Ever wanted to strip ITV2 or More4 out of the programme guide? Well, now you can with cloud PVR provider Magine.
The Swedish company has brought its wares to the UK and wants you to road test it on iOS, Android, Windows and Mac.
Much like TVPlayer already does, Magine (pronounced like ‘imagine’ without the ‘i’) draws a number of streams from content platforms and puts them all in one handy place.
The twist is that you’re free to essentially create your own programme guide by putting your favourite channels close to the top and chop out what you don’t want. Imagine a Freeview EPG without London Live, E4 or ITV3 or any other channel you can’t stand.
That’s kind of what Magine delivers, although it only has ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 under its belt right now.
“Discussions are being held with all of the major UK providers, and it is anticipated that others will be joining the platform over coming months,” a Magine spokesperson said, refusing to comment if this would include BBC channels or not.
“The purpose of the Magine TV beta is to demonstrate the superior user experience and new content and partners will continue to be added.”
You can sign up for the beta right now to see how that user experience stacks up for yourself. We’ve spent a bit of time playing with it on Chrome for Mac and the Android app. True to Magine’s word, it is really easy to order the channel guide yourself. It is surprisingly fun vapourising the channels you wouldn’t ever watch and dragging stuff you would up to the top.
It was disappointing to see that you couldn’t pause shows and there was no way to access any content via catch-up.
Right now it comes across like a blend of Pluto TV and TVPlayer, albeit with a load less channels. We’re keen to see how the Magine platform develops in the UK; it’s proved successful in Germany and Magine’s native Sweden, so let’s hope that it gains some traction over here instead of going the way of SeeSaw.
You can sign up for the Magine UK beta here.
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