Category: Software

MUMBAI: Subhash Chandra-promoted Wire and Wireless (India) Ltd (WWIL) has decided to share 25 per cent of its carriage income from DAS (digital addressable systems) markets with local cable operators (LCOs).

This controversial decision has angered multi-system operators (MSOs) who have reacted vehemently against such disruptive announcements, alleging that WWIL is out to spoil the market at a crucial time when the country is readying to transition from analogue to digital systems.

“Carriage fee is irrelevant in the digital era in the medium-to-long term, according to Zee network, an asociate of WWIL. The statement made by WWIL, however, implies that carriage will continue. So the two positions are conflicting,” says Hathway Cable & Datacom MD & CEO K Jayaraman.

As per WWIL‘s offer, the LCOs who take the set-top boxes (STBs) before 30 June, the deadline for the first phase in the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai Kolkata and Chennai, will get a 25 per cent of the share of the carriage revenue earned by the MSO in the DAS markets. The MSO will fix the carriage income it will have to cough out to the LCOs on a per box basis.

“The LCOs who accept the offer for the digital switchover by 30 June will get 25 per cent of the carriage fee earned by us on a per box basis. We are also giving the STBs at a subsidised price of Rs 699 per box before 15 June, post which the boxes will be available for 799. We have a need of 2.5 million boxes, out of which 50 per cent is in Kolkata,” WWIL COO Anil Malhotra tells Indiantelevision.

WWIL will, thus, become the first company in the cable TV space in India to announce such a step.

This was announced at the Delhi cable operator meet organised by WWIL to speed up the process of digitisation.

Jayaraman feels that this scheme is entirely confusing and will go against broadcasting, especially as it comes from a former IBF president, as even DTH distributors will demand carriage.

Will Hathway be forced to follow WWIL‘s revenue share model?

Hathway already offers schemes to the distributors who, in turn, will pass it on to the consumers, as per Trai directive and market forces.

WWIL is a major force in Kolkata but lacks sizeable base in Delhi and Mumbai.

Says Den Networks COO MG Azhar, “We are not going to share carriage revenues with LCOs. We are already subsiding the STBs.”

Agrees IndusInd Media & Communications Ltd (IMCL) managing director Ravi Mansukhani, “We do not care what they do on their networks. If they try to step into our territories, we will unite with the other top MSOs and take a call”.

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni will be meeting all stakeholders on 8 June to sort out issues raised in connection with the first phase of digitisation in the four metros, which is reaching its sunset date of 30 June three weeks from now..

The government is likely to announce a shift in the deadline date as most of the multi-system operators (MSOs) are not ready with the set-top boxes (STBs). Trai announced the tariff guidelines under the digital addressable system as late as 30 April.

Cable networks are expecting the government to shift the deadline for digitisation in the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.

“We are expecting a six-month extension,” said the head of a leading MSO.

The broadcasters are, however, pressing for the deadline date to stay as they fell that digitisation would drastically cut down on their carriage payouts to cable networks while subscription revenues would go up.

Senior Ministry sources told indiantelevision.com that a meeting of the Task Force was held on 1 June under the chairmanship of Additional Secretary Rajiv Takru wherein many stakeholders – primarily cable operators – raised certain issues which needed to be sorted out before digitisation could take place.

These issues have been placed before Soni and are under her consideration.

Though the government insists it will not defer the first phase of digitisation, the final decision would be taken after the Minister meets the stakeholders, the sources said.

However, it is learnt that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha, and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee have written letters seeking extension of the date, and cases have been filed in the High Courts in all metros against the government directive.

It is also learnt that only around 20 per cent of the set top boxes needed for the four metros have so far been installed.

MUMBAI: ESPN Star Sports has adopted Haivision‘s Barracuda H.264 encoder and Makito decoder at its Singapore and Taiwan facilities to support live sports commentary in multiple languages.

The extremely low latency of the Haivision encoder and decoder enables ESS to adopt an exceptionally fast and cost-effective model for delivering quality HD content in which commentary is closely synchronised with the video.

“The remarkably low latency of Haivision‘s Makito and Barracuda systems is critical to our live multilingual commentary model,” said ESPN Star Sports vice president of operations and technology Colin Sherriff.

In providing sub-second round-trip latency, the Haivision systems enable us to improve the quality of commentary by using local voiceover talent. We‘ve also been able to eliminate our reliance on costly ISDN links and therefore realize a very quick return on our investment.”

Within ESS‘s new video workflow, live HD programming coming into the ESS Singapore facility is down converted to SD and using the Makito/Barracuda systems‘ lowest latency settings, it is sent across an IP link to the Taiwan office.

A commentator in Taiwan then provides a Mandarin voiceover for the live video, which is delivered back to Singapore across the IP link using an audio IP codec.

In Singapore, the voice is inserted into the incoming signal, adding Mandarin commentary prior to routing the video to studios and transmission suites. The latency of the Haivision systems is so low that ESS doesn‘t need to delay the main incoming HD video feed to ensure that the commentary is synchronised with the video.

ESS is expanding its utilisation in Taiwan with a second channel for additional commentary and is in the process of investigating deployments in other countries and regions in the Asia/Pacific region. The Barracuda and Makito high-performance encoder and decoder were delivered by local systems integrator Techtel.

MUMBAI: Fresh from its acquisition of instant messaging firm Meebo for an estimated $100 million, internet giant Google has announced the acquisition of mobile office software company Quickoffice.

“We‘re happy to announce that we have acquired Quickoffice, a leader in office productivity solutions,” Google said in a statement.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Quickoffice has an established track record of enabling seamless interoperability with popular file formats, and we‘ll be working on bringing their powerful technology to our Apps product suite,” the statement added.

Launched in 1997, Quickoffice is a leader in mobile office solutions which allows users to view, edit and create Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents for devices run on Android, iPhone, iPad, HP webOS and Symbian platforms.

MUMBAI: Neo Sports, which will air the Uefa Euro 2012 has tied-up with iStream.com, a video portal, to provide live streaming in India of its telecast of the event.

Neo Prime, the all sports channel, has the exclusive television broadcast rights across the Indian subcontinent.

The event on Neo Sports will be streamed live on a dedicated segment within istream.com, and the fans would also have access to the content on demand for a full month both through neosports.tv and the istream.com sites.

Fans would also have access and enjoy extensive support programming around the event, including pre-and after match highlights, team and player stats, profiles, trivia and other related clips from the mega football event, being jointly hosted by Poland and the Ukraine.

Neo Sports Broadcast COO Prasana Krishnan said, “Neo Sports is thrilled to provide fans of football the full Uefa Euro 2012 experience on the internet. We hope to provide fans with an unparalleled experience through this association with istream.com”.”

iStream Founder and CEO Radhakrishnan Ramachandran said, “We believe that football has a strong pull among the Internet audiences in the country and this is part of our overall strategy to build a strong sports vertical for istream.com. We plan to bring in more such exclusive partnerships in the online video space.”

The event kicks off on 8 June with co-host Poland playing Greece in Group A, which also includes Russia and the Czech Republic. Defending champions Spain, which won Euro 2008 and then the World Cup two years later, will not be fielding star striker David Villa of Barcelona, who broke his tibia during the Club World Cup in December.

This is the 14th and the last Euro Championship to have 16 nations in the playoffs for the final. Starting Euro 2016 Uefa Euro will have 24 teams.

The tournament is expected to attract a cumulative audience of 4.3 billion and a global live television audience of 1.1 billion, with an estimated 55,000 hours of TV coverage across 220 countries.

MUMBAI: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has partnered YouTube to live stream the London 2012 Olympic Games in 64 territories on the IOC’s channel on YouTube. The Olympics will be held from 27 July to 12 August.

During the Olympics Games, sports fans in these 64 territories across Asia and Africa will be able to enjoy live coverage of the events as well as highlight clips on this digital platform — free-of-charge.

Viewers from these territories will be able to watch the streams on the IOC’s YouTube channel, accessible online or Internet enabled devices like smart devices/mobile phones and other YouTube-enabled devices.

The live-streaming on the IOC’s YouTube channel will provide exclusive digital access to the London 2012 Olympic Games in territories where digital broadcast rights have not already been acquired by the IOC’s broadcast partners: India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Bhutan, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Iran, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

And in 44 Sub-Saharan African territories on a non-exclusive basis, including: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central Africa Republic , Chad, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of, Congo, Republic of, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Eriteria, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia , Madagascar , Malawi , Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria , Rwanda, S?o Tomé and Príncipe Senegal, Seychelles , Sierra Leone , Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The IOC’s live streaming on its YouTube channel will consist of 11 different simultaneous high-definition broadcasts, all with English language commentary. There will be ten live feeds from London 2012, running 9 am to 11pm (London time) (on some days, these will start early or finish later based on competition schedule), plus a 24-hour broadcast of the Olympic News Channel, which includes summaries of the latest results, general reports on different events, and interviews with athletes.

Fans will also be able to catch up on highlights and full events — all organised by the day, medal event, or the sport. The IOC channel will also continue to feature historic content from past Olympic Games. In total, the IOC’s YouTube channel will offer over 2,200 hours of sporting event coverage from London 2012, including all the medals finals.

IOC Television and Marketing MD Timo Lumme said, “We are delighted to be able to offer live online coverage of London 2012 to sports fans free of charge across these 64 markets. We first provided clips on our channel on YouTube during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games across the region, and since then have continued to provide footage of past Olympic Games across the world on our YouTube channel. Now we will also be able to offer live coverage during London 2012, complementing the excellent coverage provided by our broadcast partners across the world across all media platforms.”

YouTube Head of Sport Content Partnerships Claude Ruibal said, “From baseball to cricket to martial arts, YouTube has become a global hub for live sports. There is no sporting event, however, more exciting or iconic than the Summer Olympics, and we are thrilled to work with the IOC to bring live coverage of these truly international Games to even more people around the world. The IOC is making the most of our platform by offering fans 11 different live streams on their channel, which can be viewed on desktops, mobile phones, and Internet-connected devices. We hope sports fans enjoy finding the exact event they want to see as well as checking daily highlights whenever they want to see them.”

NEW DELHI: The News Broadcaster Association today urged the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to ensure that digital access systems are put in place by 1 July as announced earlier.

Endorsing the Ministry‘s move, it said there were certain rumors that seemed to suggest that there may be an extension of the implementation date of DAS.

‘The NBA, however, believes that the government would continue with its determination and assurance that the date will be adhered to.

The NBA Board, which met today, lauded the Government‘s move to usher in digitisation with effect from 1 July in the four metros.

“This puts India on the global map, provides for significant transparency and enables the Government to enhance its revenues by way of income tax, service tax and entertainment tax. Importantly from the news broadcasters‘ point of view there is a significant ray of hope with the potential reduction of carriage and ban on placement fees, both of which have crippled the industry,” the NBA said in a statement.

MUMBAI: Search engine giant Google Inc has acquired Meebo, the social media startup, reportedly at an estimated $100 million.

The move can be seen as a bid from Google towards bolstering its social networking media platform Google+, which was launched to rival popular platform Facebook.

Founded in 2005, Meebo is a consumer internet company focused on driving user engagement across the web. Its flagship product, the Meebo Bar, provides publishers and advertisers ways to leverage by weaving content engagement and brand experiences into the consumer‘s web experience.

“Together with Google, we‘re super jazzed to roll up our sleeves and get cracking on even bigger and better ways to help users and website owners alike,” Meebo‘s official blog stated.

“With the Meebo team‘s expertise in social publisher tools, we believe they will be a great fit with the Google+ team,” Google said in a statement.

Meebo has so far raised $70 million since launch. One round of funding in 2008 valued the company at around $200 million.

MUMBAI: ABP Group, the eastern India media conglomerate, has launched an application- ‘My Anandabazar‘ for iPad, iPods and iPhone in order to cater to the growing global Bengali mobile Internet consumers.

According to the company it is the first Bengali language iOS application of its kind with a diverse range of features. It offers live Bengali news, Bengali e-magazines, Bengali movies, cuisine videos, online radio, Bengali blogs by eminent writers and live TV streams of ABP Ananda and Sananda TV. Four Bengali magazines – Desh, Sananda, Ananandamela and Anandalok – are also available on the app.

ABP Group VP-digital and English magazines Kaushik Banerjee said, “We are excited to release this new universal app to address the booming iOS market for Bengali communities.”

The movie section will offer Bengali classics with new additions every fortnight and radio channel ‘Radio Ananda‘ will also air music of olden times. The video recipe section ‘Ponchobyanjon‘ will create authentic taste of Bengal and will new recipe videos will be added every fortnight.

While ABP Ananda provides all the updates on local events, politics, entertainment and sports, Sananda TV brings the wide spectrum of quality Bengali entertainment soaps, reality shows and more.

The app is for free.

MUMBAI: NDS has landed yet another contract with Classic Cable Networks (CCN) to deploy end-to-end solution from NDS to launch digital cable TV service in Eastern Delhi.

The software and interactive systems service provider for digital television, digital pay-TV, and set-top boxes will provide an end-to-end suite of technologies including MediaHighway set-top box software, VideoGuard conditional access, a customised electronic programme guide (EPG) and a host of interactive functionality such as games and TV applications, including regional content, to compliment the current CCN channel offering.

NDS will also enable additional revenue streams by providing regional advertising capabilities via the EPG home page and banner ads supported by NDS Dynamic Advanced Advertising technology.

NDS India country head & GM Jayant Changrani, “As the cable TV industry in India transitions to digital, we are proud to be supporting operators such as CCN to enhance their platforms with added value functionality and services. The migration to digital poses fantastic opportunity for the industry, and NDS solutions enable operators to rapidly launch services and introduce roadmap features as subscriber demand dictates. CCN are taking important steps to ensure the future of their platform and the experience of their subscribers, and we look forward to supporting them throughout that process.”

Earlier, NDS was appointed by ADN Networks to provide the enabling technologies to support the launch of its digital cable TV service in central and Western Delhi.