ITV

Category: Over The Top Services

  • Facebook plans to stream sports, comedy, reality & gaming TV series

    MUMBAI: Cable cutters never had it this good. Now, a broad range of streaming services is available on all your devices, including those that offer live TV.

    Social networking giant Facebook, with around two billion monthly users, plans to start production on high-quality gaming shows and television series possibly investing up to $3 million (Rs 193 million) an 30-minute episode which would be broadcast on its platform. Facebook may announce its first batch of TV-like shows this summer, targeting 13-34 age-group audience but focusing on 17-30 range, PTI and WSJ reported. With that, Facebook is set to take on Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu.

    The online platform, which has around two billion monthly users worldwide, is working on the project with a small group of partners and hopes to start putting out episodes of its forthcoming series by the end of the summer. The company is also reportedly keen on sit-com programming having signed deals for short-form content from partners such as Vox Media, ATTN, and BuzzFeed earlier this month.

    It was in mid-April that Facebook originally planned to unveil its shows around its developer conference, then in time for the Cannes Lions festival, which started mid-June. But, it did not happen.

    Facebook vice president for media partnerships Nick Grudin, in a statement to AFP, said its goal was to make Facebook a place where people could come together around video, observing that Facebook and its collaborators would “experiment with the kinds of shows you can build a community around — from sports to comedy to reality to gaming.”

    Facebook is funding the shows on its own at first, he said, “but, over time, we want to help lots of creators make videos funded through revenue sharing products like Ad Break,” a software tool that allows adverts to be directly inserted into Facebook’s online content.

    Facebook could possibly not have shows about teens, or “political dramas, news [or] shows with nudity and rough language.” So, it seems Facebook wants to be the safest, most straight-down-the-middle TV network on the web. Facebook may share ad revenue with creatives who contribute short-form content. And, in a major change from the way online competitors have been doing business, it will also open up its viewership data to “Hollywood” — presumably production partners.

  • Opera TV tieup: ALTBalaji to be on smart TVs, Blu-rays & STBs

    MUMBAI: OTT business in India seems to be a game of good yet reasonable content in the most accessible form.

    ALTBalaji, a digital platform for exclusive and original shows from India, has announced its content availability on Opera TV. This means that all Smart TVs, Blu-ray disc players and set-top boxes powered by Opera TV, will provide instant access to over 250 hours of original content from ALTBalaji. Simultaneously, ALTBalaji subscribers will now be able to access the service using the Opera TV store.

    ALTBalaji was launched globally on 16 April 2017 with six original show. The app claims to have already clocked more than three million downloads with subscribers from over 75 countries. Opera TV is a leader in enabling OTT through its embedded and cloud software portfolio that is integrated by manufacturers and operators. In the past five years, over 150 million connected TV devices have been enabled by Opera TV, awarding it a global market share of 33 per cent in Smart TVs.

    ALTBalaji COO Sunil Nair said, “With this partnership, our content will be accessible for viewers on Smart TVs as well as other platforms like Blu-ray Disc players and set-top boxes. As per statistics, 29 per cent of TVs are Smart TVs, and 93 per cent of Smart TV owners connect their TV to the Internet. The wider offering and the intensive use of video on-demand content, fuel this development. Our aim is to provide a seamless and enjoyable user experience through our integration with Opera TV and making available our shows on the connected screens.”

    “We, at Opera TV, are excited to partner with ALTBalaji as we share similar objectives of offering a variety of content to end users through state-of-the-art user experiences on the big screen. Digital shows offered by ALTBalaji are rich and resonates well with our existing selection of informative, entertaining and educational content. Today, a majority of our smart TV audience use OTT apps for watching movies and original shows and this partnership ensures that they’ll continue to avail of the best of entertainment through a hassle-free experience,” said Opera TV CEO Aneesh Rajaram.

  • Digital entertainment: FreeCharge partners ALTBalaji, Eros Now & SonyLIV

    MUMBAI: FreeCharge, a digital payments platform, has announced its partnership with ALTBalaji, largest digital platform for original shows from India, to provide easy, secure and fast digital payment solutions for users.

    FreeCharge, India’s leading digital payments platform today announced its partnership with ALTBalaji, largest digital platform for original shows from India, to provide easy, secure and fast digital payment solutions for users.

    The company also recently partnered with Eros Now and SonyLIV to accommodate a large set of millennials’ preferences of watching their favourite movies and shows on the go and to binge watch at their convenience.

    These partnerships enable FreeCharge users to subscribe and pay for leading digital entertainment services on their platforms and cater to a wide set of audiences present across. Aimed at young audience, the objective of the tie-up is to provide users easy, secure and 2-click pay and check out option for quality entertainment content.

    Talking about the partnership, FreeCharge COO Ankit Khanna said, “The audience today have slowly begun shifting towards online platforms for their entertainment needs and streaming services provide innovative content with a mass appeal. We are happy to be the payment facilitators for leading digital entertainment companies such as ALTBalaji, Eros Now and SonyLIV to ensure customers get quality entertainment without any difficulty. The aim is paying for preferred movies and shows should be as convenient as accessing them online.”

    FreeCharge is building an ecosystem of merchants to make consumers’ daily payment transactions frictionless and convenient. With this partnership, FreeCharge further expands its usability across more consumption buckets of its consumers. The company which has tie-ups across brands and categories both offline and online aims to become the most preferred option for digital payments by making available easy, secure and less than 10 seconds pay and check out options to consumers.

  • Vice Media to build largest OTT platform, expand to 80 markets by early ’18

    MUMBAI: Capital infusion of $450 million in Vice Media, which is a partner of Times of India, will help accelerate its expansion from 30 to 80 markets by early 2018 for the youth-focused media group. Known for its online videos and edgy reporting, Vice operates a popular YouTube channel and also produces news programming for Time Warner’s HBO.

    Boosting Vice’s reported valuation to around $5.7 billion, and making CEO Shane Smith a billionaire, the Brooklyn, New York-based company has received investment from the equity fund group TPG, saying that the funds would help it “build out its content portfolio and delivery capabilities in the US and internationally.” Vice has earlier received investments from Disney, Comcast’s NBCUniversal, and 21st Century Fox, among others.

    The funds “will allow us to build up the largest millennial video library in the world — enabling Vice to widen our offering to include news, food, music, fashion, art, travel, gaming, lifestyle, scripted and feature films,” Smith said in a statement.

    Smith said Vice would be working on a standalone video platform (OTT) that could deliver video on demand, in the manner of Netflix, and a direct-to-consumer offering, Arab News reported.

    Vice said that it would put TPG’s investment toward building subscription streaming and video services to complement its video on digital channels as well as Viceland cable network. Vice will also use the new investment to help fund its push into scripted programming, Multichannel News added.

  • Dharma’s Baahubali & Humpty Sharma etc movies to be on YuppTV

    MUMBAI: YuppTV, a leading OTT brand for South-Asian content, has entered into an alliance with Dharma Productions, one of the most successful productions houses in India today.

    As part of the association, YuppTV users across the globe, excluding India, can now watch various blockbusters by Dharma Productions, including Kapoor & Sons, Ok Jaanu, Brothers, Baahubali: The Beginning (Hindi), Humpty Sharma ki Dulhania and more. The movies will be available on YuppFlix, an on-demand movie streaming platform by YuppTV.

    YuppTV CEO Uday Reddy said, “The association is set to present our global users with an exciting collection of blockbusters by Dharma, including Baahubali: The Beginning (Hindi), Kapoor & Sons and more. We are affirmative that our users across the Globe will enjoy the latest and popular cinema on YuppFlix.”

    YuppTV has been actively refreshing its movie catalogue. YuppFlix, the on-demand movie streaming platform by YuppTV, offers its users latest and exciting collection of movies that are rigorously updated.

  • Ooyala hires Syncplicity’s Mike Nikzad as COO

    MUMBAI: Ooyala, leading provider of software and services that simplify the complexity of producing, streaming and monetizing video, has appointed Mike Nikzad as its chief operating officer (COO). With more than 25 years of business operations and engineering leadership experience, Nikzad will be responsible for leading daily operations of the business with emphasis on Ooyala’s product lifecycle, including inception, development, delivery, support, and all customer deployments.

    Prior to Ooyala, Nikzad was the COO of Syncplicity, a prominent software-as-a-service (SaaS) company for enterprise file collaboration, where he achieved substantial transformation across the business in under two years resulting in a significant growth in sales. He also held COO positions with EMC’s Consumer and Small Business division and NewNet Communication Technologies.

    Focused on customer engagement, support and success, Nikzad has built his career, and subsequent business growth, by ensuring customers are center to all strategic, product, and corporate decisions.

    Ooyala COO Mike Nikzad said, “With our portfolio of IVP solutions, backed by analytics and strong partnerships—including Microsoft and Adobe—I’m confident in our ability to generate tremendous value for our customers.”

    “We will work to forge strong customer partnerships driven by leading edge solutions and a customer first ethos,” said Ooyala CEO Jonathan Huberman.

  • ALTBalaji integrates JioMoney as a payments platform

    MUMBAI: ALTBalaji, a digital platform for original content subscription service, has integrated with JioMoney, the mobile wallet from Reliance Payment Solutions Limited.

    The integration will enable easy and hassle-free subscription payments for ALTBalaji’s customers. With over 250 hours of original content, ALTBalaji has become a popular service.

    ALTBalaji was launched on 16 April 2017 with five original shows, and adds new shows every fortnight for its viewers to binge-watch. The content is created by some of the best talent of the Indian entertainment industry, including critically acclaimed directors and actors. The long illustrious list of artists comprises of Nagesh Kukunoor, Juhi Chawla, Nimrat Kaur, Rajkumar Rao, Hansal Mehta, Sakshi Tanwar, Ram Kapoor, Atul Kulkarni, Sameer Soni, Yudhishtar Urs, Dipannita Sharma Atwal, and more.

    JioMoney is the PPI wallet offered by Reliance to carry out instant cashless transactions. Jio Money offers a safe and secure platform for making digital transactions at both physical and online stores. JioMoney has been consistently enhancing the digital transaction ecosystem in the country. JioMoney users can do mobile and DTH recharges, make everyday payments at physical stores, send/receive money, pay insurance premiums, manage finances, get great deals, and much more. Simultaneously JioMoney Merchants can also leverage the digital ecosystem to bring greater choice and benefits to their customers.

    Commenting on the partnership, Nachiket Pantvaidya, CEO of ALT Digital Media Entertainment Ltd said, “ALTBalaji is the #1 repository of original and exclusive Indian content in the OTT space today. Our integration enables us to synergistically target quality content to JioMoney consumers while allowing an easy and quick means to pay and subscribe via JioMoney”.

    ALTBalaji launched with shows like DevDD, Karrle Tu Bhi Mohabbat, Boygiri, Bewafaa sii Wafaa, Romil & Jugal and have added The Test Case starring Nimrat Kaur and Maya Thirrai – the first Tamil original digital series to the portfolio.

  • Viacom18 distribution among IBC finalists as Voot sees 77% visitor-to-video hike

    MUMBAI: IBC has announced the shortlist for the IBC2017 Innovation Awards. Demonstrating a breadth of innovation in the electronic media, entertainment and technology industry, the international judging panel reviewed an array of compelling entries, settling on 11 finalists from around the world, all offering very different solutions.

    The shortlist covers everything from a major football final to e-sports; from virtual studios to channel marketing; from mobile OTT on a massive scale to seamless content delivery on high speed trains. Taking to the stage during IBC Awards Ceremony on Sunday 17 September will be representatives from Toronto to Singapore, the UK to India, and Spain to the USA.

    For 2017, IBC’s 50th anniversary year, categories in the Innovation Awards were updated to reflect and respond to the shifting industry landscape. Three awards will be presented for the most innovative projects in Content Creation, Content Distribution and Content Everywhere. What has not changed is the emphasis on collaborative work to tackle a real challenge, and the trophies are taken home not by the technology partners but by the broadcasters, media enterprises and service providers who commissioned the project.

    “I was astounded by the quantity, and most important the quality, of entries this year,” said Michael Lumley, chair of the judging panel. “It took a lot of intense discussion to get down to 11 finalists – it was a very tough task and there were many excellent projects which did not make the shortlist, often by a very fine margin.”

    “The international spread of 2017 finalists reflects the global reach of IBC, and the global significance of these most highly-coveted awards,” Lumley added. “I look forward to congratulating all the finalists and hearing the winners announced on Sunday night at IBC.”

    Content Creation – three finalists

    ITV in the UK has been shortlisted for its Project Phoenix. The broadcaster needed to develop a system which managed the production of promos and trailers from commissioning to transmission. The result creates more than 1,000 marketing assets every month, with almost all versioning carried out automatically. Technology partners alongside ITV were 100 Shapes, Cantemo, Codemill, NMR, Pixel Power and Vidispine.

    Leading broadcaster Mediacorp made the shortlist for implementing a service-oriented architecture to break down silos across its global campuses and create a seamless production and delivery environment. Its new centre includes a 3,000 square metre newsroom producing online, television and radio news in four languages, together with six studios and a large theatre, more than 100 edit suites and OTT and broadcast delivery. Systems integrator Qvest Media brought in an enormous number of technology partners, including Actus, Adobe, ATCI, Autoscript, Avid, Axon, Baton, Blackmagic Design, Cisco, Dalet, DHD audio, EVS, Fairlight, Grass Valley, Harmonic, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Ihse, Lawo, Lund Halsey, Netia, Octopus, Oracle, Raritan, RCS, SAM, Scheduall, Shotoku, Sony, ST Electronics, Telestream, TriplePlay, TSL and Vizrt.

    Groupe Média TFO has transformed itself from a small, French language broadcaster in Ontario, Canada, into a major online presence producing much-loved children’s programming. Its Laboratoire d’univers virtuels, or LUV, took a fresh approach to virtual sets, using the power and cost-effectiveness of the Unreal games engine from Epic Games. Today TFO produces as many as 40 short videos, in real time, each day, from a single studio. As well as Epic, technology partners were CEV, stYpe and Zero Density.

    Content Distribution – four finalists

    Arena Television is a UK-based outside broadcast provider, and led the industry in Europe with its first all-IP truck. It is regularly used to originate BT Sport’s 4k Ultra HD coverage of the English Premier League. Technology partners for this pioneering truck (and a second which is now also in service) were Cisco, Grass Valley, Lawo and Videlio Video Solutions.

    Dutch media company DMC has migrated from broadcast playout centre to comprehensive media logistics service. As part of this it has migrated to a fully virtualised private broadcast cloud that provides DMC’s clients with the asset management, publishing and distribution services they need, linking international content owners with 700 million European viewers. The new platform was developed with Cisco, Equinix, Pebble Beach Systems, Red Hat, Super Micro and VMware.

    Sinclair Broadcast Group operates 233 television stations in 108 US markets. As part of its programme to provide a common platform for on air and online services, it has developed a revolutionary approach to terrestrial transmission. The usual American model is “high tower, high power”: a single mast and transmitter. The new approach – developed by TeamCast and ONE Media for Sinclair – takes a cellular approach, using mini-transmitters just where they are needed in a large single frequency network.

    Viacom 18 is a joint venture in India between media giant Viacom and local service provider Network 18, running a multi-channel OTT network called Voot. Faced with the prospect of delivering content to the 300 million smartphones in India, across networks which are often crowded and at high data costs, it took a fresh approach, developing a progressive web service that delivered high performance without taking valuable memory space. Within just a few days Voot saw a 77% increase in conversion from visitor to video viewer and a 39% increase in session time per user. Google provided technology support.

    Content Everywhere – four finalists

    BT Sport was host broadcaster for the 2017 Champions League Final in Cardiff, Wales, and went all in to engage with as many people as possible, in as many ways as possible. Separate trucks covered the game in HD and in 4k Ultra HD with Dolby Atmos sound – using the Arena truck nominated for the content distribution award. A unique 12 camera VR operation provided a rich 360˚ feed, including in-vision graphics, live replays and a separate commentary. The content was available online to all platforms as well as broadcast. Technology partners included Dolby, Ericsson, Moov, SAM, Sony, Telegenic and Timeline.

    ESL, the Electronic Sports League, is an eSports company that organises gaming competitions worldwide. For the finals of the 2017 Intel Extreme Masters tournament, held in Poland, it needed to find a delivery partner that could deliver live feeds to 13 broadcasters in multiple regions, with additional OTT and digital cinema delivery to some territories. ESL partnered with Deluxe to enable the delivery of live ESL broadcast feeds over the public internet. The eSports tournament reached more than 46 million viewers.

    For a decade Google Earth has given us the ability to explore the world using just the internet. Now we can immerse ourselves in its wonders using Google Earth VR. The new app uses touch, sight and sound to engage the viewer and to receive control feedback. New techniques render imagery smoothly, maintaining the immersion without confusion or motion sickness. Technology partners were Ant Food, Even/Odd, Joshua Moshier and Richard Devine.

    The final project on this year’s shortlist is a real content everywhere application – ensuring consistent media delivery on trains travelling in excess of 300km an hour. Renfe, Spain’s national railway operator, worked with Telefonica to ensure its 19 million high speed rail passengers can access premium content and live sports on trains and at stations as if they were at home. The project was led by Telefonica, with technology partners including Accedo, Cires21, Cisco, Hispasat, Iecisa, Indra, Nagra, Signiant and Teldat.

    The winners of these three awards will be announced during the IBC2017 Awards Ceremony, on 17 September. Special guest host for the evening is scientist and broadcaster Dr Helen Czerski. As well as the Innovation Awards, the ceremony will see the announcement of the Judges’ Prize, also in the gift of the same panel of international editors and consultants who have judged the Innovation Awards. Other awards to be presented during the ceremony include the IBC International Honour for Excellence, IBC’s highest award.

  • OTT driving Taiwan multichannel video: CASBAA study

    MUMBAI: A new study by regional pay-TV industry group CASBAA shows that overall access to multi-channel video services of all kinds in Taiwan is being bolstered by a mobile video market now accounting for 92 per cent of all individuals.

    According to the CASBAA study (to be discussed on 22 June during the “Taiwan in View 2017” conference in Taipei), with 15 locally established OTT platforms (as opposed to cross-border pirate services delivered from illegal off-shore servers) the largest group of OTT followers in Taiwan are young women aged 18-34, some 42 per cent of the total. Together with 18-34 year-old males, almost 70 per cent of OTT subscribers are “binge” viewers.

    The fast-rising level of mobile broadband penetration is benefitting cable TV and IPTV operators as they develop their own multiscreen services. No longer limited to traditional TV viewing, Taiwan’s mobile broadband subscribers are downloading apps and logging-in to pay-TV programming of all kinds.

    With access to fully digitized networks (95 per cent of Taiwan’s 5.2m cable TV subs) Taiwan’s pay-TV platforms now offer value added services such as VoD, interactive music and games, along with newly sophisticated EPGs, PVRs and the promise of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality services.

    In line with the Netflix model, local pay-TV platforms are also bundling their own content with that of non-domestic program providers, developing exclusive content and packaging that appeals to younger consumers. Meanwhile, according to CASBAA, complex government constraints on cable TV investment under Taiwan’s ownership rules continue to hold back the industry. (These preclude any minimal state ownership (no matter how indirect) in pay-TV – but not telcos. The result is that “convergent” investment is difficult.)

    “The complicated rules on investment, along with a hugely damaging level of content piracy, are not only holding back the growth of the local pay-TV market but also the overall economic development of Taiwan as a whole,” said CASBAA chief policy officer John Medeiros.

    “Living with massive revenue leakage from piracy while blocking sufficient investment in the digital economy, Taiwan is falling behind its natural potential as a regional communications hub,” said CASBAA CEO Christopher Slaughter.

  • Tata Elxsi provides CoE for Airtel Internet TV

    MUMBAI: Connected Home Center of Excellence (CoE) of Tata Elxsi, a global design and technology services company which works with leading MSOs, content providers and studios to develop innovative services and applications that create subscriber stickiness, has leveraged deep domain expertise for video, IoT and smart home services. It has also leveraged the experience of open source middleware such as RDK and Android TV, and solution accelerators to support rapid development and deployment of next-generation Connected Home services.

    The Connected Home CoE has successfully worked with leading service providers across the world, enabling the launch of new value-added services in the home context, including OTT, IoT-based security, surveillance and healthcare.

    With increasing demand from consumers for a seamless and connected viewing experience across traditional TV and OTT, operators are considering Android TV as the middleware platform for next-generation set-top boxes and home gateways.

    The latest project executed by the team is Airtel’s Internet TV. Tata Elxsi is proud to be associated with Airtel, as a technology partner for system integration for the Internet TV.

    Tata Elxsi, backed by 25 years of engineering experience and specialisation in video and OTT service delivery, developed and integrated key software components to ensure that the Android TV application suite provides a seamless user experience whether the viewer accesses online or offline content. This includes the OTA (Over the Air) upgrade module, a smart UI, customized Android TV launcher and software optimizations to future-proof the service.

    Airtel Digital TV CEO Sunil Taldar said, “Tata Elxsi has been a valuable partner in our latest innovation – Internet TV. Their engineering and integration expertise in the OTT segment has helped us in building a world-class product.”

    Tata Elxsi VP and head – broadcast business unit K P Sreekumar said, “We congratulate Airtel on the successful launch of the Internet TV. We are proud to be associated with Airtel for India’s first hybrid DTH-TV deployment using Android TV middleware. We believe that the solution has set a new benchmark for next-generation TV service delivery.”