Movistar+ adds picture-in-picture for simultaneous viewing

Customers of Spanish telco Telefónica’s TV service Movistar+ now have the ability to watch two different channels simultaneously on the TV screen with the introduction of picture-in-picture technology to the operator’s service.

PiP functionality can be used by the more than one million customers who have a UHD set-top and are connected to the operator’s fibre network.

Users can choose from more than 100 channels, depending on their subscxription, which two channels they want to watch simultaneously.

The feature enables viewers to follow two football games at the same time or to check when a programme is starting on another channel.

The main channel will be displayed across the full screen and the secondary channel will be displayed in a window at the top right of the screen. The position between the channels can be changed at any time.

Movistar+ has also launched new features for its remote control, introducing a specific button for Aura, Telefónica’s virtual assistant with artificial intelligence, to interact with the Movistar+ service by voice.

Users can ask for recommendations, request to tune in to a channel or search for content, as well as controlling the playback of content with features including fast-forward, rewind or pause.

Customers can also go directly to the different sections of the service or change audio and subtitles as well as controlling all the keys of the remote control by voice using commands for off, up, down, OK, enter, record and play. The Aura button also includes speech to text in the Movistar+ search engine enabling people to search by voice instead of typing with the on-screen keyboard. It also includes the opening and browsing of Living Apps, the company’s own and third-party applications.

“At Movistar+ we have so much content that it is not easy to choose, so we thought that if you could see two at once we would make it easier for our customers. This is going to be especially important with the sports binge we are going to hit this summer. Our fibre allows access to two 1080 HD contents simultaneously without any delay or concurrency problems,” said Fernando Enrile, director of strategy and development at Movistar+.