CASE STUDY

How FressiTV Uses Castr to Deliver Live and On-Demand Fitness Experiences

Powering daily live classes and a growing on-demand library for a membership-based fitness brand.

THE CLIENT

A fitness brand where video is part of the membership

Fressi is a Finnish fitness and wellness brand offering gym, group exercise, recovery, and digital training experiences.

Through FressiTV, the company gives customers access to instructor-led fitness and wellness content online. Fressi publicly describes FressiTV as a way to train “wherever and whenever,” with professional-led individual and group exercise available through live broadcasts and on-demand viewing, with both free content and subscriber-only programming.

For Fressi, video is not just an add-on. It is part of the customer experience.

THE CHALLENGE

Daily live classes plus an always-growing library

Running a digital fitness product is operationally demanding. Fressi needed to deliver live fitness classes throughout the week while maintaining an on-demand workout library for customers who wanted to train on their own schedule.

The team needed video infrastructure that could support:

Multiple live streams for different audiences

Daily live fitness classes

Embedded playback inside Fressi's own web experience

A growing on-demand workout library

Adaptive video quality for different viewer connections

Backup and pre-recorded workflows when needed

High bandwidth usage during busy periods

Responsive technical support during live class windows

Playback across desktop, mobile, Chromecast, AirPlay, and TV environments

Because FressiTV is customer-facing, reliability and ease of access are important. When a live class is scheduled to start, members expect the stream to be available immediately.

THE SOLUTION

From live classes to the full video product

Fressi started with Castr in 2020 for live streaming and HLS delivery, with an early focus on making live streams reliable for EU-based audiences, along with support for multiple video profiles and higher-quality streaming options.

Over time, the partnership expanded well beyond live. Fressi moved its on-demand video library onto Castr too, growing the VOD catalog, combining live and on-demand bandwidth, and adding adaptive playback for recorded content.

Today, Castr supports FressiTV with:

✓Live streaming

✓HLS delivery

✓Adaptive bitrate playback

✓Video hosting and VOD delivery

✓Embedded video player workflows

✓Chromecast and casting support

✓Pre-recorded stream workflows

✓Regional ingest options

✓Technical support for live classes and playback workflows

The FressiTV experience stays inside Fressi's own digital environment, while Castr powers the video delivery layer behind the scenes.

Supporting Daily Live Fitness Classes

FressiTV runs on scheduled live programming. Classes have to start on time, play smoothly, and reach customers on every device and connection. Unlike a one-off webinar, daily fitness programming needs a repeatable setup that holds up over months and years of regular broadcasts.

Castr delivers Fressi's live classes through HLS with adaptive delivery and flexible ingest, and backs them with a direct technical support channel on Slack and WhatsApp that lets Fressi run live classes with more confidence.

Expanding into a Full VOD Library

Not every customer can join a class live. Members want to train later in the day, repeat a favorite class, or pick workouts around their schedule, which makes the recorded library as much a part of the product as the live programming.

As FressiTV grew, Fressi expanded its on-demand catalog on Castr's VOD platform, which supports:

A growing workout video library
Embedded playback inside Fressi's member experience
Adaptive video playback
Chromecast-friendly viewing
Custom player requirements
Combined live and VOD delivery

That puts Castr behind both sides of the FressiTV experience: live classes and on-demand training.

Optimizing the Viewer Experience

Fitness viewers watch from everywhere: laptops, phones, Chromecast, AirPlay, TVs. Some join classes live; others browse the library and press play.

That meant Fressi needed more than basic hosting. Pages with many embedded workout videos had to load fast, casting had to work, and the player had to feel native to Fressi's platform.

Castr worked with Fressi on custom player behavior to make that happen: VOD embed optimization, custom thumbnail and poster workflows, and playback improvements for video-heavy pages.

Castr wasn't just providing a player; it was adapting the video infrastructure to fit Fressi's product.

Optimized viewer experience across devices

Supporting High-Volume Moments

Most FressiTV usage is regular fitness programming, but the platform also has to handle bigger live moments.

When Fressi prepared for a major live event with far higher expected viewership than usual, Castr was on standby from the start, monitoring stream health in real time as the audience scaled up.

For Fressi, that standby support mattered because digital fitness events can spike suddenly. The video layer has to carry both the everyday classes and the big-audience moments.

Backup and Pre-Recorded Workflows

When a live class can't happen as planned, Fressi doesn't leave a gap in the schedule. The team slots pre-recorded streams into the live experience as backup programming, so customers always have something to train to instead of depending entirely on live contribution from the studio.

THE RESULTS

One platform behind every class and workout

Since 2020, FressiTV has run on Castr, growing from its first live streams into a full live and on-demand fitness product.

With Castr, Fressi has been able to:

✓Use pre-recorded streams as part of backup programming

✓Deliver daily live fitness classes online

✓Support both free and subscriber-focused video experiences

✓Embed video directly inside the FressiTV web experience

✓Provide adaptive playback for different viewer connections

✓Support Chromecast and other casting use cases

✓Manage live and VOD delivery through one video infrastructure partner

✓Host and serve a growing on-demand workout catalog

✓Work directly with Castr on custom player and workflow improvements

Castr now serves as a long-term video infrastructure partner for FressiTV, supporting both live and on-demand fitness experiences.

WHY CASTR

A video partner for the long run

Fressi needed more than a generic video player. It needed a partner that could support a real digital fitness product with: daily live classes, customer-facing playback, a growing VOD library, casting expectations, and product requirements that keep changing year over year.

Castr delivered the infrastructure (live, HLS, ABR, VOD, embeds, casting, pre-recorded streams, regional ingest) and the partnership: hands-on support during live windows and custom workflow improvements as FressiTV evolved.

“

When we started with Castr in 2020, we just needed reliable live streams for our classes. Six years later, they're behind our whole video experience: live classes every day, the on-demand workout library, casting, embedded playback across our site.

What's kept us with them is how they work. We have a direct line to their team, and when our product needed something custom, they built it with us. The product kept growing, and Castr kept up.

FressiTV

Fressi Digital Team

Looking Ahead

FressiTV continues to use Castr to power both its live fitness programming and its growing on-demand workout library, delivering classes and recorded content to members across devices.

As the product evolves, Castr remains closely involved in helping Fressi improve reliability, playback quality, and viewer experience for both live and on-demand video.

For membership-based digital fitness brands, FressiTV shows what becomes possible when live and on-demand video run on one dependable infrastructure partner.

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