Exterity today announced that Saxon Hotel, Villas & Spa Johannesburg has deployed a major upgrade to its IPTV solutions to provide guest with a better-than-home experience.
At the heart of the city of Johannesburg, in the opulent, tree-lined suburb of Sandhurst, lies the enchanting Saxon Hotel, Villas & Spa. A uniquely-perfect blend of rich cultural history and contemporary five-star service, The Saxon is situated on ten acres of magnificent indigenous gardens, providing a private and peaceful retreat like no other. By offering all the comforts of home when it comes to audio and visual entertainment, The Saxon wanted to reflect its commitment to offering impeccable quality and service that has led to it being voted the World’s Leading Boutique Hotel since 2001.
The Exterity system was deployed by Panavision Evolve, a specialist in AV and automation technology. The project involved the deployment of 68 Samsung HD SmartTVs across the complex to future proof for the proposed Exterity upgrade, with additional projectors in
stalled in conference areas.
“We looked at several potential IPTV technology suppliers for the project at The Saxon, with a brief to meet the expectations of high quality and reliability, as well as the ability to seamlessly integrate with core management systems.” said Jaco Potgieter, Sales Director for Panavision, “We had several meetings with Exterity, whose equipment and successful deployments for similar projects gave us the confidence that it would provide the best balance of quality, reliability and compatibility.”
Exterity’s IPTV system delivers over 70 satellite TV channels and VoD entertainment content in The Saxon’s guest rooms. It also provides live TV throughout the public areas of the hotel, including conference suites and spa treatment rooms. The new guest interaction system starts with a Saxon-branded Exterity portal that allows the simple setup of languages options and preferences. The Exterity IPTV system is also integrated with Creston in-room controls to enable a single remote-control access to live TV and VoD entertainment content, multiroom audio and lighting. This portal approach enables The Saxon to easily add functionality to the system and, with the current Exterity system, the hotel can easily add billing details, express checkout or taxi pick-up via the TV in guestrooms. The upgrade project took six weeks and was run in parallel with the legacy system to ensure no disruption to guests.
Gary Davies, Sub-Saharan Africa Sales Manager at Exterity, said: “Exterity solutions are designed to be future-proof; our IPTV system is in use all day every day, which means it needs to be incredibly reliable. Since its deployment, we have only had to solve two min
or issues with a simple phone call. This impressive track record confirms our belief that high-quality solutions and products are a prerequisite for discerning, tech-savvy hotel guests.”
The Exterity solution at Saxon Hotel Villas and Spa Johannesburg consist of:
- AvediaStream TVgateways
- AvediaServer central management platform
- AvediaPlayer Media Players
For more information please visit www.exterity.com
