The Walt Disney Company has introduced a user interface redesign for Hulu, which it says improves the navigation and content discovery experience for users, while also offering a look and functionality that’s more consistent with the newer streaming services Hulu is now bundled with, Disney Plus and ESPN+.

The new UI has already been deployed on Hulu’s Roku and Apple TV apps, with other platforms soon to follow.

Also read: Hulu: Everything You Need to Know About the OG Streaming Service, Now 100% Under Disney Control

“We listened to feedback from our viewers and heard they loved how easy it was to continue watching the shows and movies they love, but not as easy to discover new content,” Jim Denney, VP of product management, and Jason Wong, director of product management, wrote in a blog post.

"Viewers can now navigate through collections vertically and explore within a collection by moving horizontally,” the Hulu product managers said. “This navigation pattern is something our viewers are accustomed to and matches the navigation pattern across Disney Plus and ESPN+, making it easier for viewers who subscribe to the Disney bundle to switch between services and navigate with ease. When testing, viewers found it easy and intuitive to adjust to this updated navigation pattern. 

“We’re also simplifying navigation,” Denney and Wong added. “Categories of content like TV, Movies, and Sports will be moved to the master navigation, which gives our viewers a clear pathway to find what they’re looking for. In the mood for a dramatic movie? This new navigation provides an easy way to navigate our vast library of content with fewer clicks than before.”

Looking to spark customer growth in sluggish regions including The Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium, Liberty Global has announced the deployment of its next-generation video platform, Horizon 4.

The platform combines linear TV with cloud DVR, VOD, voice remote capabilities and integrated OTT apps, including Netflix and YouTube. And it’s already battle-tested, with Liberty deploying it across around 2 million homes in the UK, where it has been combined with Arris set-tops and TiVo software and marketed under the “V6’ brand. Liberty Media reported an uptick of 45,000 TV customers across Virgin Media system in the second quarter.

But company CEO Mike Fries conceded that it faces “a pretty tough competitive environment” in places like Switzerland, where Liberty lost 54,000 customers in Q2, more than half of them in video. 

Related: Virgin Media Accelerates Rollout of TiVo-Powered V6 Box

Liberty, which announced the deployment at its “Tech Summit,” an event held within in conjunction with the IBC Show in Amsterdam, has also conducted tests of the platform in 10,000 homes across multiple Euro systems.

The platform uses the Reference Design Kit, an open-source software for set-tops that has been jointly developed by Liberty, Comcast and Charter Communications.

Liberty said the hardware and user interfaces of the Horizon 4 product suite were developed in-house by teams based at Liberty Global’s tech campus in Schiphol-Rijk in The Netherlands, together with various teams in other countries and with external partners across Europe.

“Our teams develop a common set of products and services, which are then rolled out across our local operating companies,” said Enrique Rodriguez, the former TiVo CEO who is Liberty Global’s recently appointed exec VP and CTO, in a statement. “This allows us to achieve significant scale and operating synergies.”

Added Mark Giesbers, Liberty Global’s VP Entertainment Products: “We want to add value to customers' lives and deliver on their expectation of 'any content, any device, anywhere, anytime'. That means aggregating all those TV channels, movies, series and apps into one easy-to-use, seamless viewing experience - and across multiple devices. The new Horizon 4 platform with its 4K set-top box, the remote with voice-control and the improved mobile app allows us to do exactly that.”

Hulu said it has taken another step to help drive more live TV viewing on web browsers, announcing Wednesday that the UI for that platform has tacked on a feature that behaves a bit more like a traditional channel grid guide. 

That addition shows what’s on now and what’s next and a way to easily change channels via the grid.

Among features on the new web component, users can access the guide during live playback by selecting the icon on the lower left corner of the screen, or hover the cursor near the left side of the browser window. That opens up a scrollable list of channels along with access to a filter that lets users sort programming by sports, news or kids programming.

Hulu’s new “dynamic guide” is breaking out first on web browsers, “and we are eager to learn how you use it before we roll it out to additional platforms in the coming months,” Ben Smith, Hulu’s head of experience, explained in this blog post, noting that changes were made in part from user feedback.

The new guide view emerges as Hulu seeks out ways to drive more live TV viewing, delivered via an OTT TV service that was launched in beta form in May.

During the early months of the service, Smith acknowledged that some of Hulu’s live content felt “hidden” at times, so the first step was the live TV only web experience launched in August. That followed by a change in how the Hulu UI that centers on using recommendations to surface live TV. Smith said recent changes have boosted live viewing on Hulu by 70% since the start of August. 

Comcast said it unleashed another batch of updates and enhancements this summer to X1, its cloud-powered video platform, per this blog post from Peter Nush, Comcast Cable's VP of product management.

Here’s a rundown of those tweaks and additions:

-X1 has added filters for SAP (Secondary Audio Program) and Video Descriptive content that can be accessed via the guide’s live and upcoming TV listings, and as a “Featured” tile in the On Demand menu. Viewers can also speak “SAP” into their voice remotes to pull up SAP content options.

-Comcast has added new capabilities and actions for its voice remote, including support for new phrases such as “What should I watch?”, “What’s recommended for me?,” as well as the ability to pull up remote settings and the box’s power save and restart functions. Also, when “What can I say?” is uttered, X1 will pull up a Tips & Tricks area dedicated to voice commands.

-X1 has also added a settings area for management of the remote control, offering access to the device’s battery level, remote type, and a list of paired devices.

-X1’s Sports App has added a Soccer section and personalized NASCAR leaderboards.

-In time for the recent Summer Games in Rio, X1 added an Athlete Gallery Rows element that lets users browse by specific athletes competing for various teams, nations, or sports. The feature can also be applied to a viewer’s favorite actor and musician.

-Viewers can now track their favorite teams by setting up Team Reminders with options to for live events only, all live programming (including pre/post game shows), or all programming associated with a specific team. X1’s Auto Extend feature is now the default setting for recordings of games associated with the NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, NASCAR as well as NCAA men’s Football and Basketball.

-X1 is now set up to receive live streams from cameras attached to Xfinity Home, the MSO’s home security and automation service.

-Following an initial spin as a lab feature, X1’s Default Guides component is now an official offering. It enables users to customize which Guide View (such as sports, kids channels or movies, for example) to display when the Guide button is pressed.

-The X1’s Comcast Labs section is kicking the tires on a new setting called "Auto Pad Recordings," which sets all recordings to automatically begin one minute early and end three  minutes late. Also on trial is a “Guide Readability” option that lets users modify the look of text, with the caveat that the change will require a box reboot.

The changes come as Comcast, which has been deploying about 40,000 X1 boxes per day, expects to have about half its video sub base on the platform by year-end. Cox Communications and Canada's Shaw Communications are the first announced MSOs to license the platform.

Just weeks after debuting its new UI on Apple TV, Sling TV has followed with the launch of its new platform for the Roku platform.

Among the updates is “My TV,” a new personalized home screen that lets users select and pin favorite channels for the “My Channels” ribbon up top for one-click access to the subscriber’s most viewed channels. My TV also includes a “Continue Watching” ribbon to rejoin shows, and the option to add most-watched shows, series and movies in the UI’s “Favorites” ribbon.

Sling TV’s new UI for Roku also features a Sports view, and a curated On Now view based on what’s currently airing live in categories such as sports, lifestyle and action.

Sling TV said it will roll the new UI to other supported devices throughout the year.  Dish’s OTT-TV service also runs on Amazon Fire TV devices, Xbox One consoles, Android TV devices, Web browsers, iOS and Android mobile devices. 

Accedo, a maker of multiscreen interfaces, said it has landed up to $10 million in additional capital through a partnership with SEB Private Equity of Stockholm that will be used to accelerate growth and expand product development.  

Accedo said the deal will allow earlier investors in the company, including Industrifonden and Acacia, to exit.

Updated: Accedo has raised about $16M in total, an official said.

Accedo also appointed video industry vet James Ackerman as chairman of the board. Ackerman is late of A&E, BSkyB, OpenTV, and the Documentary Channel. Ackerman recently served as executive chairman of Broadway Systems, an advertising management software company that was acquired by SintecMedia in 2015.

“We’re excited to partner with SEB Private Equity to go to the next level, Michael Lantz, CEO and co-founder of Accedo, said in a statement. “They share our vision of the market development and what a company like Accedo can deliver to truly transform the way consumers experience video services. We firmly believe that we’re still only in the beginning of the transformation of video consumption as we know it and we’re looking forward to continue our 12-year growth trajectory in the future.”

“It’s rare to see a transformation of an industry such as what we’re seeing in the TV industry at the moment,” added Ackerman. “The traditional value chain is evolving with new and existing players embracing OTT technologies to reach consumers and monetise video content in new and innovative ways.”

Stockholm-based Accedo has raised $11.27 million, according to CrunchBase. It was founded in 2004. 

Accedo's customers include OSN (a pay TV provider in the Middle East and North Africa); Cinépolis, a cinema chain based in Latin America; Sky Deutschland; and maxdome, an SVOD service in Germany.