Movielink and Philips have confirmed they are joining forces to offer the hospitality, mining and healthcare industries a one-stop in-room entertainment solution using a smart television platform.
The move ends months of industry speculation about prospective tie-ups in the video-on-demand segment, one that’s now edging closer to offer cutting edge technology that’s found in the leading hotels across Asia, Europe and the United States.
“Movielink has created and installed a High Definition (HD) IP system to reside within the current Philips Smart TV eliminating the need for an external room terminal,” a spokesperson for Movielink told HM.
“This section of the market has been in desperate need of such a system in order to update and be able to offer the same facilities as other traditional portions of the market.”
According to Melbourne-based Movielink, the new fully HD system will be able to “deliver free-to-air, cable TV, Net TV over RF or Cat 5/6 networks, in-house movies [and] latest releases of free to guest, pay per view, pay per day movies from all major Hollywood studios”.
The company also said the system would feature welcome messages, guest/picture messaging, bill review capabilities, room maintenance, express check-out, mini bar, a digital hotel compendium and time and weather applications.
Philips’ Australasian distributor, Avico Electronics, is confident the new product will prove popular in the market, particularly from a cost perspective.
“The new solution from the partnership between Philips and Movielink will provide a much lower cost of ownership for the Hotelier,” Avico Electronics’ General Manager for Australia and New Zealand, Travis Anderson, told HM.
“By negating the cost of the original set top box in each room, this will significantly reduce the overall expenditure to the hotel itself.
“The Philips Mediasuite and Primesuite LED LCD Televisions are also the most energy efficient televisions in their class and the hotel will also benefit from overall energy savings,” he said.
Anderson said two keys to the success of the system in the market were functionality and social media integration.
“This new solution from Movielink will finally provide Hoteliers what they have always requested, no more set top boxes and increased functionality compared to the competitors’ entertainment platforms,” he said. “This will reduce the overall financial impact on the hotel and increase the revenue for the Hotelier.
“Removing a large portion of the cost from each room has a significant saving but this doesn’t change the value proposition to the hotel at all but rather increases some of the benefits to them – for example Facebook, twitter and other social media apps will be available.”
According to Movielink, distribution is expected to commence over the next few months and demonstrations of the system are already ongoing.