Category: Software

MUMBAI: Television technology companies are upbeat on India as a market with the government having mandated digitisation. But the challenge is that cable operators have to be educated on the kind of infrastructure they need to build and the investments which would be required.

This was a view expressed by several exhibitors at the television technology trade exhibition Scat India. NDS India country head, GM Jayant Chagrani said that the company is pushing its hosted solution which was specially developed for the country. It is a low capex entry level solution and NDS will take care of the backend completely.

“We are targeting smaller operators who will be a part of the second and third phase of digitisation. We have received a good response at Scat. It offers scalability by being able to upgrade to a full Videoguard system with features and revenue generating services like DVR. We have a market share of over 40 per cent.”

Conax sales director Amit Khera said that the company has a 33 per cent market share and wants to maintain and build on that. “What we are seeing is that in the first phase operators are running around for survival. In the second phase there will be more time as operators will take things seriously. The mindset that the government will delay things is no longer present. Our aim is to give the right products at the right prices.”

Gospell international business department manager Horace Hao said that the company is taking part in tradeshows to create awareness. It is having demos and is also visiting clients. “We provide a turnkey solution that offers convenience. Our products include headends and set top boxes. India offers excellent potential”.

Catvision which offers digital headends among other products expects to sell 20 headends next year. Catvision GM Manoj Thakur said, “In addition to cable operators, we also work with five star hotels. The challenge is that the smaller cable operators are not educated enough about digitisation. We have to educate them. We have dealers across India.”

Saibaba Enterprises sells products for networks and cable TV including switches and converters. Now the company is focussing on digital headends under the DBC brand name. Vishal Katara notes that the company has distributors in every state. “We see good potential here. Technically and sales wise we have an edge. We have a good support team which means that there is no language barrier.”

Optilink, which offers networking hardware, cable TV hardware and an end to end solution, is looking at targeting smaller operators with the second phase of digitisation due next year. The company‘s CTO Piyush Dedhia said that the company, which had focussed on large cable operators so far, will also look at smaller operators in the next six months and will come out with products for them. “We have a situation though where cable operators ask about set top boxes but do not understand the technology like conditional access. Operators to an extent are afraid as they do not know about digitisation and the future. We will be doing seminars among other things to market our products and to educate about the digitisation process.”

Customer relationship management solutions provider Gaps Technologies, which recently launched its service, has received several inquiries from cable operators. “We offer a CRM solution for managing subscribers. It allows cable operators to save time when it comes to handling customer issues. Any business needs a communication centre and cable TV is no different. Our product can also be adapted and customised depending on an operators requirement,” said Gaps Technologies MD and CEO Suhel Faridi.

JainHits is positioning itself as the first direct to network solution for cable operators. The company’s national sales head Jeet Narayan Singh said that the offering is not only cost effective but also better than DTH. “There are 60,000 small cable operators in the country who want an inexpensive solution. It costs Rs. 1.5 million. We will help cable operators remain independent by growing their business. Our service starts in mid December. When we talk to operators they are concerned about the quality of service. The options here are limited.”

System integrator CNet, which offers end to end solutions, plans to have a 10-15 per cent share by 2015. The company’s head sales, marketing Arun Kaushik said, “The challenge is that cable operators don’t know where the market is. They need to understand that the business model for digitisation must be long term. We help them achieve that objective. We have 27 service centers across the country. We also have three different models for our solution. These are low cost, medium cost and premium top of the line. This allows us to address everybody.”

MUMBAI: After Canada and the United States, Reliance Broadcast Network‘s (RBNL) hybrid channel ‘Big Magic International‘ is foraying into the Asia-Pacific region with the launch in Australia.

The broadcasting company has partnered with Australia‘s DTH company, Konnec TV, to distribute the channel across the length and breadth of the country.

‘Big Magic International‘ offers a variety of entertainment, infotainment, and business news from the libraries of the RBNL and Bloomberg TV India.

The channel‘s offerings are customised to suit the entertainment demands of the sizeable South Asian Diaspora in Australia.

The channel will be added to the basic pack of Konnec TV, which is currently priced at AUD 39.55.

RBNL CEO Tarun Katial said, “After establishing our presence in Canada and the United States, we are happy to take Big Magic International to Australia as the country‘s only variety entertainment channel that offers fresh and relevant programming. We‘ve been able to understand the market well and have made the move in line with our international expansion and growth strategy. We are certain that the channel will grow into a popular entertainment offering and resonate well with audiences and marketers there”.

“With the addition of Big Magic International, we will continue to provide to our subscribers with top-quality television channels. The channel carries a variety of content across genres from back home, which people sitting miles away from their homeland want to watch and monitor. Konnec TV is proud to be the go-to TV provider for the widest variety of top-rated programming at the best price in the industry. We are happy to associate with Reliance Group‘s channels in the region as a part of our bouquet,” Konnec TV CEO Abhishek Narang said.

The channel maintains its USP of three fresh, 30 minute updates each day with the latest news from the Indian capital markets, coming from Bloomberg TV India. The channel will also feature a special weekend feature show created around the Indian business world and investments in India, along with some of the key shows from the Bloomberg TV India stable that includes shows like Assignment and The Pitch.

According to the company, the South Asian population in Australia is approximately 4,00,000 and makes for 2 per cent of the population of the country, making it the second largest non European group in Australia. Ensuring reach to maximum households, Big Magic International has mapped the entire market to ensure optimal reach amongst relevant audiences.

NEW DELHI: Justice Cyriac Joseph, the retired Supreme Court judge, has been appointed as the new chairperson of the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal.

Justice Joseph, who retired on 27 January this year, has been appointed on a term of three years. He succeeds Justice S B Sinha who retired last month.

He was appointed a judge of the apex court on 7 July 2008. He became Chief Justice in Karnataka High Court in January 2006.

Born on 28 January 1947 at Kaipuzha, Kottayam District in Kerala, he graduated in science and then went on to do law. He enrolled as an advocate in October 1968.

He was senior government pleader in the Kerala High Court from 1979 to 1987 and then served as Additional Advocate General, Kerala, from July 1991 to July 1994.

Appointed as a permanent Judge of the High Court in July 1994, he was transferred a month later to Delhi High Court and then back to Kerala in September 2001. He was appointed Chief Justice of the High Court of Uttaranchal (now Uttarakhand) in March 2005.

MUMBAI: Movie channel HBO Asia will soon be launching a new Internet streaming service known as HBO GO in Asia.

HBO Go allows subscribers to enjoy HBO Original programmes 12 hours after the US across multiple devices including laptops, tablets and smartphones, anytime, anywhere.

Hong Kong‘s now TV will be the first broadcaster in Asia to launch HBO Go in the first quarter of 2013.

HBO Go draws on a vast library of around 1,000 hours of HBO Original programmes including series, films and other special programming such as documentaries, entertainment specials, family content and stand-up comedy.

Exciting lineup of programmes include the latest seasons of series, ‘Game Of Thrones‘, ‘Girls‘, ‘True Blood‘ and ‘Veep‘. Subscribers will be able to select what they want to watch on the device of their choice, giving more control to the viewer.

HBO Asia CEO Jonathan Spink said, “This announcement further demonstrates HBO Asia‘s commitment to introducing value-added services that provide flexibility, compelling content, and increased customer satisfaction. HBO Go will meet the demand of changing consumer viewing habits, offering subscribers quick access to a wide variety of award-winning and critically-acclaimed content 12 hours after the U.S., which will helps with the ongoing fight against illegal copying, distribution and piracy.”

Available free to now TV‘s HBO Max Pak Premium subscribers, Spink added: “We are very pleased that now TV will be the first broadcaster in Asia to offer HBO Go, as Hong Kong is a highly sophisticated market with a prevalence of high speed broadband network and mobile and tablet users, providing the perfect environment for the introduction of HBO GO.”

PCCW MD of TV, new media Janice Lee said, “HBO has always been our partner of choice who strives to offer the best to Hong Kong viewers. With HBO GO, it further demonstrates its commitment to the Hong Kong audience.”

“Over the past months, we have launched a number of apps with great success, including the now Player and now news apps, with which we have accumulated over one million downloads via smartphones, tablets and other devices. We have every confidence that HBO Go, as a new addition to our content line-up, will further enrich our customer experience by offering great content anytime, anywhere”.

The HBO Go service will complement HBO Asia‘s bouquet of subscription movie channels in the region including HBO, HBO HD, HBO Signature, HBO On Demand, the subscription video-on-demand service, and Red, HBO Asia‘s first premium Asian movie channel.

MUMBAI: Cox Cable and Time Warner Cable (TWC) have reached an agreement which will see the former carrying the TWC‘s sports channel SportsNet, the new local television home for the Los Angeles Lakers.

With the two companies agreeing to terms, Cox Cable is expected to start carrying SportsNet and its Spanish-language companion channel Deportes.

Time Warner Cable already has distribution agreements in place with major distributors Charter Commuications, Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-Verse. However, it is still to stitch agreements with satellite broadcasters to deal with DirecTV and Dish Network.
 
With Cox agreement in place, TWC believes the deal with Cox will help it to strike a good bargain with DirecTV and Dish.

NEW DELHI: It will be status quo in Chennai with the Madras High Court on Monday extending its stay on digitisation of cable TV till Friday, 9 November when it will resume its hearing on a petition by Chennai Metro Cable Operators Association (CMCOA).

The court had on 31 October stayed the implementation of digitisation till 5 November in Chennai. The central government had set 1 November as the deadline for compulsory switchover to digital cable TV from the current analogue transmission.

Justice N Paul Vasanthkumar said the court‘s main concern was the average consumer in Chennai and not just the petitioners (read cable operators).

The court wanted the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) to specify whether the MSOs have enough stock of set top boxes (STBs) to go ahead with digitisation.

The Judge asked all the MSOs to present the exact position of STB availability and the actual seeding during the next hearing.

The Madras HC was hearing a petition filed by Chennai Metro Cable Operators Association (CMCOA) through its general secretary M R Srinivasan which is seeking extension of digitisation deadline by three months.

S Haja Mohideed Gisthi, senior central government standing counsel, opposed any extension of the deadline saying the petition had been filed at the eleventh hour. Ever since the policy was unveiled in January 2011, the deadline had been extended thrice, Gisthi said.

When the MIB‘s Counsel pointed out that a similar petition had been dismissed by Bombay High Court, the court shot back saying that the situation in the two cities were not comparable as Mumbai has already achieved 100 per cent digitisation as per the ministry‘s own claim.

He said the government has already issued Digital Addressable System (DAS) licences to 11 MSOs in the city and it was their duty to procure STBs.

The court also heard representations on behalf of DTH operators who claimed that there are enough STBs, but the judge said the case related to cable TV.

The petition, noting that repeated requests for extension of the deadline was not acceded to by the Centre, claimed only 164,000 homes have been seeded with STBs in the Chennai and television sets in more than three million homes would go blank if the deadline was not extended. The petitioners also said that the MSOs did not have enough STBs to seed in all the homes.

Noting that the Tamil Nadu government‘s Arasu Cable Television has entered as the 11th MSO in the state, the CMCOA said Arasu has invited tenders for supply of one million STBs to meet 25 per cent of the city‘s requirement.

The petitioners wanted the court to stay total implementation of digitisation in Chennai till the infrastructure is put in place.

Meanwhile, state-owned Arasu Cable has started giving ads in local Tamil newspapers urging people to enroll their names by paying Rs 500 in advance to get STBs.

Earlier, MIB had admitted that ‘the pace of seeding has remained somewhat static‘, saying Cable TV digitisation in Chennai was 86 per cent, including 24 per cent of the homes which subscribe to DTH.

The Bombay High Court had refused to grant any relief to cable operators in India‘s financial capital after the additional solicitor general told the court that the entire city had been digitised.

NEW DELHI: Ninety per cent of the DVDs of films available in the market were the result of illegal camcording in theatres, and Ahmedabad, Ghaziabad and Indore appear to be primary markets for such illegal camcording.

Motion Pictures Distributors Association – India Managing Director Uday Singh told indiantelevision.com that India was among the five top nations in the world in terms of video piracy.

Singh said that the in the first nine months of this year, the Motion Pictures Association had identified 53 forensic matches to camcording incidents, a 77 per cent increase as compared to 2011 which had 30 camcording incidents for the same period. This figure accounts for 54 per cent of all forensic matches to the entire Asia-Pacific region during the first nine months of 2012.

Video camcords from India have been redistributed globally at least 32 times in 2012 alone, and paired with audio tracks in 12 different languages

A study conducted by MPDA (India) in 2009 had revealed that camcorded versions of Hindi titles hit the pirate market on an average of 2.15 days after the first legitimate theatrical showing in India. Countries in Asia -­Pacific such as Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and Philippines had successfully included â€?Anti-Camcording‘ provisions as part of their legislation, thus reducing the number of camcording incidents significantly.

Singh was speaking after unveiling the anti-camcording DVD â€?Make A Difference 3‘ (MAD 3), in Hindi language at a roundtable to discuss â€?Content Theft at Source‘ organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry‘s Intellectual Property Rights (FICCI –IPR) division in association with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and supported by MPDA-India organised to address the significant increase of camcording incidents in cinemas across India. MAD 3 is the latest training video produced by the MPA that provides guidelines to cinema staff on how to prevent illegal recordings.

He said the unauthorised recordings often appear online within hours or days of a movie release, triggering an avalanche of illegal downloads that can significantly impact a film‘s performance at the box office and throughout its distribution cycle. Content theft in India through camcording in cinemas has been significantly increasing over the past few years.

He said: “We urge the Government to include specific provisions for anti-camcord regulations in the draft Indian Cinematograph Act (2010) which will provide new law enforcement tools to combat this form of piracy. Countries such as Hong Kong, Malaysia and Japan are examples where anti-camcord legislation has significantly reduced the number of camcording incidents in cinemas.”

When asked whether the lack of unity in the film fraternity or lack of implementation of laws resulted in such camcording, he said the Andhra Pradesh Film Chamber of Commerce had set a very good example by doing â€?spectacular‘ work which had heightened awareness and also checked persons indulging in such practices.

When it was put to him that one of the reasons for people buying such illegal DVDs was the fact that ticket rates were very high, he said taxation was a major problem and was as high as 38 per cent of every ticket. However, this was the only reason and the availability and access of such pirated material on websites or in retail stores was a major problem.

He said Courts could also act by issuing the John Doe order since one could not identify the pirates. (The term ‘John Doe Injunction‘ (or John Doe Order) is used UK to describe an injunction sought against someone whose identity is not known at the time it is issued:

The fact that 1200 theatres had gone digital also helped as camcorded copies could easily be identified, though it was not always easy to catch the culprits. He said the police was not coming forwarding to help in nabbing such culprits who indulged in camcording in cinema houses.

In the roundtable, FICCI ­ IPR Division Head Sheetal Chopra said, “We appreciate the efforts of Motion Picture Association (India) in bringing out MAD 3 DVD. We are confident, this video tool will help movie theatre owners to take suo moto preventive measures to control any illegal recording which might occur at the time of a movie screening, thereby bringing down the piracy level thus contributing in country‘s economy.”

The roundtable discussion was attended by prominent Government and industry personalities including I&B Director (Films) Nirupama Kotru, Director and Registrar of Copyrights G R Raghavender, FICCI Director General Arbind Prasad, United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO Attorney Advisor Jennifer Ness, producer Mahesh Bhatt, APFCC Anti-Video Piracy Cell Chairman A. Rajkumar, Film Federation of India Secretary General Supran Sen, Alok Tandon of Inox Multiplex chain, Film and Television Producers Guild of India CEO Kulmeet Makkar, Big Cinemas COO Ashish Saxena, Cinepolis Head of Strategy Devang Sampat, Multiplex Association of India Vice President Deven Chachra, and filmmaker Ramesh Tekwani.

In his address, Bhatt said: “The Film industry needs to shed apathy and deal with piracy issues urgently. All stakeholders of the industry must partner with the Government on an ongoing basis to address this virus which gets deadlier day by day. As of now it is -Advantage Pirate.”

“With content theft becoming a global menace it is imperative to educate theatre staff and movie going audiences about camcording in cinemas. We at Big Cinemas support the Make a Difference 3 training programme by MPDA (India) which has helped our staff to further understand security procedures and has helped deter camcording incidents in our cinemas”, said Saksena.

“The Make A Difference 3 training video is a great tool to educate theatre staff about camcording in cinemas. We support and appreciate MPDA (India) for this initiative which will add value to our corporate training programme”, said Cinemax multiplex chain COO Arpan Dutta.

NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari has said the cable television digitisation programme will proceed according to the schedule laid down by the Government.

Speaking to the media at Panaji in Goa, he said that the process had been started by his predecessor and he will ensure it is implemented according to the time frame laid down for the four phases, the first of which had already been implemented.

The government has mandated 31 December 2014 as the sunset date for analogue cable across the country. The first phase of digitisation in the three metros of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata kicked off on 1 November while Chennai got deferred till 5 November by the Madras High Court. The fate of digitisation in Chennai will be known today by the court.

Mumbai and Delhi have had a high degree of success in digitisation while the Mamata Baenerjee-led West Bengal government has allowed TV signals to run on analogue cable TV till Diwali festival gets over.

Tewari also said the Centre will work towards making the forthcoming International Film Festival of India (IFFI) Goa a self sustainable event.

MUMBAI: UK pay TV operator BSkyB has posted operating profit of Â?310 million for the fiscal-first quarter ended September, up five per cent over the trailing quarter.

Revenue rose by four per cent to Â?1.7 billion with growth in both retail and wholesale operations more than offsetting a weak quarter for advertising.

There was good growth in products and customers, up 533,000 and 48,000 respectively. One in three customers now takes all three of TV, broadband and talk.

BSkyB said there was strong customer loyalty with churn of 10.9 per cent. Long-term renewals in sports and movies took place. The DTH service provider has highlighted the performance of the Ryder Cup – 4.8 million viewers and 700,000 unique Sky Go users.

BSkyB launched a catch up service which offers the best of pay and free TV on demand. Sky+HD box was re-launched with six times more storage. The unique users of Sky Go was up by 75 per cent.

BSkyB CEO Jeremy Darroch said, “We have made a strong start to the year, delivering another good quarterly performance and continuing to position the business for the long term. Our investment in high quality content and innovative services has delivered excellent levels of loyalty and generated good growth in customers and products. At the same time, we continue to drive improvements in efficiency, reliability and customer service throughout our operations. This approach continues to generate strong financial results with good growth in revenues and earnings. Looking forward, whilst we continue to see a challenging consumer environment in the UK and Ireland, we are well positioned to execute our plans for the year.”

On the content front, he noted that with the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games falling in the quarter, the company focused attention on providing a differentiated offering for customers.

“In addition to the main terrestrial channels, Sky customers had access to the most comprehensive BBC coverage of the Olympics in HD via 24 dedicated channels plus 100 hours of 3D coverage from Eurosport on Sky 3D. In total, over 14 million people watched the dedicated channels in Sky homes generating a viewing share of 7 per cent during the games,” Darroch said.

Sky Sports achieved record audiences for tennis, with Andy Murray‘s US Open Tennis victory attracting 4.5 million viewers. Ryder Cup reached 4.8 million viewers across Sky Sports 1 and 700,000 unique users on Sky Go. The company reinforced its positions as the home of live cricket by securing six more England overseas tours, including next year‘s Ashes.

“Long-term agreements with three international cricket boards will bring a range of live Test cricket from Australia, South Africa and India until at least 2016. Alongside this, we agreed a new four-year deal with the ERC for exclusive live coverage of European Rugby competitions – the Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge Cup – until 2018. These new deals complete sixteen 4 recent long-term renewals for Sky Sports within the last 18 months, meaning we now have a stronger line up of live sport for our viewers than ever before,” said Darroch.

MUMBAI: US broadcaster CBS and OTT subscription service Netflix have extended their deal for international licensing agreements in Canada, Latin America, the UK and Ireland.

Terms of the agreements were not disclosed. As part of the extended agreements, Netflix members in each of these territories will enjoy previous seasons of Showtime‘s ‘Dexter‘ and popular CBS library programmes such as ‘Charmed‘, ‘Jericho‘ and ‘The 4400‘. Previous seasons of series will be available on a territory-by-territory basis, including ‘The Good Wife‘ and ‘Hawaii Five-0‘.

CBS Global Distribution Group president, CEO Armando Nunez said, “Netflix is a great partner, and this has been a mutually beneficial relationship that has helped grow our respective businesses. It is an arrangement that showcases our premium content on Netflix‘s world-class service in a way that complements our traditional worldwide licensing and adds to our overall international revenue.”

Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said, “We are delighted to be bringing more great CBS and Showtime series to our members throughout the world. Our goal is to give Netflix members a broad mix of engaging shows to watch, and this extended agreement does just that.”