One of the biggest challenges for OTT service providers is keeping up with the fragmented Smart TV operating system (OS) landscape. With Samsung’s Tizen, LG’s webOS, Vizio, Roku, and Android TV, plus a steady stream of new or proprietary OS announcements, it’s difficult to predict which platforms will gain traction and which will fade into obscurity.
Each OS has its own development requirements, UI constraints, and feature set, making it costly and time-consuming for streaming services to build and maintain native apps for every platform. Additionally, while major players like Samsung and LG are working toward better standardisation, Smart TV platforms still have inconsistencies—from differing CSS rendering engines to unique input navigation behaviours.
Key Takeaways for OTT Services
For OTT providers, the key to future-proofing against OS fragmentation is flexibility. Instead of committing to bespoke app development for every new platform, a modular, scalable approach ensures that apps can adapt quickly as new operating systems emerge.
At Magine Pro, we solve this challenge by providing a single-codebase solution that supports multiple Smart TV platforms, ensuring a consistent user experience across devices. By focusing on cross-platform compatibility, streaming services can avoid getting locked into the complexities of individual OS ecosystems and instead scale efficiently as the market evolves.
Want to know how Magine Pro customers like Passionflix approach Smart TV apps? Download our e-guide: Go big or stay small? Why the Smart TV experience is essential for online streaming services.
The Secret to Crafting an Engaging UX/UI for Streaming Services
A standout user experience (UX) isn’t just nice-to-have—it’s a necessity. With countless streaming platforms competing for viewers’ attention, having a seamless, content-focused user interface (UI) can turn occasional viewers into loyal subscribers. At Magine Pro, we understand that crafting an engaging UX/UI is essential for improving user satisfaction and retention rates.
Introducing Our Expert E-Guide: Behind the Screens
In our latest e-guide, Behind the Screens: Crafting Immersive UX/UI for Streaming Services, we provide operators with essential insights needed to create a cohesive and engaging UX/UI. Drawing from our years of consumer market experience and expertise as a leading OTT platform provider, we have distilled proven strategies that elevate the viewing experience.
What You Will Discover
Packed with insights, this guide covers:
- Intuitive Navigation and Content Discovery: Learn proven strategies that keep users engaged and enhance satisfaction.
- Responsive Design Practices: Discover how to ensure seamless user experiences across all devices, fostering brand loyalty.
- Tools and Techniques for Viewer Engagement: Implement practical methods to maximize user retention and drive revenue growth.
- Expert Insights: Gain exclusive knowledge from our Head of Product & Platform, Fabienne Antonin, in a detailed Q&A.
and much more…
These strategies have already enabled Magine Pro clients to achieve increased engagement and subscriber loyalty, and our guide shares the exact tactics you can apply to your own platform.
Explore Our Experience
To see how our solutions can be tailored to meet specific content and audience needs, explore our customer case studies. These examples highlight how other operators have successfully customised their services using our intuitive CMS, and showcase the impact a well-designed UX/UI can have on viewer engagement and retention.
Ready to Elevate Your Streaming Service’s UX/UI?
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to captivate your audience and boost retention rates. Download Behind the Screens: Crafting Immersive UX/UI for Streaming Services now to discover how to transform your streaming platform. For a personalised demo of our platform’s UX/UI capabilities or to explore how we can help, book a meeting with the Magine Pro team today.
Introducing Splatter by Magine Pro
Splatter is the ultimate haven for horror aficionados, offering a curated selection of bone-chilling classics and pulse-pounding contemporary thrillers. In collaboration with Magine Pro, Splatter has harnessed our expertise and comprehensive OTT capabilities to deliver a spine-tingling streaming experience accessible across various platforms including web, iOS, Android, and Chromecast, captivating subscribers not only in Sweden but also aiming to thrill horror fans across Scandinavia.
Delve into our case study to uncover the journey of launching Splatter and gain exclusive insights from its founder, Olle Agebro. Discover how Splatter was born, the diverse demographics of its audience, and the strategic approach to delivering exclusive horror content that sets it apart.
Eager for a glimpse into the macabre world of Splatter? Here’s a sneak peek at the service and what horrors await:
If you want to find out more about Magine Pro’s OTT platform and specialist video streaming services, get in touch! We can help you enhance your existing service or help you launch something entirely new. You can also check out our experience and more of our case studies here.
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OTT: How to increase video content views
Streaming service operators are always striving to boost user engagement within their service and, more specifically, increase video content views. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways operators can leverage their content, service, and even experience to optimise discovery for their users, including maximising their metadata for search and running external marketing and social campaigns.
Optimising the User Interface and Experience
One of the best ways to increase video content views is to optimise the interface and enhance the user experience within the streaming service. If users have a positive experience, they’re more likely to return and recommend it to others.
There are several ways operators can optimise the user interface, including making quality content easy to find. Curating rich categories of entertainment and positioning content high up on the discovery page of the service is one such solution.
Magine Pro-powered streaming services allow operators to curate the discovery page thoroughly, including content category curation and selecting content to hero within the top carousel. Our partners can also use the CMS Console to select what artwork and poster sizes are presented and add engaging and informative titles and descriptions to entice users to choose particular movies or series. Adding additional content, such as trailers and even editorials, will also help expand the discovery experience and give users a clearer idea of what’s available.
Making the Most of Metadata
Another way operators can help to increase content views is to ensure metadata is as SEO-friendly as possible. Metadata is data that defines and describes the data object it is linked to. In this context, metadata describes, via text descriptions, the content of a video, making it readable for search engines.
Ensuring that metadata is SEO-friendly will help content appear much higher in search results both inside and outside a streaming service. To do this, providers should focus on using keywords throughout metadata descriptions, including attention-grabbing and descriptive titles, and adding content summaries that accurately reflect what users will see.
Using the Magine Pro CMS Console, our partners are able to upload, manually edit, and even use custom metadata to help enrich their user experiences and improve search results.
Running External Marketing Campaigns
Service operators can also look to increase discovery and views by running external marketing campaigns focusing on select content instead of the entire streaming service. A strategy like this works particularly well when the chosen content is well-known, sought after, and/or exclusive to the service itself.
Utilising digital channels is a fantastic way to generate interest and track a campaign’s success. Google ads and sponsored social media on audience-relevant platforms are great starting points. And can build out further to partnering with trusted companies or influencers who will promote the content to their loyal audiences and help penetrate new markets.
Magine Pro’s Data Insights toolset gives our partners a clear 360 view of their service’s performance, enabling providers to follow the entire user journey from marketing attribution to engagement throughout the customer lifecycle. Data-led insights like these give operators a complete view of a marketing campaign’s performance and whether focused external content strategies are cost-effective and capable of producing the desired outcome.
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At Magine Pro, we offer a flexible OTT platform that can be customised according to your OTT business needs. Create a video streaming service with us and monetise your live events, linear and VOD content seamlessly through subscription, advertising, and/or transactional business models. What’s more, we have a team of experienced experts on hand who can help you launch and grow your OTT business successfully.
For more guidance on increasing content discovery, views, and engagement, check out our blog. And if you’re interested in learning more about how we can help you build and launch a successful OTT business, get in touch with us today.
Finding the UX/UI Sweet Spot: Designing a template for VOD and Live TV services
Today’s viewers can enjoy a wide variety of new digital video-on-demand and live TV services on a range of different platforms. At MaginePro, we enable content owners and service providers to effectively engage their viewers by offering a series of customizable UX templates that meet their business needs and user expectations. Our templated solutions are designed to provide the best possible experience for both sides.
In this post, we walk through some aspects of our design systems and cover how finding the ‘sweet spot’ enables us to define the template platform UI to meet our partner’s requirements and user needs.
User Behaviour & Content Discovery
User experience and behaviour differ considerably between linear TV and VOD services.
Linear TV services, for example, are low friction as users get instant access to live content; only needing to interact when actively choosing to change channels. As live TV events have a start and end point it’s crucial that users can find what they want to watch as quickly and as easily as possible. Finding content on a video-on-demand service doesn’t require the same level of urgency, but browsing a big library of content without any context can be overwhelming. Video-on-demand services require more interaction as users need to browse the content catalogue in order to find what they want to watch.
At Magine Pro, we focus on building platforms that make it easy for all users to discover content that appeals to them. For example, linear TV service users can catch up on missed live shows such as sports events (when supported by content rights) and create a personal list of their favourite channels, making them easier to locate after signing in. Catch-up and VOD content is also presented in modules (movies/genres/series etc), enabling users to interact and explore further details such as trailers, synopsis, cast etc. This gives the user a deeper understanding of the content and allows them to make an informed decision when selecting something to watch. Curated recommendations on the start page, and recommendations based on previous viewing preferences, also make it easier for new and returning users to discover great content.
Design Approach
At Magine Pro, we frame every design problem in a job story, focusing on the triggering event or situation, the motivation and goal, and the intended outcome:
As an example:
“When there’s an interesting live sports event, I want to find it quickly, so I can watch it from start to end.” – Service user
Breaking this down there are three parts we need to consider:
- “When there’s an interesting live sports event” – This is the situation, it describes when this happens.
- “I want to find it quickly” – This revolves around the motivation and why the user wants to do this.
- “So I can watch it from start to end” – Users expected outcome and what we need to focus planning and design around to deliver.
Job stories give us context and enable us to focus more on user motivations. Having a clear picture of user behaviour and needs also prevents us from implementing unnecessary features that reduce the usability of the product. We work closely with our partners to assess the impact and only implement agreed features that don’t add complexity to the template or create friction for the user.
Finding the Sweet Spot
Video-on-demand services enable users to browse and consume a vast content catalogue with great discovery features, such as recommendations and related content to boot. Because of this, providers and viewers are drawn more to building and using VOD over linear TV services. At Magine Pro, however, we believe there is a sweet spot nestled between traditional linear TV services and full-scale VOD services. We combine the simple, elegant user interface of traditional linear TV with the power of choice found in VOD, creating a richer experience for users.
Our design approach is focused on creating true value for users and service providers. We leverage our experience and understanding of good UX to build products that successfully fulfil our partner’s needs and provide exceptional experiences for viewers around the world.
You can learn more about Magine Pro’s professional video solutions here. We would love to hear from you if you would like to discuss our products, find out more about our services or get started.