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Engineering practice

OTT app development

What does an OTT app development company build?

Direct answer

An OTT app development company builds video streaming applications that deliver content directly over the internet, across phones, web and connected TV devices. CodeDTX builds these applications together with the playback, digital rights management, subscription and content operations systems they depend on.

Definition

OTT

Over-the-top: video delivered directly over the internet rather than through a cable, satellite or broadcast operator. An OTT product is usually several applications sharing one catalogue, entitlement and playback back end.

Scope

What an OTT product is made of

The application a viewer sees is one part. These are the systems behind it that decide whether it works.

  • Client applications

    iOS, Android, web, Android TV, Fire TV, Roku and operator set-top boxes, each with its own interface conventions.

  • Playback

    Adaptive bitrate streaming, start-up time, seeking, and behaviour on unreliable connections.

  • DRM and entitlement

    Content protection, licence acquisition, geographic restriction, and who is allowed to watch what.

  • VOD and live

    On-demand catalogues and live channels, which fail in different ways and need different operational handling.

  • Subscriptions and monetisation

    Plans, billing, in-app purchase rules, free tiers, and advertising where it applies.

  • Content operations

    Ingest, transcoding, metadata, scheduling, and the tooling the team running the service uses daily.

Questions

Frequently asked

Which devices do you build for?

Mobile, web, Android TV and Google TV, Fire TV, Roku, and operator set-top boxes. Connected TV is its own discipline - see Android TV app development.

Do you work with an existing streaming back end?

Yes. Most OTT work involves integrating with a video platform, DRM provider and billing system that are already chosen.

Can you handle live streaming as well as on-demand?

Yes. Live changes the operational model more than the application code - failure has to be handled while it is happening rather than afterwards.

This is the practice the AI work is built on

We still take this work on. If the system you are describing should also be making decisions on its own, start with the AI side.