About CS54
CS54 is a New York engineering studio that builds streaming apps for media brands on Apple TV, Roku, Android TV, iOS and Android. Charles Schulze founded it in 2009, and its engineers have shipped work for HBO, NBCUniversal, Viacom, Yahoo and Apple.
What we do
We design, build and ship native streaming apps for the TV and the phone: Roku (BrightScript and SceneGraph), Apple TV (tvOS), Android TV and Fire TV, iOS and Android. We handle live and on-demand video, DRM, adaptive streaming, subscriptions, analytics, and store certification and submission.
We also build the services behind the apps when clients need them, and we work alongside their existing video platform, CMS and vendors when they don’t.
How we work
We take on a few clients at a time, and the engineers on the first call are the ones who write and review the code. With HBO and Viacom, CS54 worked under its own direct vendor agreements, embedded engineers in the client’s team, and led the work.
Most engagements start with a short, fixed-scope discovery phase: architecture, a written split of what we own versus your vendors, a timeline and an estimate.
Selected clients and projects
| Years | Client | What we did |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | NBCUniversal | Live, on-demand and short-form apps for NBC News, TODAY and CNBC on iOS and Roku |
| 2019 to 2025 | Apple | Built Radar, Apple’s internal tracking tool, on iOS and macOS |
| 2017 to 2019 | Treehouse Interactive | Pop Culture Live, a live-streamed trivia game show on iOS and Apple TV |
| 2017 to 2018 | Toys“R”Us | The Babies“R”Us iOS app, with in-app shopping and checkout |
| 2014 to 2016 | Viacom | Direct vendor. Led an embedded team on the shared codebase for MTV, Comedy Central and Spike, plus the first Apple TV prototypes |
| 2013 to 2014 | Yahoo | Lead architecture for Yahoo Screen, Yahoo’s premium video app |
| 2010 to 2015 | HBO | Direct vendor. A core team of four on HBO GO and MAX GO: iOS, the MAX GO Roku channel, Apple TV and Android |
The team
- Charles Schulze · Founder, engineer & video streaming expert
- Pierre Maloka · Architect & engineer
- Bruce Flowers · Architect & engineer
- Joe Loria · CTO
- Ivan Aggabao · Streaming platform architect & operations
- Mike Pritchard · Principal backend engineer