Jessica Glad

Say Hello to Home Cine! A Fresh Take on Streaming, Powered by Icareus

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Helsinki, April 24, 2025 – Finland has welcomed a new streaming service for movies and TV series: Kotikino (eng. Home Cine), launched in April by Finnish company Nordic Content Distribution Ltd.. The service is built on the Icareus Video Cloud OTT solution.

Nordic Content Distribution (NCD) introduced its first streaming service Kirjastokino, aimed at public libraries, already back in 2019. It quickly gained widespread popularity and is now available in over 100 Finnish municipalities. However, the streaming landscape has changed. Many viewers feel that digital services have become too similar and often fail to offer anything truly interesting to watch. One reason for this is that most streaming decisions are made outside of Europe, leading to increasingly homogenized content and service models – leaving many films and genres out of reach.

Home Cine’s mission is to highlight and provide access to high-quality European movie and TV-series content.

“We’ve noticed that this kind of content easily falls into limbo while major international platforms take time to decide on their acquisitions. In addition, we plan to focus on other underserved genres, such as children’s films, anime, horror, and sci-fi, which also tend to be overlooked in many streaming services,” says the team behind the service.

At launch, Home Cine offers around 2,000 films, plus TV series and episodes. The catalog will expand weekly with new titles, meaning the service is constantly evolving.

One key advantage compared to many other platforms is that Home Cine offers both a monthly subscription and a rental model for individual films.

The platform is built using Icareus OTT platform, solution packed with versatile features that enable full management of the video service, including:

  • Uploading and migrating movies and TV series via a user interface or API integration
  • Video preparation, transcoding, categorization, and metadata management
  • Monetization through paid content packages and optionally advertisements
  • End-user registration and account management
  • Global content delivery via a robust CDN
  • End-user interfaces and video apps for various platforms
  • Analytics and reporting tools

In addition to the video platform, Icareus designed and developed Home Cine apps for iOS and Android. Smart TV applications will be released in the next phase of the service.

With Icareus Video Cloud handling the technical side, NCD can focus on content and building customer relationships instead of platform maintenance and development.

Home Cine is available on web at https://kotikino.fi and as mobile apps in app stores under the name Kotikino.

Nordic Content Distribution Oy is a Finnish company founded in 2019. It develops and operates the Kotikino (eng. Home Cine) and Kirjastokino (eng. Library Cine) streaming services. The company is privately owned, and its team has over 50 years of combined experience in the video and media industry across various companies and services. Read more: https://kotikino.fi tai https://www.linkedin.com/company/nordic-content-distribution/

Icareus Ltd is a growing and profitable Finnish company providing SaaS video cloud services. Our company serves customers from over 60 countries. Icareus OTT solution is a turnkey white-label video cloud solution for media, TV and content owners. It offers versatile tools for the production, management, publication and (optionally) commercialization of live streaming, videos and events.
More information: https://icareus.com/products/white-label-ott-platform/

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Icareus OTT Solution presentation

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Icareus OTT Platform

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Jessica Glad

Terveyskylä.fi Gets a Makeover: HUS Adopts Icareus Video Cloud

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Helsinki, 18.06.2024 – The Terveyskylä.fi service ecosystem, developed and maintained through collaboration by Finland’s university hospitals, has successfully transitioned to the Icareus Video Cloud. This nationwide service will now have its media content managed and distributed via the Icareus Video Cloud. As part of this transition, more than 260 hours of video and audio content, along with over 4,000 media files, have found a new home.

Terveyskylä.fi has established itself as a key digital health service platform in Finland, offering a wide range of content such as the Terveyskylä Houses, Omapolku services, and various mobile and online applications. Video and audio files play a crucial role in these services and are actively utilized.

Icareus Video Cloud met the needs of HUS (and Terveyskylä) by providing a comprehensive solution for editing, subtitling, managing, and publishing video and audio media across various services and platforms.

Icareus CEO, Toni Leiponen, commented on the delivery:

“We are very pleased to offer even more comprehensive online video services to Terveyskylä, whose content is produced by experienced professionals in eServices. For years, we have been providing video solutions for the New Children's Hospital, and it's great that our service now also covers Terveyskylä’s video services. We’re proud to contribute to the well-being of society.”
Toni Leiponen
CEO, Icareus

Thanks to Icareus Video Cloud, Terveyskylä’s digital video services are now accessible to a broader audience, meeting the WCAG 2.1 AA-level accessibility requirements.

During the extensive implementation, Icareus Video Cloud was tailored to meet HUS’s needs, and existing media content was smoothly migrated to the new system. Video embeds and links were also updated.

Soile Tammelin, Product Manager for HUS eHealth Development Services, commented on the start of the collaboration between Terveyskylä and Icareus:

“Instructional videos for patients, training videos for professionals, and video-based peer stories are an important part of Terveyskylä’s content. I am delighted that, through excellent collaboration with Icareus, we have been able to release accessible versions of our videos in more languages. The Icareus project team has worked weekly on building and developing the services.”
Soile Tammelin
Soile Tammelin
Product Manager, HUS

Training was conducted in two phases, first for key users and then for general users, ensuring all user groups can make the most of the new software service.

The partnership with Icareus enabled a smooth and rapid implementation, ensuring an improved video user experience for Terveyskylä.fi.

Terveyskylä’s services are developed in collaboration with Finland’s university hospitals, with the Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) providing ICT services. In addition to university hospitals, the service ecosystem is also utilized by several well-being areas, where Terveyskylä forms an integral part of their service chains.

Founded in 2001, Icareus Ltd is a growing, profitable Finnish company that offers SaaS video cloud services. We serve customers in over 60 countries. Our main product, the customizable Icareus Video Cloud service, enables organizations to launch professional video services. It is suitable for both internal and external use in various contexts, such as content services, virtual and hybrid events, communication, marketing, and training—easily and affordably from the cloud, accessible on all devices.

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Annilotta Haataja

The Benefits of AI Captions

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In a digital world where visual and auditory content is taking over the screens, we must not forget the importance of captioning in terms of accessibility. Captioning is not just a nice-to-have feature, it opens the door for many people to participate in the digital world. This makes it a necessity for public actors, among others, to consider. 

People with hearing impairments, different language groups and people with learning difficulties benefit greatly from captions and subtitles. They enable people to understand sound-rich content regardless of hearing status or language barriers. At the same time, it improves search engine understanding and helps everyone find what they are looking for. When sharing your content online, remember to include captions – a small act with a big impact.   

A little effort to add subtitles means a huge impact on accessibility – it’s not just responsible, it’s smart business. But this effort is easy to reduce with today’s technology. Artificial intelligence opens new possibilities to make content accessible to a wide audience, and one major help is an intelligent AI subtitling tool. 

Traditional subtitling tools require manual work, which can be time-consuming, even expensive. This can prevent many content providers from paying sufficient attention to accessibility. Now, our intelligent subtitling tool, powered by artificial intelligence and included in our Icareus Suite video platform, offers a fast, accurate and cost-effective way to add subtitles to your video content. 

The interface of the Icareus automatic captioning tool. The tool can be used to provide captions for videos in Finnish, Swedish or English.

This AI-based tool can automatically convert spoken language into text. The resulting raw text is perfectly understandable and often good as it is, but may require cleaning up the filler words, stuttering and other word repetition that often occurs in spoken language. Nevertheless, using AI texting can reduce the resources required for subtitling by up to 90%! 

The captions created can be easily translated into different languages afterwards with our subtitling tool, allowing for the content to be understood globally. This means that the language barrier is no longer a barrier, and people with hearing loss and different language groups can enjoy your videos. 

Our subtitling tool, with a wide range of translation languages.

Smart captioning tools not only improve accessibility, they also save time and resources. They free up content producers’ time from creating manual subtitles and allow them to focus on the quality of the content itself.  

When your goal is to make your content accessible and reach a wider audience, don’t hesitate to use our AI subtitling tools. Icareus is ready to help you promote accessibility and make the world a place where everyone can participate. 

Related solutions

Icareus Video Cloud for Public Organizations

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Icareus Video Cloud for Companies and Third Sector Organizations

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Icareus Video Cloud for Education and Training

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Icareus Video Cloud for Broadcasters, Media and OTT

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Related articles

The Benefits of AI Captions

June 14, 2024 No Comments

The article highlights the role of intelligent captioning in increasing digital accessibility. Icareus’ AI-based captioning tool makes captioning fast and accurate, enabling it to reach a wide audience and saving time and resources.

Read more »

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Helpdesk

Learn more about the solution, how it works, and how to use it on the Icareus Helpdesk.

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Annilotta Haataja

Behind the Scenes: How Video Analytics Drive Success

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Businesses across industries are harnessing the power of analytics to gain valuable insights and drive success. Understanding viewer behavior and preferences is essential to optimize engagement and achieve desired outcomes. Behind the scenes, video analytics play a crucial role in unlocking this valuable information.

In this article, we will delve into the world of video analytics, exploring how they provide businesses with the necessary tools to make informed decisions, refine their strategies, and ultimately drive success.

Deep Dive into Viewer Behavior

A treasure trove of information. How would you make use of it?

Video analytics provide a treasure trove of data, offering an in-depth understanding of viewer behavior. By analyzing metrics such as view duration, drop-off points, and engagement levels, businesses gain insights into how viewers interact with their video content. This information helps identify which parts of a video are most compelling, where viewers may lose interest, and how to optimize content to maintain engagement throughout.

With the ability to track and analyze viewer behavior, businesses can make data-driven decisions to refine their video strategies. By understanding what resonates with their audience, they can tailor their content to meet specific preferences and achieve desired outcomes. This deep dive into viewer behavior provides a competitive edge, ensuring that businesses create captivating and engaging video experiences for both internal and external viewers.

This understanding is equally vital for live and virtual events or webinars. Knowing how and when participants engage during the event and the post-event viewing of the recording is crucial.

Audience Segmentation and Personalization

Video analytics enable businesses to segment their audience based on various criteria such as location, demographics, or viewing habits. This segmentation helps tailor content to specific target groups, delivering personalized experiences that resonate on a deeper level. By analyzing viewer data, businesses can create targeted marketing campaigns, recommend related videos, or offer personalized recommendations.

By leveraging audience segmentation and personalization, businesses can build stronger connections with their viewers. Delivering content that is relevant to individual preferences enhances engagement, fosters loyalty, and increases the likelihood of achieving desired outcomes. Video analytics empower businesses to refine their strategies and provide tailored experiences that drive success.

Optimizing Content Delivery

Video analytics provide valuable insights into the performance of video content across different devices, platforms, and networks. By monitoring metrics such as buffering rates, load times, and video quality, businesses can optimize content delivery to ensure a seamless viewing experience for their audience.

Leveraging this data, businesses can proactively identify and address potential video performance issues, such as optimizing video quality settings for adaptive video delivery.

By optimizing content delivery, businesses can minimize viewer frustration, reduce video abandonment rates, and maintain high-quality experiences. Video analytics act as a guiding light, allowing businesses to fine-tune their technical infrastructure and deliver video content flawlessly.

Measuring ROI and Performance

Compare...
And contrast.

Determining the return on investment (ROI) and overall performance of video content is crucial for businesses. Video analytics provide the necessary metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of video campaigns, measure engagement levels, and track viewer conversions. Businesses can effectively measure the success of their external video initiatives by tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and social shares. Internal video success can be evaluated through various metrics, including video plays, average viewing times, and completion rates.

By analyzing ROI and performance metrics, businesses can identify what works and what needs improvement. This data-driven approach empowers businesses to allocate resources effectively, optimize their video strategies, and maximize the impact of their video content.

Conclusion

Behind the scenes, video analytics are the driving force that empowers businesses to make informed decisions, refine strategies, and ultimately drive success. Embracing video analytics is the key to leveraging data-driven insights and creating engaging, personalized, and successful video experiences.

Want to find out what your videos can reveal, given proper tools to do so with? Icareus’ Video Cloud offers comprehensive video analytics that enable businesses to unlock the full potential of their video content.

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Jessica Glad

Icareus Video Cloud enables a new streaming service: Elonet+

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Helsinki, 16.01.2024, The Finnish National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI), in collaboration with Icareus, has launched Elonet, a new streaming service called Elonet+. This service is designed to offer an even wider range of possibilities to enjoy Finnish film production anywhere and anytime, completely free of charge for the viewer.

The Elonet+ streaming service is hosted on Icareus Video Cloud, making use of its wide range of features. The ease of cloud computing allows KAVI’s experts to focus entirely on curating the content themselves. Icareus Video Cloud enables content owners, public organisations and businesses to deliver their own branded video services securely, quickly and cost-effectively. In addition to the video platform, Icareus designed and implemented Elonet+ applications and user interfaces for various devices, including iOS and Android mobile apps and AppleTV, AndroidTV, LG and Samsung SmartTV apps.Thanks to Icareus Video Cloud’s API interfaces, the challenging migration project, during which thousands of Elonet+ video content and metadata were imported from KAVI’s various video platforms, was completed with minimal human resources.

"It has been important for KAVI to improve the accessibility of its films. The Elonet+, implemented in partnership with the Icareus people, meets a need expressed by customers and we at KAVI are proud of this achievement."

Pekka Tähtinen
Head of Digital Services at KAVI

"We are honoured that KAVI chose Icareus Video Cloud as the solution for the new Elonet+ service. It's great to see how it brings together a vast amount of national film, TV and other content history in one place, and makes it available to all Finns."

Toni Leiponen
Toni Leiponen
CEO, Icareus Ltd

The new video service is off to an impressive start – the collection already contains more than 350 feature films, with 20-30 new titles being added every year. Among the films on offer are the old, familiar Pekka Puupää comedy films, the 1955 Unknown Soldier, Pojat (1962), based on Paavo Rintala’s famous novel, and the true crime film Fraud (1988). TV series will not be ignored either, with a remastered 4K version of the Winter War TV series as its first taste. With around 3000 commercials, documentaries and short films, there’s plenty to keep you busy for a long time.
Elonet+ can be found at http://elonetplus.fi and in app stores under the same name.

Elonet+ devices

The National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI) preserves and makes available Finland’s audiovisual cultural heritage: films, television and radio programmes. The National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI) is a government agency under the Ministry of Education and Culture, whose activities are based on legislation. KAVI’s statutory tasks include the preservation of films and television and radio programmes, as well as related research, the supervision of the provision of image programmes and the promotion of media education.

Icareus Oy, founded in 2001, is a growing and profitable Finnish company providing SaaS video cloud services. Our company serves customers from over 60 countries. Our main product, the customisable Icareus Video Cloud Service, enables the publishing of professional video services for organisations. The service is suitable for both internal and external use in various contexts, such as content services, virtual and hybrid events, communication, marketing and training. All this easily and affordably from the cloud, for all terminals.

Icareus Suite is the most versatile online SaaS video cloud service in Europe, used by a wide range of actors such as sports organisations, companies, 3rd sector operators, TV channels, operators and public organisations. We offer a wide range of features such as Live streaming broadcasts, Video-on-demand streaming services, customisable video portals, events, social media integrations, subscriber management, ad management, paywalls and a handy mobile app to upload videos from your mobile phone to the service. All Icareus video services are always brand-safe and can be customised to look like the customer with selected features.

Relevant material

Downloads & further reading

Additional materials regarding this article

Presentation: Icareus white-label OTT solution

Presentation with further information about the service and its numerous applications.

Web page: Icareus white-label OTT solution

Read more about the customizable Icareus Video Cloud on our website.

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Jessica Glad

FloorballTV – a sports streaming service success story

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In the autumn of 2022, the Finnish Floorball Federation launched their own, Icareus built and hosted branded OTT service, FloorballTV (official name in Finnish: SalibandyTV). Its goals were clear and simple: to enable clubs to easily stream their games and monetize them, for the sport to have a single place for all video content, and for that place to be easily discoverable.  

– The heart of the matter is that we genuinely are doing this for the Finnish floorball community and for the floorball clubs. The federation and a few stakeholders will invest in this, and when a club streams a game on FloorballTV 80-90 percent of the ticket sale revenue is automatically returned directly to the club. Such high revenue return percentages have not been reached before. In this way, clubs will have an excellent way to generate revenue for their activities, Mr. Jussi Ojala, the communications director of the Finnish Floorball Federation, explained. 

After the first six months it’s quite clear that FloorballTV is a resounding success. Hundreds of registered clubs, thousands of streamed games, tens of thousands of registered users and happy viewers. The revenues have also exceeded all the floorball clubs’ expectations. 

What, then, made the launch so successful? A number of things: 

  • The content is easily discoverable, and thus viewers have found it. 
  • It’s widely accepted by the floorball community; it is, after all, from the players to the players. 
  • The clubs and the federation have been actively promoting it as “our own media”. It’s also providing good sponsorship placements for the federation via display and video advertising. 
  • The streaming of games is very easy with a purpose built mobile application included in the service, which has led the clubs to actively stream their games. 
  • Paid games bring income to everyone from Division I to the “grassroots” junior leagues – with the clubs getting most of the revenue. 

The community has embraced FloorballTV with great enthusiasm and will likely keep on that path. 

The future roadmap for the Floorball TV service will add various features like scoreboards, integration to statistics services, subscription services in addition to pay-per-view, tournaments and using AI based automatic cameras. 

Finnish Floorball Federation was founded on September 23, 1985. The floorball federation is a nationwide sports organization whose purpose is to promote, supervise and guide the hobby and development of floorball in Finland. Floorball is the third most popular sport in Finland after football and ice hockey, according to registered players (over 65,000 license players) at the moment. The Finnish Floorball Federation has about 800 member clubs. It is a founding member of the International Floorball Federation (IFF). Floorball is played in 80 countries and the International Floorball Federation  has 75 member countries from all inhabited continents. The IFF has ranked 46 countries in the men’s series and 40 countries in the women’s series. 

More information: https://salibandy.fi/ and https://salibandy.tv/

Icareus Ltd is an online video cloud and broadcast TV specialist founded in 2001 and having offices in Finland and Spain. Icareus provides video cloud solutions and trusted broadcast TV platforms, and our solutions are enjoyed by millions of consumers via our broadcaster, operator, OTT and OVP customers in over 60 countries.  Combining online and broadcast has been the core of our activities over almost two decades. We’ve been making the change from linear TV to today’s multi-screen experience. 

More information: https://www.icareus.com  

Icareus Sports OTT is a turnkey white-label video cloud solution for sports of all kinds, team or individual, from floorball and football to tennis and martial arts. It offers versatile tools for the production, management, publication and (optionally) commercialization of sports videos and events. Both professional leagues and “grass roots” non-professional sports clubs can make use of this solution. 

More information: https://icareus.com/solutions-for-customer-groups/sports/ 

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Annilotta Haataja

Considering Video Accessibility

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What makes a video accessible? How can you benefit from accessibility? And how can achieving accessibility be made easy for you? 

Jatka lukemista
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Annilotta Haataja

Icareus Video Cloud – New Features

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Icareus Video Cloud continues to grow and develop with great speed

During the past year, we have gained dozens of new customers around the globe from various fields of operation. They range from private companies to public and third sector organisations. It is our aim, here at Icareus, to be the leading video cloud service in Europe.

Icareus Video Cloud

Produce

Create

Edit & Caption

Edit

Manage

Manage

Publish

Analyze

Analyze

Icareus Suite Video Cloud is  a service platform running on the scalable environment and targeted for broadcasters, operators, enterprises and  public organizations to manage and distribute their video based content. Icareus Suite allows you to manage your Live, event and on-demand content, subscribers, content packaging, services, access control, user experience, advertisements and monetization on pretty much any platform.

Icareus Video Cloud new features

Icareus invests heavily in product development. We have published hundreds of improvements and numerous new features this year. Most of the work done on product development we base on the needs of our clients, in addition to which we do a great deal of “invisible” work to improve our service platform. 

Here are the top 6 new Icareus Video Cloud features published during this past year.

1. Icareus Studio video editor

Icareus Studio is a browser-based, easy-to-use video editor that doesn’t require you to install anything on your computer.

With Icareus Studio, you can publish brand-appropriate video with no previous video editing experience, fast and easy. Edit video files, take screenshots – even capture webcam footage for a video.

Icareus Studio

2. MyIcareus mobile app

MyIcareus mobile app

MyIcareus mobile app is a handy tool that allows users to film, upload, and publish video to the cloud with ease.

The app works on both phones and tablets, and is available for download from Apple’s App Store and Google Play.

3. Video and event analytics 2.0

At the start of year 2022, Icareus published a new video and event analysis platform, based on big data, for our clients to make use of.

This new solution provides its users with precise statistics of all views, watch times, and device types used to watch video, whether live or a recording.

4. Icareus caption tool

Icareus tekstitystyökalu

Before summer holidays, we rolled out the first version of Icareus’s very own caption tool – a tool especially yearned for by organisations following accessibility guidelines.

Icareus caption tool allows the creation, editing, translating and publishing of both captions and subtitles. The handy timeline and keyboard shortcuts make captioning easy, and text files can be uploaded to the tool to speed the process up even more.

5. Icareus chat/message board 2.0

Icareus is constantly improving already existing features, and a great deal of product development is based on client feedback.

One such long longed-for feature was the new and improved version of Icareus Message Board: among other things, liking and answering messages is now possible.

6. User access management

Our bigger clients can have dozens or even hundreds of admin users. In those cases, users are divided into different groups or units, with admins at the helm.

With the Icareus User Access Management tool, users can be divided into roles, such as main users, admin users and viewers. They can also be grouped up into specific teams, such as Communications, Education, etc.

Each user or team can then be given access to specific content.

Additional information

Wish to know more, either about features mentioned above, or anything else Icareus-related? Contact us. More info will be provided at our Helpdesk.

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Jessica Glad

FloorballTV, a new era in sports streaming – Finnish Floorball Association launches its own branded video service

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SalibandyTV_allekirjoitus_Toni-Mikko-Pekka-Jussi

In the picture: Mr Toni Leiponen, CEO and Mr Mikko Karppinen Development Director from Icareus, Mr Pekka Ilmivalta, Executive Director and Mr Jussi Ojala Communication Director of the Finnish Floorball Association. 

Helsinki, 23.5.2022, The life of floorball fans has never been as great as will be the following years as Finnish floorball association will launch a new FloorballTV and the F-League will be available on Sanoma’s Ruutu service until 2028. FloorballTV brings together all the other broadcasts of Finnish floorball.

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Jessica Glad

F-Liiga and Icareus launch new streaming and video-on-demand service for international floorball fans

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Kimmo Nurminen F-Liiga

Helsinki, 09.12.2021, The Finnish floorball league F-Liiga has released a new paid video service for international F-Liiga fans. The technology platform for F-Liiga TV is the Icareus Suite video cloud service.

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