Category: Software

MUMBAI: MSM Discovery, the company which distributes channels under the One Alliance brand, recently conducted a raid on Dipak Poddar cable network in Katihar, Bihar for pirating the signals of Max, the official broadcaster of IPL.

The raid was conducted on 8 May with the assistance of local police and the Court Commissioner appointed by the Delhi High Court.

The company said it had secured a blanket injunction against known and unknown violators before the IPL.

The local police raided the premise of the said network and seized the head-end being used for illegally transmitting the channel.

“The cable operator has been a repeat offender and the raid will send out a stern warning to other violators of signal piracy,” said a source from MSM Discovery.

MUMBAI: Sony will unveil its latest technologies aimed at building on the success of its ‘Believe HD and Beyond’ vision at the television technology trade event BroadcastAsia2012 in Singapore in June.

Sony is using BroadcastAsia as a platform for customers to learn more about how it is shaping the future of the industry, by putting image quality at the heart of its very latest developments in 4K, 35mm and OLED.

Sony India senior manager of content creation solutions, professional solutions division Ryo Makino said, “As an engine of growth in the region and its broadcast industry at a point of rapid migration towards HD and digitalisation, India remains as a key market for Sony. Many of our customers from India visit us at BroadcastAsia as it offers a great opportunity to be among the first in Asia to experience Sony’s latest technologies –we are excited to showcase what we have to offer this year from HD cameras, large sensor camcorders and affordable live production to digital-based technologies for workflow transformation and not to mention our groundbreaking series of OLED monitors” .

At BroadcastAsia2012, Sony will show that its ability to innovate has been fuelled by customer insights and by bringing the audio-visual and the digital worlds closer together.

The key announcements Sony will make at BroadcastAsia2012 are:

Both the HDC-2000 and HDC-2550 deliver picture the broadcast industry,” said Makino.

Moving towards HD digital file-based workflow

The broadcast and content creation industry is underway in its transition to digital workflows, which is transforming efficiency in operation. Sony has expertise in providing not just a product in a box but different products that come together to make an efficient workflow ‘solution’.

“India’s broadcast industry is moving towards a digital workflow and Sony is playing a strong role in helping its customers transition to file-based workflow through products and solutions such as XDCAM, which is the industry’s trusted and well known broadcasting format,” said Makino.

MUMBAI: Watching video content on computers has become just as common as watching video content on television among online consumers, according to Nielsen’s global survey of multi-screen media usage.

More than 80 per cent of Internet respondents in 56 countries reported watching video content at home on a computer (84 per cent) or on TV (83 per cent) at least once a month. By contrast, in 2010, more online consumers reported watching video content on TV (90 per cent) than on a computer (86 per cent) in a month-long period.

While the in-home TV and computer are still the most popular devices to watch video content, usage and growth in online and mobile technologies is making a sustained impact. Three-quarters (74 per cent) of global respondents report watching video via the Internet (on any device), up four points since 2010, and over half of global online consumers (56 per cent) say they watch video on a mobile phone at least once a month and 28 per cent at least once a day.

Mobile video is particularly prominent in Asia-Pacific and Middle East/African regions, where 74 and 72 per cent of online consumers, respectively, report watching video on mobile phones at least once a month, and almost 40 per cent (38 per cent and 37 per cent, respectively) say they do so at least once a day.

While mobile video is currently less prominent in North America than in other parts of the world, it is seeing the highest growth rates in mobile phone video consumption. 38 per cent of North American respondents say they watch mobile video once a month, up eight points compared to the 2010 reported results.

Nielsen senior VP, client insights Dounia Turrill said, “The convenience of mobile connectivity has revolutionised how people are engaging with digital content and each other around the world. With the growth of smartphones, mobile video consumption is on the rise for entertainment content, particularly in emerging markets where many consumers leapfrog home Internet altogether in favour of the all-in-one smartphone.”

MUMBAI: Rage Communications, a digital communications agency and technology consultancy firm, has launched AlphaLearn which is a mobile app for Windows Phone 7.

It is an interactive learning app for pre-schoolers exploring the alphabet. The app helps them learn the alphabet and the sounds they make. It starts with a random display of alphabets. Tapping an alphabet brings up a larger display of the alphabet and a voice reading the alphabet.

The application is currently available for Windows devices. It will soon be available for Android and iOS devices.

Rage Communications AVP Ajay Kumar said, “The next version of the app will include more interactive child-friendly ways to reinforce the learning of alphabets. We are also planning to introduce more apps for children to facilitate interactive learning and extend the platform to other languages”.

AlphaLearn is available free on the Windows Marketplace.

Rage Communications managing director JRK Rao said, “We all know how interactive learning is important for children in the pre-school age. AlphaLearn engages the kids through audio and visual clues, providing some excitement in the learning process.”

MUMBAI: The wild swing in the rupee continues to pinch India’s leading direct-to-home service provider for the second straight quarter. Dish TV has widened its fiscal-fourth quarter net loss to Rs 490 million due to foreign exchange loss of Rs 65 million.

The company had posted a net loss of Rs 430 million in the trailing quarter.

Dish TV’s net sales rose to Rs 5.24 billion in the three-month period ended 31 March 2012, up from Rs 4.90 billion in the prior quarter.

Ebitda stood at Rs 1.44 billion, up 20 per cent from the trailing quarter and 60 per cent from the year-ago period. Assuming there are no one off write backs, the Ebitda performance was clearly much better than what the market expected.

“This was mainly triggered by renegotiation of content cost in the fourth quarter of this fiscal,” a media analyst says.

The company’s total expenses jumped to Rs 5.45 billion during the quarter under review, from Rs 4.93 billion.

Subscription revenues stood at Rs 4.34 billion. The ARPU rose by just one per cent to Rs 153.

Dish TV added 4,15000 subscribers in the quarter, achieving a total of 12.9 million gross and 9.6 million net subscribers at the end of the period.

Says Dish TV managing director Jawahar Goel, “While managing a trade-off between quality and quantity of new subscribers in the fiscal gone by, the DTH category witnessed a slowdown after a price hike at the entry level. The category added 10.5 million subscribers in fiscal 2012 compared to 13.3 million in the year before that. However, Dish TV witnessed a marked improvement in its key metrics after the price hike was initiated. With quality subscribers coming on board thereafter, Dish TV’s monthly churn number in the fourth quarter aligned with its internal benchmark.”

Subscriber Acquisition Cost (SAC) stayed flat at Rs 2,127 compared to Rs 2,124 in the preceding quarter.

Financial performance for the full fiscal

The standalone net loss for the full-fiscal stood at Rs 1.33 billion due to foreign exchange loss of Rs 510 million, narrowing from Rs 1.92 billion in the year-ago period.

Revenue grew 36.3 per cent to Rs 19.58 billion, while Ebitda improved strongly to Rs 4.96 billion, from Rs 2.38 billion a year ago.

The company also revealed that it has received a demand notice for income-tax and interest aggregating to Rs. 264.2 million pertaining to an alleged short deduction of tax at source on certain payments and interest thereon for delayed period. The company has disputed the issue and has filed an appeal.

MUMBAI: Aegis Media’s full service digital agency Isobar India has been accepted by Facebook for its new global Preferred Marketing Developer (PMD) Programme.

Isobar has been selected along with three other markets in Asia Pacific. Isobar India, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan have all been recognised for their ongoing creation of ‘innovative’ solutions and apps for brands across the Facebook platform, the agency said.

Facebook has separated developer service providers into four possible badge qualifications: Pages, Ads, Apps, and Insights. The programme recognises companies who have built on the Facebook Platform since its launch, and those who are adept at understanding platform policy and development tools, and who have a long track record of providing Facebook-centric services to brands.

Isobar India Shamsuddin Jasani said, “We’re proud to have been accepted as a Facebook Preferred Developer and see it as recognition of the great work we’ve produced for our clients. Social media is central to our full-service offering, so we look forward to working more closely with Facebook to deliver even better solutions for our clients.”

Isobar has also been recognised as a Facebook preferred marketing developer in six other markets worldwide, including the United Kingdom, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Norway and the United States.

MUMBAI: Olx.in, a free local classified site, has launched iPad and iPhone application.

OLX VP Mobile Simon Berger-Perrin said, “We are excited to release this new universal app to address the booming iPad market. iPad owners have now a great free app to buy and sell everything with OLX. The new app for iPad is even compliant with the iPad with retina display which makes viewing images of products posted on OLX absolutely clear and with no blurs or distortions.”

The company said that using the OLX iPad app makes it easy to post an ad in less than two minutes with the option of even uploading pictures, videos and description right from the device. Even searching is more convenient and relevant as buyers can search for ads in their locality or in a particular location using GPS to depict all the ads around them on a map.

Being a Universal app, users only need to download one app and it works on both iPhone or iPad. The advantage for the users who own an iPhone and an iPad is that they do not need to download two different apps. Even the updates for both iPhone and iPad apps happen at the same time which makes it a very convenient option for mobile users.

For users wanting to experience OLX on other phones, there are also options to download the OLX Mobile app on Android, Windows, Blackberry and Nokia mobile operating systems.

MUMBAI: Media Pro Enterprise India, the joint venture distribution company between Star Den and Zee Turner, has filed an FIR against Ahmedabad-based Gujarat Telelinks Private Ltd (GTPL) affiliated operator for providing unauthorised analogue signals of its channels.

The company had recently conducted a raid on ‘The Fern’ hotel and discovered that the GTPL affiliated operator was providing unauthorised signals of Media Pro channels at the hotel in Ahmedabad.

As per the terms and conditions of the analogue agreement signed between the GTPL and Media Pro, the MSO and their local cable operators (LCOs) are not authorised to provide analogue signals to commercial establishments unless the broadcaster (Media Pro) provides them with the authorisation.

An FIR has been registered against ‘The Fern‘ hotel manager and LCO Vinod Bhai along with the staff of GTPL at Sola High Court police Station.

Despite legal action, the CEO of ‘The Fern’ has ignored the request from the Media Pro officials to obtain proper authorisation for retransmission of signals in the hotel, the company said in a statement.

A senior official of Media Pro commented, “The increase in piracy of TV signals in Gujarat has increased tremendously. By raising a flag against what GTPL is doing in Ahmedabad, we intent to make the state realise how big the issue of signal piracy in Gujarat actually is. We have been negotiating with the operators to sign the subscription agreement.”

MUMBAI: Popular social networking site Facebook has hiked the price range for its initial public offering to $34-38 a share.

The company, which is expected to go public on 18 May, had earlier fixed its share price at $28-35.

At the current price range, the company could raise more than $12 billion and would have a valuation of $104 billion.

The social networking site will offer a total of 337.41 million shares as part of IPO offering.

Facebook has also extended the time frame for its $1 billion acquisition of mobile app maker Instagram.

The deal with Instagram would now be closed in 2012 instead of closing in the second quarter as it had previously indicated.

The company had in February filed for a $5 billion IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission in United States and will be listed on Nasdaq under the symbol ‘FB‘.

Launched in 2004, the social networking giant commands an active user base of over 800 million with revenues of $3.71 billion and a net profit of $1 billion last year.

MUMBAI: Chennai, one of the four metro cities to undergo cable digitisation, may miss the deadline as the Tamil Nadu government is planning to approach Information & Broadcasting ministry seeking a six month extension.

State information minister Mukkur N Subramaniam has told the assembly that the state government will seek more time in order to complete the digitisation of cable networks.

The city has an estimated two million cable and satellite homes.

The state government is planning to go digital with Arasu Cable Corporation and is targeting a subscriber base of 10 million.

The subscriber base of the government-owned cable corporation has increased from 4,94000 to 4.95 million with the operator base being at 21,123, Subramaniam said.

At present, the corporation provides services with a bouquet of 100 channels, including free-to-air channels, pay channels and private local channels.

As on 30 April, the monthly subscriptions from local cable operators and MSOs amounted to Rs 326.7 million apart from the advance payment of Rs 259.7 million collected.