Don’t Panic! A stress-free guide to upgrading your OTT service
No video service makes the decision to switch OTT platform lightly, but moving to get Smart TV apps, better UX and better monetisation options doesn’t have to be a nightmare. In recent blog posts, we’ve looked at the streaming trends that are driving OTT services to consider moving technology platforms, as well as some of the key challenges they face when making a switch. In this post, our Head of Engineering and Operations, Marcus Linden, provides an insight into what a migration process looks like, and what the video service can do to make it go as smoothly and quickly as possible.
“We’re going to need a bigger boat!” When you’ve outgrown your OTT platform
You probably chose your current all-in-one platform so you could concentrate on content and outsource the many complexities of going OTT to a team of experts. Smart move! You didn’t need to hire your own specialists in UX design, app development, billing, integrations, transcoding etc. But a few years in, you’re starting to feel like you’ve outgrown your existing provider. You want Big Screen apps, flexible monetisation options and a higher-quality UX, but for that – to quote the movie Jaws – “going to need a bigger boat”!
We’ve helped a number of OTT services make the switch to the Magine Pro platform to get all these benefits, and we know that it can be a daunting decision. You’re not just swapping out a single app, billing solution or transcoding tool – you’re switching pretty much everything all at once. And you’re probably in a hurry to make it happen as soon as possible. The good news is that, unlike hunting for Jaws, migrating OTT platforms doesn’t have to be terrifying!
Here’s what we’ve learned from guiding other services through the switch, helping them to move over as quickly as possible, with minimal disruption to both end users and their internal operations.
Ready, Set, Go! What you need in place to make switching fast and fuss free
The work to get a customer switched over to the Magine Pro platform can take as little as two weeks, with daily check-ins between a representative of the customer’s organisation and our customer success team. But to achieve such an expedited timeline, the customer needs to be fully prepared to supply all the necessary information and ensure they have team members who are accountable for key areas of the migration.
How to get your content into your new OTT platform
In our experience, the task that takes up the most time when moving platforms is moving the content itself, including video, metadata and images. So, you’ll want to get started on this process as soon as possible.
When it comes to video, as I described in my previous blog post, you can either ingest the source files for all your existing content, or you can move over the existing DRM-encrypted files. Our advice is to go back to the high-quality source files. It may seem counterintuitive if you’ve already transcoded the content, but every platform has its preferred formats and this is a great opportunity to normalise all your content which may have been uploaded at different times and rendered into different bit-rates. While uploading source files to cloud storage does take time, it’s typically no more time-intensive than uploading all the different renditions of the same file. We advise our customers to use automation to smooth the batch-upload process, rather than requiring someone to supervise manual uploads. Having some scripting skills on hand to support this, even just for a few weeks, will likely increase the velocity of your move to your new platform.
Metadata is the new oil: Maximising discoverability in your new OTT platform
It is crucial that any video service takes the time to get the metadata transfer right when switching to a new OTT platform. In many cases, the existing system is the “source of truth” for all your content metadata, but it’s not always – perhaps you’ve got a separate rights management system that you’ll be exporting from. But wherever you hold your metadata, you’re going to need to ensure it maps accurately to the fields in your new platform. Again, you’ll want to automate this process and we’re often called upon to help our customers with the technicalities of this data transformation.
Trading Up Your OTT User Experience: Big Screen and Small Screen Apps
Although an end-to-end OTT platform relieves you of the responsibility for designing your own apps, there is still a need for some design input from the video service provider. Logos and other image assets need to be provided, including images for the App splash screens. In return, you’ll also need to upload images of the refreshed Apps to the various app stores to promote your service. So while you probably won’t need a designer on your staff to smooth the project along, we do recommend you have someone on the project team who is responsible for sourcing and signing-off the necessary designs and imagery.
Once the apps are ready, we’ll typically push them into the customer’s app store accounts (you’ll need to supply the credentials) but it’s up to the customer to do final testing and actually submit the apps for review and publication.
When it comes to TV apps for the likes of LG or Samsung, you probably already know that the review process is typically much more lengthy than with Google or Apple. If you’re switching platforms to get access to big screen apps for the first time, you can afford to make the jump for all your other apps and wait for the Smart TV app approvals to come through at a later date. If you have existing apps, the approvals process is something you’ll need to take into account when planning your switch-over date. But if you’re working with a partner like Magine Pro who has already published many apps for companies like LG and Samsung, it can be helpful to highlight to them that the apps you’re submitting for review are using exactly the same code-base as other apps they’ve already approved.
Getting to know you: Switching your customers to the new platform
While the high-volume migration of content is happening in the background, and your apps are being approved, another topic to focus on is customer data. The first step is to provide examples of the user details held in your current platform to the new service provider so they can start to match fields and identify any issues.
If, as outlined in my previous blog, you’re bringing over customer accounts but not passwords, a key step is to craft in advance the template emails that will go out to existing users to inform them that they need to create a new password when they log in for the first time after the switch-over. Getting these communications right is key to limiting user friction and the potential for churn during the migration process. At the same time, you’ll also need to configure template emails for all those business-as-usual customer flows such as reset password, payment processed, payment card expired, etc.
Automating the migration of customer data and user accounts between OTT platforms
When you’re ready to switch the users over, automation is once again going to be your friend. Ideally, you’ll have someone on your team with scripting skills and a working knowledge of your existing CRM/billing system. They’ll need to obtain the necessary customer data from your current platform so it can be safely added to your new platform via our migration team to:
- Create a user in the new platform with all relevant information – first name, last name, email address, birth date, location etc. The list will differ per platform.
- Create relevant entitlements for that user that map to their existing entitlements
- Add details of when their next billing cycle is required
On the day nerves: How to handle the actual switchover?
We typically recommend that customers time their switch-over to coincide with the regularly scheduled maintenance window of our cloud provider to ensure all back-ups are clean and in sync. We’ve already touched on the need to migrate the user accounts, but how do you stop any customer purchases or registrations falling through the net while that is going on? Our advice is to pause new sign-ups and purchases just before you take your image of the user database to avoid this problem.
Using automation will minimise the length of time when you’re unable to support customer interactions in this way, in our benchmarking tests, we expect it to take around two hours to migrate 10,000 user accounts, so it should be possible to do this process at a time of day when your service sees the least user traffic.
But in some cases, the existing OTT platform may not be able to disable sign-ups or purchases, so we’ll need to do a careful reconciliation of the delta between exported data and final data in the decommissioned system to avoid customer complaints.
Want to know more? Talk to our experts
As you can see, there’s a lot more to switching OTT platforms than meets the eye, but if you’ve got the right support and a team that’s done it many times before, you’re in safe hands. If you’d like to talk to the Magine Pro team about any of the topics raised in this blog, why not book a meeting.
The Top Five Challenges When Migrating OTT Platforms: What You Need to Know
As the OTT market matures, we’re hearing from more and more video streaming services who are looking to switch technology platforms. In some cases, they want more features than their current provider can offer: capabilities like personalization, big screen apps, support for hybrid revenue streams, and improved platform autoscaling to deal with peaks of user demand. In other cases, they’re looking for the efficiency and savings in terms of costs and development time that come with moving to an end-to-end OTT platform from a home-grown solution or a combination of multiple vendors.
Whatever your reason for considering a migration away from an existing OTT platform, it’s not a decision any service takes lightly. Like moving home, fear of the complications and challenges involved in a migration can lead streaming services to put off making a change until their current home becomes absolutely intolerable. But while moving providers can be challenging, it doesn’t have to be stressful. It’s a process we’ve guided a number of our customers through. In this blog, I’ll highlight some of the key considerations that you should take into account before embarking on a migration.
1. Migrating your video content to a new OTT platform
You’ve invested time and money in building a content library and optimising it to engage your audience. You’ll need to efficiently move video assets, associated images and metadata into your new OTT platform. Don’t forget this includes rights and availability information for each asset and any editorially-generated data such as thematic collections.
If you still have the source video files, you can ingest these directly into your new platform for re-transcode and wrapping with fresh DRM. There may be costs involved, but it can be worth it to get the correct video renditions for all the consumer devices you’ll now be targeting. For example, it’s much better to go back to the high-resolution source and create better-quality assets for new big-screen apps.
If you can’t access the original source content, or you’ve already created multi-bitrate files in all the sizes you need, it’s possible for your new platform provider to exchange encryption keys with your existing platform and re-use your current files. However, this requires timely cooperation from your outgoing vendor, which cannot always be guaranteed.
As well as migrating content, you’ll want to think about when to stop ingesting new assets into the old platform. It’s common to run both systems in parallel for a short time to ensure a smooth transition, but this is likely to create extra work for your editorial team, so it’s important to minimise the dual-running period where possible.
2. Transitioning subscription plans from an existing OTT platform
In addition to the content itself, you’ll need to go through a mapping process to make sure the subscription plans your customers enjoy today are still available when you’ve moved to your new technology platform. Keep naming and content selection exactly the same to avoid confusing customers during the transition and damaging your brand reputation.
If one of the reasons you’re migrating is to take advantage of new business models such as AVOD or TVOD alongside your subscription packages, it’s important to think carefully about how these will co-exist. You will also want to plan how you will communicate the migration and the new offerings to existing customers.
If you’d like to know more about implementing hybrid business models in your OTT service, I’d recommend you read our new e-guide: The Essentials of OTT Monetization our our advanced white paper, The Profit Playbook: Proven OTT Revenue Growth Tactics.
3. Moving users to a new OTT platform without creating friction and driving churn
One of the areas that most concerns OTT services is the friction that will be created for users in any platform switch. It’s sensible to consider the potential for churn and that’s why we suggest doing everything to avoid making customers re-register. One option is to migrate all their data, including passwords. This is the most seamless approach for users but there are security implications. Another option is to migrate all the other data, but ask them to create a new password at their first login via the new platform.
As well as granting access, user accounts must also be transitioned with all the relevant entitlements under their existing subscriptions. Making sure they’re mapped accurately is essential to avoiding customer complaints. Depending on the vendor of the OTT platform, the entitlements may be more or less tightly coupled to the individual video assets. This is something to consider carefully in parallel to the content migration questions we looked at earlier in this blog.
4. Preventing payment method errors in an OTT platform migration
The natural extension of concerns about migrating user accounts is the worry about friction around payment methods. It’s a particular problem for SVOD services that rely on stored card details to process monthly or annual subscription transactions. The more seamless the migration for the user, the less likely it is that consumers will simply not bother to take the steps required to maintain their subscription.
The process of migrating stored credit/debit card details will be easier if you’re using the same payment provider despite moving to a different streaming platform. But it can also be managed smoothly between different payment providers with sufficient notice and cooperation. Again, it’s worth looking at the advanced strategies outlined in our white paper, The Profit Playbook, especially the section on subscription dunning and win-back campaigns.
5. Seamlessly switching users to new versions of your streaming apps
While many OTT services switch platforms to unlock access via a wider range of consumer devices, including Smart TVs, it’s also important to consider how you migrate users from existing apps.
With Android apps hosted in Google Play or iOS apps via or Apple’s App Store, it’s a relatively simple process. Once the app versions from the new provider are ready to be published, they can be uploaded to the store with the same app ID as your existing apps, so the users get the new app whenever they next do a manual or auto app update. This generally requires minimal interaction with Apple or Google and little to no delay.
If you’ve got existing big screen apps, however, you’ll face a longer approval process. So, it’s important to start the dialogue with TV manufacturers like Samsung and LG as early as possible so you can work closely with them on managing the approvals and publication process. Working with an established big screen app developer is a good way to reduce the time involved in this transition.
For more on the process of developing, publishing, and maintaining big screen apps, download our whitepaper, Go Big Or Stay Small.
The path to progress – milestones for migrating your OTT service
So now we know the key challenges involved in migrating your OTT service. In an upcoming blog, we’ll look at how Magine Pro manages the milestones in a typical customer migration project to ensure the smoothest possible experience for viewers and content managers alike. Follow us on LinkedIn to be updated when the blog is published.
Want to know more?
If you’d like to talk to Magine Pro’s experts about migrating your OTT service away from your current vendor, why not book a meeting.