Synamedia research and development has launched Senza, a new approach to TV that transforms the economics of reaching viewers. Senza lowers costs and eliminates the traditional technology barriers to bring more engaging viewing experiences to TV screens in the home, as well as out-of-home in bars, hotels, stadiums, and more. With this cloud-based platform, Senza’s customers across all industries can avoid ecosystem taxes and achieve a reduction of up to 90 percent in onboarding costs.
For decades, broadcasters and streamers have been constrained by the cost, effort, and limitations of supporting the proliferation of user devices and massive fragmentation. Senza moves the entire user experience from devices – such as connected TVs and streaming sticks – into the cloud and offers an HTML5 interface to quickly launch free, low-cost, or premium services. This results in a personalized, immersive user experience with advanced graphics and AI-generated synthetic video by “writing once and running everywhere,” a concept common for Internet developers but foreign to TV developers.
With more than 25 patents filed, Senza reshapes today’s TV ecosystem by tapping into the common framework of the Internet, removing the need to download apps or replace outdated in-home devices, and eliminating traditional cost barriers, such as ad revenue shares, to reach mass audiences. Using a Cloud Connector of similar size to an earbuds case, Senza turns any TV screen into a high-performance, smarter TV, unleashing unlimited creative and business opportunities across entertainment, digital signage, hospitality, IoT, and retail industries.
By building the managed platform around a Cloud Connector that uses low-cost silicon, Synamedia has achieved a base component cost device price of around $6 that goes even lower with volume, and an ability to free license the hardware design and device software to third-party OEMs in 2025. Synamedia has also implemented Google Widevine L1 security.
Working closely with Google Cloud, Senza has achieved this breakthrough by not only uncoupling the rendering of the user experience from the device and moving it to the cloud but also eliminating sluggish and frustrating user experiences by using low latency video protocols optimized for graphics applications. Senza’s AI features will enable an explosion of creativity in advertising and synthetic media, empowering brands to reach consumers directly with a customized experience through the Cloud Connector.
Senza enables broadband providers and ISPs to differentiate their consumer offerings by adding a video service with minimal up-front investment. One early adopter, SuperCloud International, a pioneer in streaming and television, will use Senza to deliver its consumer in-home streaming service, UMAXX.TV, offering over 350 live TV channels via a military-grade, proprietary 5G network. UMAXX opted to add Senza to its hardware offering because of its reliability and cost advantage.
Ben Keen, independent industry analyst, commented, “For many years a debate has raged about whether the set-top box has a future. Now Synamedia has redrawn the terms of that debate by radically rethinking the role of the in-home device using a cloud-first design that promises to fundamentally change the economics of TV delivery. A strong culture of innovation has always been at the heart of Synamedia – along with its legacy predecessor entities – and it is great to see that tradition continue with the unveiling of Senza.”
Paul Segre, CEO at Synamedia, added, “Senza flips the accepted economics of TV on its head with its Internet-based framework. It eliminates the need for specialist developers supporting a technologically limited and fragmented ecosystem and enables us to think of a TV screen as an Internet greenfield. As CEOs look to build new paths to revenue, this is their dream come true.”
Developer, reseller, and partner programs will extend Synamedia’s reach and applications.