Comcast has rolled out another wave of additions and enhancements to its X1 platform, including a new feature that aims to simplify the process for customers to verify and activate their accounts at the set-top box level.
On that front, Comcast has begun to roll out a new screen for X1 that lets customers verify by entering the last digits of the account’s primary phone number.
“This simplified verification saves customers and technicians time and alleviates the frustration of having to enter a long account number,” Peter Nush, the company’s VP of product management, explained in this blog post.
Among the other additions, Comcast has also added a search feature that only pulls up shows that are available on-demand from networks that don’t necessarily appear on a linear, live channel. Examples of that include Angry Birds Toons and Kabillion.
Comcast has also extended its “Auto Extend” feature to more live events, now spanning the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, MLS NASCAR and NCAA men’s football and basketball. Auto Extend is has become the default “stop” setting for recording options on X1.
Additionally, the Comcast Labs section of X1 is now testing a “Default Guide View” component that enables subs to control and personalize the kind of content they see when pressing the Guide button of the remote. Using this test feature, customers can now use that button to select a particular guide view – such as HD Channels, Favorites, the X1 Trending guide, or the Kids guide view. Those various guide options can still be pulled up by pressing the Guide button twice.
At last check, Comcast has been deploying about 40,000 X1 boxes a day, with about 35% of its video base on the platform. The MSO expects to push that to 50% by year end.
Cox, one of the MSOs licensing the platform, confirmed this week that it has rolled out its new X1-based Contour offering to all systems except for Virginia, which will come online later this month.
