Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) announced a new series of product upgrades to its X1 platform as the MSO ramps up a promotional push ahead of programming division NBCUniversal's wall-to-wall coverage of the Rio Olympics starting next month.
According to a company blog post penned by Peter Nush, VP of product management for Comcast Cable, the "Remind" feature, which had been seen only in trials, is now live across the X1 platform, enabling users to set alerts when their favorite programming comes on.
Also going live is the "Auto Extend" feature, which automatically adjust DVR recording length should a sports event go into overtime or extra innings.
Also being introduced is what MSO calls the "Self-Healing DVR Playback" feature.
"If a playback of a completed recording fails, we've built a new response system that will provide you with all available alternatives for viewing the program," Nush said. "The DVR will first immediately retry the playback. If the retry fails, X1 will begin playback of the free/entitled version of the program On Demand, where available. If there is not an On Demand version of your recording, X1 may also prompt you to record the next airing of the program."
Comcast said it also made improvements in X1's music discovery playback capabilities.
"We've rearranged the options on music artist pages to present the most relevant features and content to customers – reducing the number of clicks to playback," Nush said. "One of the most heavily used features in the Music experience on X1 is Shuffle, which plays a mix of your favorite artist's tunes. So, we moved Shuffle to the first option on the action menu.
Comcast is planning a major X1 promotional push ahead of the Summer Olympics, which it views as a "coming out" event for its advanced video platform.
For more:
- read this Comcast corporate blog post
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