Why We Don’t Build OTT Platforms — But Make Them Stronger with Embedded Engineering and QA

The OTT market is booming — but it's also saturated. From global giants like Netflix to regional niche players, everyone is fighting for attention. In this competitive landscape, building a new OTT platform from scratch is expensive, slow, and often redundant. That's why at Promwad, we don’t build complete OTT platforms. Instead, we enhance them where it matters most: at the embedded and system integration level.

In this article, we’ll explain the strategic reasons behind this approach, how embedded engineering and QA bring measurable value to OTT providers, and when it's smarter to strengthen a platform than reinvent it.

Why Full-Stack OTT Development Is Rarely the Right Move

Developing an OTT platform from zero means tackling everything — CDN infrastructure, backend APIs, multi-platform frontends, DRM, billing systems, user analytics, and more. This requires:

Massive engineering resources
Deep domain expertise across frontend, backend, and video delivery
Long time-to-market with heavy QA overhead
Ongoing investment in DevOps and security updates

Unless you’re building the next Disney+, the ROI often doesn’t justify the effort. Most video businesses instead license existing platforms — then struggle to adapt them to their needs.

That’s where our model fits in.

Embedded Expertise: Fixing What OEM SDKs Can’t

TVs, STBs, HDMI dongles, and Android-based boxes come with manufacturer SDKs. But these SDKs often introduce:

Performance bottlenecks
Unreliable playback under load
Limited customization of system services
Poor integration with third-party analytics or advertising

Our embedded engineers specialize in:

Low-level optimization of Android TV, AOSP, WebOS, and Tizen
Tuning media pipeline latency and buffer strategies
Customizing OEM firmware to better serve OTT playback logic
Integrating native DRM and adaptive bitrate protocols (DASH/HLS)
Enabling OTA updates for streaming apps on constrained devices

These changes don’t require replacing the whole platform — just optimizing the layers that actually affect UX and uptime.

QA That Goes Beyond UI Testing

In OTT platforms, bugs aren’t always on the screen. Crashes can stem from memory leaks, CPU overload, or network handling issues deep in the stack.

That’s why our QA services focus on:

Device-level stress and soak testing
Automated testing of app behavior under poor network conditions
Benchmarking app load times, video startup delay, and error recovery
Cross-platform regression testing for multi-device rollouts
Compliance testing for Android TV certification or HbbTV

We work with both UI and embedded teams to deliver real stability — not just surface polish.

When Clients Choose This Model

Our clients in the OTT sector come to us when they:

Are already using a commercial or open-source OTT backend (e.g. Kaltura, Wowza, Red5)
Need help adapting their player or app to new Smart TV platforms
Struggle with latency, jitter, or memory issues during playback
Want to enable features like content preloading, smart caching, or native subtitle rendering
Must pass certification for a new platform or region

In all these cases, the goal isn’t to start over. It’s to unlock more performance and reliability from what they already have.

Success Metrics We Help Improve

By working on embedded and QA layers, we’ve helped OTT vendors:

Reduce video startup time by 30–50%
Decrease crash rates across STB fleets by up to 70%
Achieve certification faster for Tizen and Android TV
Enable low-latency live streams with <3s end-to-end delay
Scale their offering to new geographies with localized QA coverage

These are real wins that drive user retention and monetization.

Why This Strategy Is Future-Proof

The OTT industry is shifting from platform building to platform optimization. New features like AI-based recommendations, advanced EPGs, or dynamic ad insertion rely on existing video delivery infrastructure — but demand deeper integration at the system level.

Vendors who focus only on frontend design will fall behind. Stability, latency, and reliability will matter more than flashy UIs.

That’s why our hybrid team of embedded engineers, OTT integrators, and QA specialists is becoming the go-to option for video providers who want to grow without rebuilding.

Conclusion: Build Less, Boost More

At Promwad, we believe in targeted, high-impact improvements — not reinventing the wheel. By enhancing the embedded and QA layers of existing OTT platforms, we help clients deliver a better viewing experience, faster, and with lower cost and risk.

If you have an OTT service that needs better playback, faster certification, or cross-platform stability — we’re here to help. Let’s talk about how embedded and QA can amplify what you already have.