CONNECTING THE WILD: HOTENSIFY BRINGS HIGH-TECH ENTERTAINMENT TO BURNBAKE CAMPSITE
Tucked away in an idyllic woodland haven in the heart of the Dorset countryside is Burnbake.
Burnbake’s 22 luxury forest lodges are just a stone’s throw away from some of the best views, food, drink and activities that the Jurassic Coast has to offer.
When Burnbake contacted Hotensify to deliver a better than home TV experience in a less than ideal set of circumstances, we were delighted to spring into action and help them on their expedition.
Burnbake wanted to deliver high quality TV channels, GoogleCast, Streaming Apps, such as Netflix, Disney+ , Apple TV and YouTube as well as offer Burnbake corporate branding and guest information at the guests fingertips.
There was however more than one issue to overcome in the design of this solution.
Due to being deep in the forest, with towering trees all around as well as the rural location, TV channels on site were delivered via a single satellite dish. This dish in turn connected each of the 22 lodges, owners accommodation and various other TV outlets across the site by single mode optical fibre cable. There was no “Freeview” for us to use, nor any copper (RF) infrastructure for us to put the new TV’s upon, which ultimately we required.
Tasked with this difficult installation, Hotensify chose the Philips Mediasuite Smart Hospitality TV’s for each of the lodges. We designed a “Burnbake” user interface to welcome and inform the guest in true forest feeling colours.
The Philips Mediasuite TV’s are based on Android TV and so deal with the requirements for GoogleCast in a hospitality setting well , ensuring guest details are not retained after a casting session and that guests cannot cast to the wrong TV by accident or maliciously.
Hotensify helped Burnbake to stay compliant with the pre-requisites of offering Netflix in a Hospitality setting by helping them automate guest check in and out, along with offering a personalised guest welcome on screen.
To help feed the new TV’s with the best quality TV channels on site, Hotensify interrupted the existing satellite feed to the site, effectively splitting the current Optical Fibre Cable so that those that required unmanaged satellite signals on site (e.g. residents accommodation) could still enjoy them.
The new split feed was then used to feed a new managed Televes T0X modular digital headend, the input to this being from the Astra Satellite.
We then transmodulated the output from the Televes T0X headend into a “freeview” type signal and played out across the existing fibre network over the top of the satellite services so that the new TV’s could accept it.
All services, Channels, headend, apps, design are managed remotely and the client supported for TV services by Hotensify.
I stayed at Burnbake this weekend, arriving late on a Friday night, seeing every TV on and operational as we drove in was hugely satisfying. Adults, children and families alike can watch an array of up to HD quality TV Channels, watch Netflix, play games , listen to music, and share their photos together using GoogleCast. This is why we go to work!
Huge thanks to Philips Professional Displays, Televes Corporation, Alltrade for their support with the project.
Thanks to Wight Computers for the referral, and Funkymouse IT for the introduction on this one