Cloud DVR, catch-up and restart for live channels
Every channel we deliver can be recorded for you in the cloud: a rolling seven-day window with boundaries taken from the EPG, so a viewer opens a programme rather than a timestamp. Restart and start-over run on the same recording. Nothing is installed at your end and there is no storage to buy; it is priced per channel per month, like the signal.
What gets recorded, and how it is cut
Recording happens at the core site, on the same feed your viewers watch, so there is no second ingest and no drift between live and catch-up. The rolling window keeps the last seven days and can be extended to thirty on request.
Programme boundaries come from the EPG rather than from the clock, which is the difference between a catch-up service people use and one they complain about: a programme that starts late is still recorded from its real start, and an over-run is captured to its real end.
| Window | Rolling 7 days per channel, extendable to 30 |
|---|---|
| Boundaries | Programme-accurate, from the EPG, with padding either side |
| Restart | Jump to the start of the running programme, jump to the start of the running show |
| Time-shift buffer | 2 hours per channel, included with restart |
| Formats | HLS and MPEG-DASH, CMAF, same ABR ladder as the live stream |
| DRM | The same MultiDRM policy as the live channel, where taken |
| Storage | Ours: nothing to provision, nothing to expand. |
How your platform consumes it
Your player asks for a programme by its EPG identifier and receives a manifest, so the client logic is the same as playing live. Where your middleware prefers a time range, it can request one instead; both are served from the same recording.
The EPG feed carries what is available: a programme that has already aired is marked as playable, with its window and any territorial restriction, so a client never offers something the rights holder does not allow.
- Programme-by-id or start/end time requests, HLS or DASH
- The same tokens and DRM licences as the live stream
- Per-channel and per-territory rules enforced at licence issue
- A 2-hour buffer for pause and rewind on the live stream
Rights and what is not included
Recording is a right, not a feature: some channels allow a seven-day window everywhere, some allow it only in certain territories, and a few do not allow it at all. The catalogue records what each channel permits, and provisioning refuses what it does not.
Where a channel allows recording only for certain platform types, such as set-top box but not app, that restriction is carried into the licence, so it is enforced rather than trusted.
Cloud DVR is EUR 29 per channel per month and restart EUR 15; both follow the same volume and term discounts as the delivery line. Ordered per channel, so you can record the twenty channels people actually catch up on rather than all of them.
Questions we get
Do we need storage or a PVR at our end?
No. The recording is ours, in the cloud, at the core site that serves you. Your platform requests a manifest and plays it like any other stream.
Can we offer more than seven days?
Thirty days is available on request per channel, where the rights allow it. Beyond that it becomes an archive rather than catch-up, and we quote it separately.
Does catch-up work on the SRT line?
Catch-up and restart are delivered as HLS or DASH, because they need manifests. Operators taking SRT for live commonly take the DVR window as adaptive HLS alongside it for their apps.
What happens to the recording when we drop a channel?
The window keeps rolling until the contract for that channel ends, then the recordings are deleted within 30 days, as the terms of sale say.