Category: Technology

SINGAPORE: While the rain Gods are showering upon the city of Singapore, there is an onslaught of discussions on the new technologies for broadcasting at the Broadcast Asia Summit 2006 being held in Expo City.

With a full house on a Monday morning, professionals from various media companies from Asia and elsewhere are lapping up all that there is to.

What with the revenue expectations for mobile TV globally pegged at $ 682 million within the next five years, broadcasters in the space are raring to go! Its popularity in the markets where it has been rolled out, will definitely help broadcasters meet that mark if not more.

The two morning sessions saw discussions and presentations on Asian digital cinema and also an update on delivering mobile television to handheld devices. The latter provided an international review and update on mobile television and an overview of the technology and services being offered across various countries like Italy, Japan, Korea, the UK and the US.

Consumers have reacted favourably to mobile television in the markets where the services have been launched. Close to 76 per cent consumers in the UK are willing to pay for mobile TV. On the other hand, consumers in Finland and France are willing to shell out € 10 and € 7 respectively per month for mobile TV.

In turn, what consumers want is good picture and sound quality, value for money, right selection of channels, service availability, simplicity of use and a multimedia device.

The speakers for the session comprised Broadcast Australia broadcast services director Clive Morton, Kobeta Korea manager of planning team Hyun Ho, Qualcomm MediaFLO director of international business development Jeffrey Brown, TBS Japan development manager Hidefumi Yasuda, Nokia director of strategy Juha Lipiainen, TeamCast France executive director Gerard Faria and Enenys France president and CEO Regis Le Roux.

While the service is gaining popularity, there seems to be ambiguity in terms of the regulations required for the same. Should the broadcaster be the ultimate content regulator for mobile TV or should it be the telecommunications company? That is one area where not much progress has been made. Brown said, “The spectrum regulation for mobile television services is fragmented per country per industry. It isn‘t clear still whether the broadcasting authority or the telecommunications authority is responsible for regulating content. But the transition is slowly happening as the industry is understanding the value of mobile television.”

Interestingly, while the number one telecommunications company in Korea S K Telecom accepted and adopted this new technology easily, there was resistance from KTF and LG Telecom, who were reluctant to offer mobile television technology – T-DMB – on their mobile devices.

The reason behind this was that since mobile television was being offered free, consumers would watch more television on their handhelds and in turn use less of SMS and internet services, which in turn would mean a significant revenue loss for them. However, these two companies had to eventually succumb to the popularity of mobile television and started offering the technology on their devices late last year.

The requirements for a mobile TV device are:

*Watch up to four hours TV
*Large anti glare screen
*Simple to operate TV
*Recording capability
*Always up to date Electronic Service Guide
*Camera and camcorder to record own content
*Consumers use mobile television mostly to pass time, for example, while waiting for something. They also use it to stay updated with news, to relax or entertain oneself, as a background entertainment while doing other things, to create their own space ( e.g. in public transportation) or as a second TV while the household‘s TV is used by others.

The top three usage situations among active users of mobile TV are:

*When traveling using transportation
*When at home
*When at work

According to Brown, the potential mobile TV users globally in 2008 – 2010 will be in the range of 100 – 200 million. As per a research done by Nokia in major cities in 32 countries, it was found that by end 2005, there were two billion mobile phone subscribers globally and is expected to reach three billion by end 2009. While there were 735 million mobile phones sold in 2005, the projections for 2009 are 944 million.

So does mobile TV have future potential? Yes, but assuming that the pricing and content are in line with consumers‘ expectations and needs.

MUMBAI: Nokia Oyj and Siemens AG have announced that they intend to merge the Networks Business Group of Nokia and the carrier-related operations of Siemens into a new company, to be called Nokia Siemens Networks. The 50-50 joint venture will target strong positions in important growth segments of fixed and mobile network infrastructure and services.

Both Nokia and Siemens expect the impact of the partnership on their respective EPS, on a pro forma basis excluding the restructuring charges, to be accretive by the end of 2007, assuming a closing by 1 January. This is subject to customary regulatory approvals, the completion of standard closing conditions, and the agreement of a number of detailed implementation steps. After closing, the financial results of Nokia Siemens Networks will be consolidated by Nokia and accounted for at equity by Siemens.

Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo will serve as chairman of Nokia Siemens Networks, while Nokia Networks EVP and GM Simon Beresford-Wylie will assume the position of chief executive officer immediately upon the closing of the merger.

Nokia Siemens Networks will have its operational headquarters in the Helsinki, Finland metropolitan area, and have headquarters in Munich, Germany, where three of the future five divisions of the new company will be based.
Nokia Siemens Networks‘ portfolio will include Next Generation Network convergence products like IMS, 2G GSM/EDGE access, 3G WCDMA/HSDPA access, extensive mobile core, fixed broadband, transport, IPTV, LTE, WiMAX and low-cost mobile voice products tailored for emerging market operators.

“We believe the partnership with Siemens is the most effective way to build the scale and broad product portfolio necessary to compete globally and create value for shareholders,” says Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. “The communications industry is converging, and a strong and independent Nokia Siemens Networks will be ideally positioned to help customers lower costs and grow revenue while managing the challenges of converging technology.” Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo will serve as chairman of Nokia Siemens Networks.

“This joint venture is an important step to strengthen our position in the market sustainably and to enable us to offer the best state of the art converged technologies and services to our customers,” says Siemens CEO Klaus Kleinfeld. “This combination creates a leading industry player with immediate strength, excellent potential for growth and well-positioned to improve future profitability.”

Based on the 2005 calendar year, the combined company had EUR 15.8 billion in pro forma annual revenues and is expected to start operations with 60,000 employees. Based on current market share data, it will be the second largest company in mobile infrastructure, second in services, third in fixed infrastructure, and the third largest in the overall telecommunications infrastructure market, adds the official release.

The estimated cost synergies of EUR 1.5 billion annually by 2010 are expected to come primarily from the elimination of overlapping functions, consolidation and better utilization of sales and marketing organizations, reduction of overhead costs, sourcing benefits, and greater efficiencies in R&D.

A substantial portion of these synergies is expected to be realized in the first two years, according to Nokia. These changes are expected to result in a headcount adjustment over the next four years in the range of ten to fifteen percent from the initial combined base of approximately 60,000. Detailed headcount reduction assessments will be made as part of the integration planning process and subject to required consultation with employee representatives, says the company release.

MUMBAI: International media content provider Global Broadcast Networks (GBN), and China National Radio‘s (CNR) web have launched a UK football website in Mandarin.

The website covers UK Football, and will support the programmeUK Soccer Review for which GBN provides content, sponsorship and advertising. The programme is broadcast on CNR Voice of China which claims to be the most listened to radio station in the world.

The website will be hosted by CNRNET, China National Radio‘s portal. There is a link from CNR‘s homepage to the website, which attracts around one million unique users per day. China National Radio Website Centre head Yang Guiming says, “CNRNET‘s dedicated website for UK Soccer Review is a veritable feast of UK soccer for web users, meticulously produced in collaboration with CNR-1 Voice of China and GBN . CNRNET is delighted to be working with GBN, to provide first-hand information from the UK, bringing abundant content to the “UK Soccer Review / Yingchao Fengyunlu” website.” “CNRNET is hosted by CNR, the national-level radio station in China, which possesses a distinct broadcasting style. It is China‘s largest audio broadcasting website, and via the Internet, strives for China‘s voice to be heard worldwide” The website‘s total audio data is two terabytes. At present, with an average of 14 million hits a day, and unique visitors reaching one million a day, CNRNET‘s influence is always expanding.” GBN CEO Sean Curtis-Ward says, “The launch of the website opens up a unique and hitherto unavailable opportunity for our programme sponsors to reach a vast audience. The site and the radio programme will cross-promote and complement each other. The link on CNRNET‘s front page is a ringing endorsement of the programme. We are grateful for the skill and technical expertise that China National Radio‘s web team have bought to the design and implementation of this project” Sky Media have also been appointed to provide advertising and sponsorship services for the website along with advertising and sponsorship of the UK Soccer Review programme on a global basis. The weekly half-hour radio is on-air 52 weeks a year, for a planned three years

MUMBAI: Mipcom 2006 has announced the winners of the Mobile TV Screening & Awards 2006. The international trophies were awarded yesterday evening at the 22 edition of Mipcom, Cannes.

The winning titles were chosen by an international grand jury from a total of 23 nominated projects.

Sponsored by Orange, Ericsson and the Korean Broadcasting Commission, the Mobile Screenings & Awards 2006 brought in a record number of 290 entries from 34 countries, a 30 per cent increase in submissions from 2005. The grand jury included the following members : Kurt Sillén, head of grand jury and VP, Ericsson Mobility World, Ericsson AB (Sweden), Jean-Charles Fitoussi, Film-maker (France), Nicoletta Iacobacci, Head of Interactive TV, EBU / UER TV Department (Switzerland), Russell Kagan, Managing Director, International Program Consultants Inc. (USA) and Mun Yeon Kim, CEO of Joongang Broadcasting Co. (Korea). In addition to the grand jury awards, a grand prize for best innovation in mobile content was awarded by Orange. Reed Midem‘s Television Division, director Paul Johnson comments, “Mobile TV represents a growing opportunity for the audiovisual content industry. By creating and hosting the Mobile TV Awards at Mipcom we aim to play an active role in promoting the development of made-for-mobile content and facilitating commercial transactions on a global level for both TV and film.”

The 6 winners of the Mipcom Mobile TV Awards ‘06 are: Best Original Made-for-Mobile Film or Video Content Jokes, Green Paddy Animation Studio (Taiwan) Best repurposed Content From Existing Film or TV Property On This Day in History (OTDIH), ITN ON (UK) Best Made-for-Mobile TV Channel NHK Mobile-G Channel, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) (Japan) Best Format for Interactive Mobile TV Forget the Rules, Global Dilemma Pty Ltd. (Australia) Best Mobile Format for User-Generated Content 3 Mobile‘s See Me TV service, 3 Mobile (UK) Orange Grand Prize For Innovation Soccer Addicts, Buongiorno (Italy)

MUMBAI: US internet service provider AOL and Fusion Entertainment have announced a joint venture Lat34.com. This is an interactive network dedicated to action sports, including skate, BMX, FMX, surfing, snowboarding etc.

The two parties state that this surging category already claims upwards of 100 million US fans. The new network will emphasise both programmed and user-generated content, including action sports video on-demand, event coverage, action sports athletes up close and in-depth coverage of all aspects of the action sports culture.

Lat34.com – named for the company‘s location in Los Angeles which is considered to be the unofficial home of action sports in the US– is dedicated to bringing action sports information to the Web. Capitalising on AOL‘s position in online video, Lat34.com promises timely video coverage of action sports wherever they occur. In addition, Lat34.com will offer fans the chance to contribute by uploading their video, photos, blogs and more.

Key features of Lat34.com will include:

— Action sports event coverage and calendar, up-to-the-minute action sports news, action sports video on-demand, athlete profiles, action sports movie previews, gear information and connecting fans of specific sports together via AIM social network platform, blogs, meet-up groups and provide tools for uploading video and photos.
— Video and photo highlights of action sports culture, including fashion, music, movies, local events and links to some of these popular sites.
— An in-depth action sports database with vertical search capability to access athletes‘ past stats and current records, events, gear, tricks, movies, sites, etc. built by users.
— Original programming such as athlete Blogs and profiles, photo galleries and video programming.
— On-demand footage of various action sports events around the country.
— ‘Trick of the Day‘: Here users can upload their own video of action stunts and features and enter to win a weekly prize.

The Jeep brand has signed on as the charter advertiser and is currently running teaser ads for the all-new 2007 Jeep Compass which will be in dealerships later this summer. Jeep Compass is a compact Jeep 4X4 that delivers fun, freedom, utility and capability and more – all at a great value – making it an ideal advertiser for the action sports enthusiast.

Jeep will also be showcasing video ads on the site to highlight new models shortly. Lat34.com will allow advertisers to tap into the strength of the surging action sports category and action sports fans, in turn, will benefit from targeted and relevant ads that address their needs and interests. The network will offer instream advertising opportunities, including pre-roll, ad curtains and banners.

MUMBAI: The conclusion of ITU‘s Regional Radiocommunication Conference (RRC-06) in Geneva saw the signing of a treaty agreement that is a major step in implementing World Summit on the Information Society objectives. The digitalization of broadcasting in Europe, Africa, Middle East and the Islamic Republic of Iran by 2015 represents a major landmark towards establishing a more equitable, just and people-centred Information Society.

The agreement will herald the development of ‘all-digital‘ terrestrial broadcast services for sound and television. The digital switchover will leapfrog existing technologies to connect the unconnected in underserved and remote communities and close the digital divide.

“The most important achievement of the Conference,” remarked ITU Secretary-General Yoshio Utsumi, “is that the new digital Plan provides not only new possibilities for structured development of digital terrestrial broadcasting but also sufficient flexibilities for adaptation to the changing telecommunication environment.”

The Regional Radiocommunication Conference was chaired and brought to a conclusion by Kavouss Arasteh of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The agreement reached at RRC-06 paves the way for utilizing the full potential of information and communication technologies to achieve the internationally recognized development goals. The date of transition to digital terrestrial broadcasting in the year 2015 is intended to coincide with the targets set by the Millennium Development Goals.

The regional agreement for digital services has been reached in the frequency bands 174 – 230 MHz and 470 – 862 MHz. It marks the beginning of the end of analogue broadcasting.

The Conference agreed that the transition period from analogue to digital broadcasting, which begins at 0001 UTC 17 June 2006, should end on 17 June 2015, but some countries preferred an additional five-year extension for the VHF band (174-230 MHz).

The digital dividend
The switchover from analogue to digital broadcasting will create new distribution networks and expand the potential for wireless innovation and services. The digital dividend accruing from efficiencies in spectrum usage will allow more channels to be carried across fewer airwaves and lead to greater convergence of services.

The inherent flexibility offered by digital terrestrial broadcasting will support mobile reception of video, internet and multimedia data, making applications, services and information accessible and usable anywhere and at any time. It opens the door to new innovations such as Handheld TV Broadcast (DVB-H) along with High-Definition Television (HDTV) while providing greater bandwidth to existing mobile, fixed and radionavigation services. Services ancillary to broadcasting (wireless microphones, talk back links) are also planned on a national basis and need to be extended.

The World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-07), which will meet in the autumn of 2007, will deal with the regulatory aspects of the usage of the spectrum for these services.

Terrestrial digital broadcasting carries many advantages over the analogue system:

Expanded services

Higher quality video and audio

Greater variety and faster rates of data transmission

Consistency of data flows over long distances

More spectrum efficiency means more channels

This agreement, which paves the way for a new paradigm of wireless digital communication technologies, is expected to be extrapolated by other regions and countries and influence a global shift away from the analogue system that has been in place for the past 45 years.

During the five weeks of deliberations which began on 15 May, RRC-06 took decisions to allow iteration of the complex software tools used by the ITU secretariat as a basis to generate the draft plan that will facilitate the coordinated and timely introduction of digital broadcasting. The Plan assures that an outstanding 70‘500 digital broadcasting requirements, including stations, will become a reality within the planned area. It succeeded in creating a level playing field as a new basis for competition.

The first session of this Conference (RRC-04) took place in May 2004 and established a solid, comprehensive and technical basis for the agreement, including the framework for the intersessional studies. It has already resulted in the accelerated introduction of digital terrestrial broadcasting in many countries. “Digital technologies are now transmitting high-resolution images of the Soccer World Cup from Germany to fans around the world who are watching the matches with excitement,” said Utsumi. “Digital terrestrial broadcasting is now a reality with a bright future.”

A complex process
Conference chairman Arasteh said that RRC-06 was a technically complex process comprising voluminous computational calculations and data processing tasks, electronic document handling and the use of five working languages. He added that ITU, although facing these challenges for the first time, could provide the Conference with adequate technical and regulatory expertise and support for the full satisfaction of the participating delegations.

More than 1000 delegates representing 104 countries met in Geneva to adopt the treaty agreement that will replace the analogue broadcasting plans existing since 1961 for Europe and since 1989 for Africa. The new digital Plan, based on broadcasting standards known as T-DAB (for sound) and DVB-T (for TV), covers a wide area of the world including Europe, countries of the CIS, Africa, Middle East and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

A major challenge faced by the conference was to find ways for digital and analogue broadcasting to co-exist on the radio-frequency spectrum during the transition period without causing interference.

Cooperation with EBU and CERN
A key ingredient for the success of the Conference was the unprecedented level of cooperation between ITU, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).

The complex planning activities conducted at this conference and during the intersessional period were based on the software developed by EBU, which includes hundreds of thousands of programme lines. In preparing the Plan for digital terrestrial broadcasting, ITU experts performed meticulous calculations within a limited timeframe using two independent infrastructures: the ITU distributed system with 100 PCs and the CERN Grid infrastructure that is based on a few hundred dedicated CPUs from several European institutions.

MUMBAI: US media firm Discovery has launched Discovery Broadband in Germany. It is now available at www.discoverybroadband.de.

Discovery Broadband is a subscription service offering access to programming from Discovery via broadband. Focussed on core Discovery genres including animals, machines, engineering, science, history, real life and travel, a full range of content is available to view online. This includes shows such as American Chopper, Mythbusters, Deadliest Catch and Conspiracies on Trial. At launch, Discovery Broadband in Germany will offer more than 40 hours of fully languaged programming for broadband consumers to enjoy at their convenience. Approximately 10 hours of additional content will be added to the service each month in order to offer enhanced choice each month and build an extensive, wide-ranging library for subscribers to the service.

Discovery Networks in Germany VP and country manager Dr. Patrick Hörl says, “The launch of Discovery Broadband in Germany underscores our commitment to extend the company’s quality content across multiple media platforms in order to provide increased flexibility, convenience and control to consumers”. Discovery Broadband is available to consumers on a monthly or annual subscription basis at a cost of €5 and €50 respectively. Consumers can also access individual programmes for 24 hours on a pay-per-view basis for a fee of €1 or €2 based on the duration of the content. A free one-week trial of the service will be available at launch. With a total of more than 12 million broadband subscribers, Germany is currently the largest broadband market in Europe and also one of the top five broadband markets in the world (Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, June 2006). To access the range of programming available on the Discovery Broadband site, consumers simply register their details at www.discoverybroadband.de to open an online BT click and buy account and will then receive a username and password for continued account access. Discovery Broadband is also available in Europe in the UK, France, Italy and the Netherlands.

MUMBAI: ETV, a global Internet distribution network offering sports and entertainment content over the Internet, has commenced a pilot test of its IPTV service in Thailand

Through its partnership with Media Partners International, ETV will be deploying the ETV On Demand test system to an initial test market of 1000, growing to 10,000 test users throughout Thailand. The test period will last for up to 90 days, and will aggregate both technical information and customer feedback on the delivery system, the content and ease of use of the system.

It is expected that the ETV On Demand full service launch will begin by the end of the third quarter in Bangkok. At this point, MPI will market the system throughout Thailand, a country with a growing population of more than 65 million. MPI has projected users to grow by 50,000-100,000 monthly once it rolls out the ETV On Demand system.

The full ETV On Demand system launch is expected to take place later this year, and through early 2007. Potential viewership in these markets approximates 600 million.

ETV‘s proven broadband delivery technology affords consumers their choice of entertainment and sports programming 24 hours a day over the Internet, with full-screen broadcast resolution on a guaranteed bandwidth backbone. The company‘s complete end-to-end solution encompasses the latest Internet television technology, exclusive sports and entertainment content and worldwide broadband distribution.

MPI is a vertically integrated media company operating in the filmed and recorded entertainment and sports events production, licensing, and distribution industries. MPI‘s chairman Sitichai Nuanmanee said, “The Pilot Test with ETV positions our two companies to dominate the broadband viewership market throughout Southeast Asia and India.”

MUMBAI: As organisations continue to digitise content in the current business environment, there is substantial need to emphasize the rights on its usage and establish control to avoid any loss of data. This need is expected to have a huge bearing on the enterprise digital rights management (DRM) systems market.

Frost & Sullivan‘s report World Digital Rights Management Market, reveals that the market was worth $369.5 million in 2005 and is likely to cross the billion-dollar mark in 2011.

As companies continue to lose sensitive data such as financial information, customer profiles and marketing collateral through e-mail or other forms of data transfer, there is a rising need to deploy systems that not only track but also control the use of information. Theft of sensitive data can not only cause a company financial loss, but can also result in brand erosion and eventually, reduce its revenue generation capacity.

Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Zippy Aima says, “The need to minimize liability by ensuring that only authorized users have access to appropriate documents will have a positive impact on the demand for DRM solutions. DRM solutions enable content owners to assign specific rights such as view, copy, edit and print to files that need to be protected and these rights remain active and travel with the protected file unless changed by the content owner.”

Despite these obvious advantages, DRM vendors will find it challenging to convince companies that DRM will not severely curtail access and that organisations can meet their revenue generation goals using this technology.

Moreover, enterprises have yet to accept DRM systems as solutions that provide security throughout the life cycle of the digital content; be it in the form of a document or a music file. DRM vendors that operate in either the enterprise or media space or both need to create more awareness about the existence of this technology and market their benefits more proactively.

DRM systems have garnered greater attention in the media industry than in the enterprise sector. Some end users consider DRM to be a hindrance to the entertainment sector. However, the success of the iPod and iTunes is an indicator of the change in consumer buying behavior. Users are gradually regarding DRM more as ‘enabler’ than a ‘disabler’ for accessing digital content.

Aima adds, “Apart from the shift in perception, the need to comply with regulations such the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Gramm Leach Bliley, and Sarbanes Oxley is also driving the market ahead.

“Vertical markets such as financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, and energy are focusing on regulatory compliance, thus ensuring the steady uptake of DRM solutions.”