Category: Software

NEW DELHI: Yahoo! India and Marathi daily Lokmat today joined hands to deliver premium digital content in Marathi to the Internet audience.

The website, http://lokmat.yahoo.com/, will offer Lokmat’s original content combined with Yahoo!‘s premium content experience to online Marathi users.

With Marathi being the fourth largest spoken language in India, the partnership is a crucial step towards satisfying the digital content appetite in the language of user’s choice.

The I-Cube 2009 report signals that the next wave of digital audience in India is expected to emerge from the non-English speaking population. In line with its commitment to catalyze Internet consumption in India, Yahoo! is launching six language sites in India. Currently Yahoo! offers Hindi and Tamil content in collaboration with Dainik Jagran and Dinamalar respectively.

Commenting on the surging demand for regional content Yahoo! India managing director Arun Tadanki said, “At Yahoo!, we aim to make our content relevant for new Internet users coming online from different parts of India. With this association, we aim to expand our existing offering to help Marathi users stay connected to their world in their own language.”

Elaborating on the partnership Lokmat joint managing director Rishi Darda said, “Our partnership will help grow the regional language online audience in India. Yahoo!’s scale and Lokmat’s original content with indepth coverage of Maharashtra will deliver uniquely tailored Marathi language content to the users.”

According to ComScore August 2011, the Yahoo! India network reaches 82.9 per cent online users across the country and is category leader across News, Movies, Cricket and Entertainment.

MUMBAI: Game distribution and marketing company, Milestone Interactive, has tied up with National Entertainment Collectibles Association (Neca), to distribute Neca merchandise, including video game and movie action figures in India.

The product range begins from Rs 1,299 and include Head Knockers like Dark Knight – Batman series 1, The Dark Knight – Joker Series 1, Harry Potter – Harry. There are also action figures like Assassin’s Creed – 7” – Altair, Assassin’s Creed – 7” – Ezio Assortment, and Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows

 
Milestone Interactive Group chairman and CEO Jayont R. Sharma said, “So far, the Indian audience has not seen such high end videogame related collectibles and merchandise. This will be a new and exciting experience for Milestone and a positive step in our constant endeavor to increase our product offering to the Indian consumer.”

MUMBAI: India and China are the most poorly regulated markets for pay TV, says a report from the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA).

The Indian market suffers from over-regulation, where bureaucratic fiat substitutes for market forces in setting rates or determining programme packages.

According to the study, ‘Regulating for Growth 2011 — a regulatory regime index for Asia Pacific multichannel television’, India is second lowest (ahead only of China), scoring 43 per cent in the effective regulatory regime index, as compared to 95 per cent attained in developed markets such as New Zealand and the United States.

Hong Kong in Asia was named as the most favourable one, followed by Japan, Australia and Malaysia.

Casbaa chairman Marcel Fenez said, “Our research shows that markets where the regulatory environment is friendly have higher levels of economic activity. This benefits ancillary industries, local content creators, tax collections and enables consumers to access newer forms of technology.”
 
The Indian pay-TV market needs a lot of improvement as it is handicapped by limits on foreign direct investment, cable operator licenses, fragmentation, distribution price controls, and taxes.

“Regulation of the Indian pay-TV industry has become the most restrictive in the region, if not the world. Almost every aspect of the industry is controlled, from channel availability, retail and wholesale rates, packaging, advertising, investment and even the commercial and technical arrangements between different levels of the supply chain.

“There does not appear to be any prospect of improvement in the near future, though the possibility of widespread digitisation does hold some promise,” added the Casbaa report.

According to a report by Media Partners Asia, the Indian pay-TV market adds a miniscule 1.2 per cent to the country‘s national economic output, despite having a subscriber base of over 100 million set by Digital TV Research.
Worsening this, the profit margins in the broadcasting sector fell to 13 per cent in 2010 compared to 23 per cent in 2003 – another offshoot of India’s damaging policy measures.

The Casbaa report examined the effectiveness of government policies in regulating the delivery of video content over multiple networks to paying customers in 17 large pay-TV markets around the world.

MUMBAI: UTStarcom Holdings Corp. launched its DOCSIS-EOC application (“EOC application”), which is a standard connection product based on coaxial cable and designed for the final 100 meters of connection between fiber optic cables and users‘ terminal.

DOCSIS-EOC allows for 500 unique access points and provides 800Mbps broad width at the low end and 160Mbps broad width at the high end, the company said.

The EOC application is a component of UTStarcom‘s EPON solution which helps operators construct a sophisticated network as the industry enters an era of smart grid digitalisation. In the China market, UTStarcom has already deployed its EPON solution in 30 provinces.
 
According to an official communiqué, the EOC application allows operators to provide faster and smoother video and voice information to end users through wider bandwidth capabilities. In addition, the EOC application is adaptable to the current TV grid standard allowing operators to avoid the hassle of changing existing ports.

The application follows the Homeplug AV EOC standard and integrates the connection feature of China‘s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (“SARFT”)‘s coaxial cable.

MUMBAI: As part of its plans of digital distribution across the globe, Miramax has signed a multi-year agreement with Hulu. With the deal in place, Miramax will offer films from its library in Japan.

Financial terms of the Japanese deal have, however, not been disclosed.

The move comes after a larger domestic deal between the streaming service and the studio last June. Currently, Miramax films will be available for streaming through the Hulu Plus subscription service.

“We are pleased to partner with Hulu in Japan, which has built a compelling platform in a market we are very focused on,” Miramax CEO Mike Lang said. “We look forward to making our terrific movies available to many more television and digital platforms in Japan, as well as other markets throughout Asia, as the audience continues to expand exponentially and new platforms continue to proliferate.”
 
As part of the new ownership, Miramax has grabbed the priority of exploiting its library of Oscar-winning titles.

Films from the Miramax library that will be available to Hulu
subscribers in Japan include Chocolat, The English Patient, From Dusk Till Dawn, Gone Baby Gone, Good Will Hunting, Jackie Brown, There Will Be Blood, Scream and Spy Kids.

In addition to Hulu, Miramax has also inked deals with Netflix.

BANGALORE: Indian Mobile telephone player Vodafone, as a title partner for the McLaren Mercedes team since 2007, is raising its association with motor racing sport to the next level.

Stating that racing is expected to grow in India with the first ever Indian Grand Prix 2011, Vodafone has planned many initiatives in reaching out to its consumers, creating a brand recall.

Some of the initiatives that are on the anvil include:

 
Vodafone Race to fame-life in the fast lane- the mobile company will offer 4 winners –two each of consumers and global mobile enterprise customers, an experience to spend a weekend with the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team during the motor racing event scheduled at Noida between October 28 and 30.

Another initiative is the Vodafone Drive into the Big League – Vodafone has extended an exclusive growth opportunity to small and medium business enterprises (SME) to have their logo on the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes cars that will race at the motor racing event in India. Vodafone says that it has already received more than 50,000 entries till the closing date of 25 September.

Vodafone is also organising customer activation programmes with a replica of the McLaren Mercedes F1 car in the country’s prime metros at high footfall areas such as malls and electronic parks gearing up to the grand finale at New Delhi.

The company also brought Vodafone’s ace champion driver Lewis Hamilton to Bangalore today to demonstrate his skills behind the wheels of his racing car, the Mercedes MP4-23 that took him to the 2008 F1 Drivers Championship. Over 10,000 people witnessed the ace driver burn the rubber at the NICE road, around 300 meters of which was converted into a race track.

MUMBAI: Amazon has cut a deal with 20th Century Fox to stream Fox movies and TV shows on Amazon.com‘s instant streaming service, Amazon Prime. This follows just a day after Netflix announced its streaming arrangement with Dreamworks Animation.

The deal can add nearly 2,000 Fox titles to Amazon Prime‘s library, which can prove to be a huge advantage for the streaming service.

 
The titles will include popular TV shows “Arrested Development,” “24,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “The X-Files,” and “The Wonder Years” (which originally aired in the late 1980s and early 90s, and has previously been unavailable on digital video). Films included in the deal are Mrs. Doubtfire,” “9 to 5” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

Amazon.com director of Video Steve Oliver said that customers love the instant access to thousands of movie and TV favorites.

On Sunday, Dreamworks Animation shifted from HBO to Netflix becoming the first major Hollywood content supplier to opt for digital streaming over pay television. Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg told The New York Times that “this is a game-changing deal.”

Both Netflix and Amazon have denied unveiling the financial details of the deal.

MUMBAI: Mobile operator Idea Cellular has launched offers for over 120 million Idea subscribers in the MP and Chhattisgarh circle, adding to the celebrations of the Navraatri season.

Idea’s ‘Power of 9‘ special Navratri packs will offer Voice calls, SMS services, and 3G Internet at Rs 9 during the festive season.

Idea‘s ‘Power of 9‘ gives the option of choosing from four recharge vouchers each priced at Rs 9, which come with customised benefits for different types of users.

Idea‘s prepaid users in MP & Chhattisgarh can opt for Voice packs which offer 22 Local minutes of Idea to Idea calling with a validity of four days, and another pack which offers 19
local minutes of calling on any network for a period of three days.

High SMS users can go for the pack which offers 45 local and national SMS with a validity period of five days.

Idea has also introduced a special 3G Internet pack which offers 20 MB of usage for one day. All packs are priced at Rs 9 and are available only in paper recharge form, except for the 3G Internet recharge which is also available on E-recharge.

Idea Cellular COO Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh Sunil Tolani said, “Number Nine is symbolic of auspicious Navratri, and we are happy to offer the ‘Power of 9‘ to our over 1.2 crore users in MP and Chhattisgarh this season. The special Rs. 9 packs have been designed keeping in mind different usage patterns of consumers and offer more value for money and convenience. We wish all our subscribers a very happy Navratri and hope our special packs add to the celebration and festivities.”

NEW DELHI: The government is working on an ordinance to speed up digitisation of the cable and satellite television industry worth Rs 200 billion, a route that is set to upset several cable TV operators in the short run while accelerating pay-TV revenues for broadcasters and curtailing their carriage costs.

The multi-system operators (MSOs) are unwilling to voice their views openly at this stage but feel that an ordinance to pass such a complex issue is not a step in the right direction.

With the next session of Parliament still about two months away and the deadline for digitisation in the four metros (31 March 2012) fast approaching, the Indian government is expected to issue an ordinance to amend the rules and ensure complete digitisation by December 2014.

Ministry sources said a draft of the ordinance is being prepared by the Ministry, which would be placed before the Cabinet shortly.

The ordinance will particularly amend Section 4A of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1995 as it currently does not have any provision for beaming free-to-air (FTA) channels through the set-top box (STB).
 
“The government should have first rolled out complete digitisation in Cas areas before gradually moving up to digital addressable system under which the FTA channels will also have to go through a STB. There will be a consumer anger. We will also have shortage of STBs,” said Digicable Network India MD and CEO Jagjit Singh Kohli.

Hathway Cable & Datacom, however, is in support of such a move. “It will be a step in the right direction. There is no need to delay digitisation,” said Hathway Cable & Datacom MD and CEO K Jayaraman.

The Ministry sources said while there may not be any reference to the FDI limit in the ordinance, there will be an enabling provision to increase the threshold.

Earlier this year, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry in its final report on the schedule issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had said the first phase covering the metros would be completed by 31 March 2012 (as against Trai‘s revised deadline of 31 December 2012).

The Ministry said Phase II covering cities with a population more than 1 million will be fully digitised by 31 March 2013 (as against the revised Trai deadline of 31 December 2012).

Phase III covering all urban areas (Municipal Corporations/Municipalities) will be digitised by 30 September 2014 (as against Trai‘s revised timescale of 31 December 2013).

Phase IV covering the rest of India will be digitised by 31 December 2014 (as against Trai‘s revised timeline of 31 December 2013).

Cable Operators Federation of India (COFI) President Roop Sharma told indiantelevision.com that three different groups have been formed, which is creating an impediment to the digitisation process.

The 18-member Task Force had been constituted to oversee and facilitate the implementation of digital addressable cable TV systems in the country.

The Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd (Becil) has entered into an agreement with Society for Broadband Professionals (SCTE) of London to receive training in digitisation. Becil will then impart the training to Indian personnel involved in the digitisation process.

Meanwhile, Den Networks shares jumped 12.25 per cent to close Monday at Rs 61.85 on the BSE. Hathway Cable & Datacom also saw 6.78 per cent growth to Rs 88.15, while Hinduja Ventures rose 1.15 per cent to close at Rs 307.25.

Shares of Dish TV, the only DTH company to be publicly traded, rose 1.11 per cent to Rs 77.55.

MUMBAI: Online video rental company Netflix has bagged the pay TV rights of Dreamworks Animation movies starting 2013.

The deal gathers significance as this is the first major Hollywood studio choosing an Internet streaming player over a traditional cable channel.
 
This multi-year licensing agreement enables Netflix members to watch DreamWorks titles in the pay TV window on multiple platforms, including television, tablet, computer, and mobile phones.

Under the agreement, titles such as “Kung Fu Panda,” “Madagascar 2,” “Chicken Run” and “Antz”, will also be made available to Netflix members over time.

Netflix would have to add more content in its streaming service to keep up with the growing competition posed by Amazon.com, Google Inc and Apple Inc. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.