Category: Applications

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.”

MUMBAI: Tandberg Television has announced that it is enabling China Central Television (CCTV) to provide its viewers with high definition coverage of live games from the Fifa 2006 World Cup in Germany.

CCTV is using Tandberg Television’s award-winning MPEG-4 AVC HD encoding and decoding solutions to maximize the bandwidth of its DS3 international link and its local delivery network.

CCTV is one of the 150 operators from 145 countries that have broadcasting rights from Fifa’s Host Broadcast Services (HBS). Live feeds from matches in 12 German cities are being broadcast around the world, including the final in Berlin on 9 July. For almost a year, CCTV has been broadcasting an HDTV service using a Tandberg MPEG-2 head-end system, states an official release.

“Broadcasting the World Cup in high definition is not only a magnificent achievement in its own right, but is also an excellent preparation for the upcoming 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing,” says CCTV chief engineer Ding Wen Hua. “The implication for large-scale broadcasting in HD is immense and this is a significant event in the Chinese, and Asian, television industry.”

As well as using Tandberg’s advanced HD compression, CCTV is the first broadcaster in Asia to use the new professional multi-format MPEG-2/MPEG-4 AVC SD/HD decoder, the Tandberg RX1290, which is being launched at Broadcast Asia this week.

he Tandberg RX1290 receiver is the world’s first multi-format MPEG-2/MPEG-4 AVC decoder, capable of processing and decoding more video formats than any other receiver and enabling network operators and broadcasters to deliver content from studio to studio and across networks to regional head-ends and affiliates, the release adds.

MUMBAI: mPhase Technologies (OTCBB: XDSL) president and chief executive Ronald Durando will brief the 17th Annual Wall Street Analyst Conference on the company‘s latest software release specifically designed to help telecommunications operators be better equipped to provide carrier-class IPTV services, especially as the market is poised for growth.

Durando‘s presentation at The Princeton Club in New York City will be webcast live on 15 June at around 11:10 am and archived at http://www.investorcalendar.com/CEPage.asp?ID=104932.

Among the most recent improvements to the mPhase TV+ System is an integrated Latens dynamic Conditional Access System, a pure software security solution that protects content and allows telcos to offer revenue rich premium content. The newest enhancements to be discussed include features to improve the ability of a service provider to cost-effectively manage both subscriber growth and system complexity, states an official release.

MUMBAI: New Zealand technology and telecommunications solutions company, Argent Networks announced that it was launching a new application for Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) billing and mediation as part of its leading ArgentEclipse Convergent Billing and CRM solution.

Argent Networks provides solutions for the voice, data, video and mobile sectors of the global telecommunications market.

This means that IPTV manufacturers and service providers who use ArgentEclipse get a host of added features such as provisioning, CRM/CTI, pre-paid and post-paid billing options, as well as automatic EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) updating for the complete range of IPTV services.

ArgentEclipse now also provides event-based billing for IPTV applications including video on demand, pay-per view, video broadcasting, gaming, content and IPTV telephony services, as per an official release.

Argent Networks CEO Chris Jones says the ArgentEclipse suite of products is the ideal solution for new and existing broadband, cable and TV operators wishing to get into the burgeoning global IPTV market.

“Worldwide demand for IPTV is expected to be huge as broadband is now available to more than 100 million households. Given that many of the biggest telecommunications providers are investing in IPTV for both their residential and business markets, our product is exactly what they need. With ArgentEclipse’s modular and fully convergent CRM and billing products, IPTV operators can now expand their offerings to subscribers, giving them one simple, easy bill for all telephony, data and now video offerings.”

Jones also says that the ArgentEclipse IPTV solution provides IPTV manufacturers and service providers with a far more comprehensive suite of applications than has been available before.

“This means that IPTV manufacturers and service providers who use ArgentEclipse get a host of added features such as provisioning, CRM/CTI, pre-paid and post-paid billing options, as well as automatic EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) updating for the complete range of IPTV services.”

In addition, Jones says that IPTV subscribers will be provided with options for self- provisioning and subscription to new services, access to online EPG, PVR (personal video recorder) support, online payment and customer services options.

MUMBAI: The Colorado-headquartered Sunrise Broadband Group, Inc. has said that it has entered into an investment agreement with Dutchess Private Equities Fund, LP, a Delaware limited partnership whereby Dutchess is committed to purchase up to twenty-five million dollars (US$25,000,000) of Sunrise Broadband‘s common stock, subject to the terms and conditions of the agreement.

“The Dutchess agreement allows management to close on targeted rural cable television systems and to complete the network upgrades to offer Voice Over Internet Protocol, high-speed Internet and digital video services,” says Sunrise Broadband‘s CEO Calvin D. Smiley, Sr.

The deal with Duchess requires that Sunrise Broadband file a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, become fully reporting and register the underlying securities. The approval of the registration statement will activate the agreement with Dutchess, states an official release.