ITV

Category: Video On Demand

  • NDS joins Anytime Technology partner programme

    NDS joins Anytime Technology partner programme

    MUMBAI: Anytime, Asia Pacific’s leading Video on-Demand (VoD) channel, today announced that NDS, the leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, is the newest member of the Anytime Technology Partner Program.

    The Anytime Technology Partner Program is a collaboration between Anytime and the world’s leading VoD technology vendors. It aims to reduce the time to deploy secure, quality, VoD services in Asia Pacific. The Program allows technology vendors to come together to ensure process compliance and data flow compatibility from publishing, to billing API’s and royalty reporting. NDS Group is a NASDAQ-listed company; the largest shareholder in NDS is News Corporation.

    NDS solutions enable broadcasters, network TV operators and content providers to profit from the deployment of digital TV technologies including innovative solutions for digital video recorders, interactivity, secure broadband, home networks and content on the go. NDS boasts an impressive customer list, featuring some of the world’s leading pay-TV operators, such as BSkyB, DIRECTV, SkyLife and FOXTEL, informs an official release.

    “NDS is pleased to join the Anytime Technology Partner Program. We regard this as an important technology alliance to enable our customers to implement VoD services in a timely and seamless fashion,” said Sue Taylor, VP & GM of NDS Asia Pacific.

    “With their in-house expertise, ANYTIME will help us test and review a complete range of IPTV products and solutions and develop reference architectures for our customers. The Anytime Technology Partner Program is the answer to fast-tracking VoD deployments in Asia Pacific.”

    “NDS’s end-to-end deployments demonstrate the company’s ability to offer unparalleled expertise in content delivery and protection. Conditional access is a vital component in any VoD delivery model and NDS has the capabilities to bring content security to a new level,” said Anytime CTO Craig Ginsberg.

    NDS joins a rapidly growing number of the world’s leading technology vendors including Verimatrix, SecureMedia, Concurrent and Tatung as members of the Anytime Technology Partner Program.

    The Anytime Technology Partner Program has two levels of agreement – Technology compliance, and Cooperation & Co-marketing. If accepted into the Program, vendors can work with Anytime to ensure their products, services or solutions, comply with the highest industry standards for VoD content delivery.

    The Program is open to STB manufacturers, middleware vendors, Conditional Access and DRM hardware and software makers, VoD server manufacturers, and Systems Integrators. It is vendor-agnostic, ensuring that Telcos, ISPs and Digital Cable providers receive impartial advice and information on VoD delivery technology, the release adds.

  • YouTube in deal with Warner Music

    YouTube in deal with Warner Music

    MUMBAI: In a boost for video sharing site youtube music videos from artists like Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Sean Paul will be legally available on the site.

    It has signed a deal with Warner Music Group.

    Media reports state that Youtube wil share ad revenue with Warner. A report in The Wall Street Journal further states that YouTube is developing software that automatically identifies copyrighted music and video content uploaded to the site, reported in its online edition. A portion of the revenue from ads placed near the copyrighted material will go to the owner of the copyright. 100 million videos are viewed daily on youtube.

    YouTube co-founder and CEO Chad Hurley.has ben quoted saying that in the future it would explore options for sharing online ad revenue with smaller and amateur creators of videos. “But right now we are building tools for record labels, TV networks and movie studios.”

    Interestingly this announcement of the tie up comes at a time when the world’s largest record company, Universal says that it will go after social sites like Youtube and MySpace for infringing copyright. Universal Music CEO Doug Morris has been quoted in reports saying that he believes that sites like youtube owe firms like Universal tens of millions of dollars.

  • Vod users in the US tuning in to reality shows: Study

    Vod users in the US tuning in to reality shows: Study

    MUMBAI: US market research firm Scarborough Research, which works in the area of identifying the shopping, media and lifestyle patterns of Americans, has released an analysis of video-on-demand (VOD) users – those consumers who live in households that used VOD during the past month.

    The analysis found that VOD users are 27 per cent more likely than all consumers to cite reality programmes as a television genre that they typically watch.

    Across America seven per cent of consumers live in a household that used VOD during the past month. VOD users are 24 per cent more likely to tune in to music videos. 22 per cent more likely than all consumers to watch news magazine shows, science fiction (21 per cent more likely) and dramas (18 per cent more likely), round out the top television genres among VOD users as compared to the general population.

    Today’s VOD users hail from upscale, young families. According to the Scarborough analysis, VOD users are 27 per cent more likely than all consumers to be between the ages 18-24; 20 per cent more likely to have two or more children in the household; and more than twice as likely as all consumers to have an annual household income of more than $150,000. VOD users are 27 per cent more likely than all consumers to be African-American.

    VOD users are avid consumers of entertainment and information technologies. VOD users are 50 per cent more likely than all consumers to spend 20 or more hours online weekly. They have high-speed Internet connections, and are more likely than all consumers to have a cable modem, DSL or wireless Internet connection. VOD users are 38 per cent more likely than all consumers nationally to have purchased something on the Internet in the past year. 39 per cent of VOD users use online services for travel reservations and 47 per cent of VOD users use on-line services for news. VOD users are almost three times as likely as all consumers to have purchased pay-per-view (PPV) five or more times during the past year.

    When it comes to advertising categories, home improvement is a top category among VOD users. 73 per cent of VOD users live in a household that has bought hardware, building, paint, or lawn and garden items in the past year. They are 15 per cent more likely than all consumers across the US to have spent $3,000 or more on all home improvements in the past year.