Video UX optimisation specialist Media Distillery and Dutch streaming service NLZIET have formed a partnership with the aim to improve customer experience through topic-based content discovery.

NLZIET is deploying the latest Media Distillery solution, Topic Distillery, to give viewers faster access to relevant content. With the metadata generated by Media Distillery from NLZIET broadcast streams, NLZIET can add features such as the ability to find content that could not be found previously, based on the topics detected in the content; jump to particular parts of a show, by means of automatically generated chapter markers and chapter titles; and quickly decide whether a programme is of interest by seeing what topics are present in a show.

Media Distillery

Media Distillery and NLZIET have formed a partnership to improve customer experience through content discovery

NLZIET is a Dutch OTT streaming service owned and operated by the country’s three major broadcasting groups (NPO, RTL and Talpa), offering what it claims is the biggest online collection of content from Dutch broadcasters. It provides live TV, catch-up (replay) and on-demand content.

Sander Kouwenhoven, CTO of NLZIET, said: “With Topic Distillery, users no longer need to watch a whole programme to find their desired content, and content consumption is much easier. This solution could really transform the non-scripted live TV watching experience. By making more content easily discoverable, Topic Distillery prolongs the lifetime value of the content.”

The first joint project is aimed at improving and expanding the range of search recommendations. “We’re improving content discovery by developing and adding more context to programming,” said Kouwenhoven.

The partners are currently testing several additional new features such as new forms of ‘chapterisation’ as well as improving the search functionality by means of topics detected by Media Distillery. This would allow viewers to quickly navigate in the play bar to specific topics without needing to search, and to watch items in a way that suits them.