Category: Software

MUMBAI: HBO has launched a new True Blood Twitter microsite that will provide an enhanced second-screen experience for fans of the show.

The microsite uses Twitter to connect True Blood fans to live conversations, while watching new episodes of season 3 every Sunday.

Fans visiting www.bloodcopy.com will find a True Blood-centric destination where they can share favourite moments, view popular topics, win prizes and more.
 
Bloodcopy.com will feature weekly ‘hosts‘ that will live Tweet during each episode on Sunday nights, initiating conversations, interacting with fans and facilitating giveaways. During this Sunday‘s premiere, the HBO official True Blood Twitter profile (@TrueBloodHBO) will be the site‘s first host. In celebration of the first episode, fans will have the chance to win Ultimate Truebie prize packs and unlock virtual badges.

Through a first-to-market partnership with social discovery engine Tunerfish.com, fans will also have the opportunity to earn Truebie‘ and ‘Maker‘ badges by Tweeting while they watch and influence their friends to do the same. Surprise hosts for future episodes will be announced over the next few weeks.
 
Other features of the microsite include a customised Trending Topics (Blood Topics) of the most popular keywords in True Blood Tweets; the ability to sort, search and categorize the True Blood conversation; full Twitter functionality including sign-in and URL shortener directly from the site; and a spoiler alert pop-up screen warning visitors that crucial elements of the show may be revealed.

The microsite was built using Twitter‘s @anywhere technology and will soon be available on additional platforms. The site was designed and developed by Red Interactive Agency.
 

MUMBAI: Freedocast, a live interactive broadcasting platform by Global Takeoff, has tied up with maastars.com (Movie Artist Association), Tollywood‘s (Telugu Film Industry) site. It will be the Official Technology Partner for live broadcast of T20 Tollywood Trophy 2010 on maastars.com.

Freedocast will provide an interactive platform for Telugu movie fans to watch and interact with other fans across the world. The T20 Tollywood Trophy 2010 is a 20-over cricket match to be played between four teams of Tollywood film stars on 13 June in Hyderabad.
 
Telugu communities across the world can watch the match live on maastars.com. The viewers can also chat with each other while watching the match. Live interviews of celebrities will be shown during the match. Also viewers can share short videos with maastars.com to cheer the teams.

Global Takeoff CEO and founder Udaynandan Reddy says, “We are glad to be the Official Technology Partner for broadcast of T20 Tollywood Trophy 2010. We created Freedocast platform with a vision to simplify broadcasting methods by making it more convenient and cost effective. This would be a highly interactive online broadcast where viewers across the globe can watch the match and also interact with each other.”

Movie Artistes Association president Murli Mohan says, “The main motive of having this Tollywood stalwarts cricket fight is to have an own building for Movie Artistes Association and to help the poor upcoming artists to meet their financial needs. We will broadcast the match on maastars.com with the help of Freedocast Platform where Telugu communities across the world can enjoy the match and interact with each other”.

Freedocast had aired the Dress Launch of the four teams on 6 June on maastars.com. The main game is expected to attract more than half a million viewers on maastars.com.
 

MUMBAI: An increasing number of TV viewers will be switching on to High Definition (HD) TV for the Fifa World Cup, with sales figures from cable and satellite providers booming.

And for the first time, 50 per cent of UK households will be able to watch the tournament in HD through a standard roof-top aerial, thanks to the early roll-out of HD on Freeview.
 
It has been 40 years since the last major development in World Cup viewing technology, when in 1970, the Mexico World Cup was broadcast in colour for the first time. Back then England were knocked out by West Germany in the quarter finals. This year, fans will be hoping for a better result from HD, notes UK media watchdog Ofcom.

HD sales figures: Up to five times more detailed than standard definition TV, every flick of the ball, every blade of grass, and every bead of sweat will be more visible than ever before in HD, notes Ofcom. South Africa 2010 is the first time that HD will be available during a World Cup to a mass market.

New Ofcom research reveals that sales of HD ready TVs topped 24 million by the end of March 2010. HD sales figures from cable and satellite providers in the lead up to the World Cup have also been strong.

Sky added 428,000 extra subscribers to its HD service in the first three months of 2010, the second highest quarterly additions to date, following 482,000 in Q4 2009. Total HD subscriptions are now over 2.5 million. Virgin’s V+ HD service added 77,900 subscribers to reach 939,900 by the end of March 2010. 
 
High Definition receivers have accounted for around 80 per cent of BBC/ITV Freesat sales so far, equivalent to more than 800,000 cumulative sales by March 2010

As recently as two years ago some industry experts said it was impossible to ever get HD on digital terrestrial TV (Freeview), without using more radio airwaves – technically known as spectrum.

There are three steps to HD on Freeview

1. Increased compression: The latest compression standard, called MPEG-4 has been used, which is up to twice as efficient as the current MPEG-2 standard. This is a technology that minimizes the data capacity required to transmit video and audio services that are broadcast digitally.

2. Transmission : A new European transmission standard, called DVB-T2, has increased capacity by at least 30 per cent and is now expected to achieve a nearly 50 per cent increase in capacity.

3. Reorganising existing TV services: Terrestrial television is broadcast on six multiplexes. These are distinct blocks of transmission capacity which carry television channels. Directed by Government, Ofcom cleared one of the three multiplexes used for public service broadcasting and moved existing services onto the remaining multiplexes – like a very complicated game of Tetris.

This is a finite natural resource, in high demand. And HD is spectrum hungry, demanding roughly four times as much as standard definition. This meant there was not enough bandwidth available to broadcast HD on digital terrestrial TV (DTT).

Against all the odds, Ofcom’s Spectrum Policy Group worked on a complex plan to create the extra room needed for HD on DTT.

Greg Bensberg, who led the team, said, “Two years ago, the promise of HD on Freeview hung in the balance. HD demanded large amounts of additional spectrum – but there was none to be had.

‘Fortunately we identified a way of achieving what many thought was impossible – by reorganising existing TV services and introducing two new technologies – MPEG-4 and DVB-T2. This created enough capacity for five HD channels on Freeview.”

How to get HD : There are several ways for UK soccer fans to get HD in time for the World Cup. But first of all you’ll need a TV that can show HD pictures. Television sets with the ‘HD Ready’ logo have a screen that can display sharper pictures.

Freeview: To watch HD channels on Freeview a consumer will first need to check whether Freeview HD is available where he/she lives. One can check your address by visiting the Freeview website. Ofcom adds that one will also need a Freeview HD set top box, or an integrated Freeview HD TV.

Freesat: One can also watch free HD programmes via the BBC/ITV and Sky Freesat services.

Pay TV: Paid for HD services are also available from Sky and Virgin Media, through Satellite or cable. However, you will need to subscribe to their HD packages, which involves getting a HD set-top-box.

Who can get HD on Freeview: Freeview HD is being rolled out in line with the existing digital switchover schedule and will eventually be available to 98.5 per cent of UK households by the end of 2012. Around seven per cent of the UK population who switched to digital signals prior to December 2009 will receive the service in a retrofitting programme due to be completed in the coming months.

Today, over 50 per cent or the UK can receive HD broadcasts including Manchester, London, Newcastle, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, and the majority of Wales.

What HD channels are available? Currently there are four HD channels available on Freeview. These include BBC HD, ITV HD, Channel 4 HD and S4C Clirlun. The BBC will also be launching BBC 1 HD later this year. There are already a number of additional HD channels available on Sky and Virgin Media.
 

MUMBAI: Deep Silver, the games label of Koch Media, has announced an agreement with FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME) to produce a multi-territory console game based on the talent show The X Factor.

With versions for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Wii and PlayStation 3, the game will be available from Q4 2010 in multiple languages in numerous European territories where the show is made including the UK, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
 
The game will look to capture the excitement and entertainment of the TV show and will include auditions, boot camp and judges’ houses levels as well as several game modes from individual career to duets and battles so family and friends can all enjoy together.

Deep Silver International Marketing Director Georg Larch says, “To be able to work with a phenomenal brand such as The X Factor is an incredible opportunity. The X Factor is a truly global brand which is instantly recognisable to thousands of gamers and TV fans around the world. With the developer, Hydravision Entertainment, Deep Silver will be creating a game that is a true adaptation of the show from the hilarity of the auditions to the excitement of the live show; we will be testing the singing skills of the player and will feature the sharp critique of the judges.” 
 
FME executive VP licensing Europe, Middle East and Africa Mark Newton says, “The X Factor has proven a massive global success with local versions being produced now in more than 20 countries including France, Belgium, Denmark and more, and through FME’s global network we can take advantage of market opportunities and give fans even more ways to engage with the brand on different platforms. We needed partners with the same multi-territory approach and commitment to quality, so Hydravision and Deep Silver were a natural choice.”

The first series of The X Factor, coproduced by FremantleMedia company talkbackThames and Simon Cowell’s Syco TV, began in September 2004 in the UK.

A panel of expert judges from the music industry preside over initial auditions, with audience votes coming into play during the later live shows featuring the selected contestants in four distinct categories, one assigned to each of the four judges (14-24 year old boys, 14-24 year old girls, over 25s and groups).

The X Factor is open to all ages, styles, solo acts or groups. And the performers aren’t the only ones competing – it’s judge versus judge, artist versus artist. The format has been sold in over 20 countries.

MUMBAI: Internet cloud security vendor iSheriff has warned that the FIFA World Cup will not only affect worker productivity, but may also disrupt critical Web-based business resources through excessive bandwidth consumption on sites such as YouTube.

The Fifa World Cup is expected to draw a global audience of almost five billion fans. 
 
It probably won’t come as a shock to some employers that workers might be calling in sick the morning after their team has played. Most businesses accept that these kinds of events will distract their staff and reduce productivity at some point. What many companies don’t realize is how events like this can hijack their network bandwidth and disrupt legitimate business functions.

iSheriff CEO Oscar Marquez says, “Fans accessing streaming media and live coverage at work can prevent productive employees accessing online tools such as Salesforce.com or add major delays to file downloads”.

iSheriff says that YouTube often accounts for more than 75 per cent of normal business bandwidth consumption in typical organizations, with that use set to skyrocket during the World Cup. The company suggests that while total bans on social networking and streaming media can be heavy-handed, there are a range of steps that companies can take to manage bandwidth use and mitigate disruption to their business and productivity.

For companies that want to preserve their bandwidth, but don’t want to cut off World Cup news and coverage completely, iSheriff suggests providing dedicated World Cup computers in the staff room or cafeteria alongside television coverage.  
 
“If you establish central World Cup access in your staff common room or cafeteria, you encourage more efficient use of bandwidth while helping workers keep in touch with their teams in a more appropriate way,” adds Marquez.

iSheriff says that its Web Security Service can control access to sites such as YouTube by workstation or user, enabling organizations to lock down work computers during the Cup while allowing free access to sports sites and streaming media from nominated computers.

“However organisation’s choose to manage worker productivity during the World Cup, the key is communication. Keep workers informed of their responsibilities and the organisation’s expectations of appropriate Internet use during the cup and hopefully everyone can enjoy the occasion productively,” said Marquez.

MUMBAI: Dish TV will have one wholly owned subsidiary less as it transfers the non-DTH related businesses into Integrated Subscriber Management Services Ltd (ISMSL).

Agrani Satellite Services Ltd (ASSL), which owns a licence to own, operate and launch a satellite, will merge with ISMSL, a company that deals with data management services.

The merger of one subsidiary with the other was approved by the Dish TV board today.
 
Agrani had made an investment of Rs 940 million in the last fiscal but has gone slow on its plans to launch a satellite. As reported earlier, the company shelved its earlier plans of acquiring stake in ProtoStar and investing $64 million. 
 
Dish TV believes the restructuring plan will lead to “sustainable improvements” in financial performance and provide a sound starting point for a more efficient and customer-oriented business in the future.

The restructuring of the subsidiary companies will allow Dish TV to deal decisively with its cost to effectively restructure its operations and to narrow its strategic focus on its DTH business in an effective and timely manner.

“These actions are imperative so that the company can build on its core strengths and become the highly focused and financially sound leader in the fiercely competitive DTH industry,” Dish TV said.

Shares of Dish fell by 2.01 per cent on Friday to close at Rs 41.45 on the BSE.

MUMBAI: DTH service provider Videocon d2h has launched a one-month ‘Golden Goal‘ offer during the Fifa World Cup commencing today.
 
New customers, purchasing Videocon d2h Satellite Box or Satellite DVD during the offer period, will get Gold Sports Pack free for four months.

The Gold Sports Pack offers the maximum number of sports channels including ESPN and Star Sports and will make the football viewing experience special for customers during the World Cup, the company said. 
 
Videocon d2h is targeting one million subscribers by June-end.

Said Bharat Business Channel Ltd (Videocon d2h) CEO Anil Khera, “DTH has revolutionised the TV viewing experience in India by spearheading the introduction of innovative services. We at Videocon d2h constantly evaluate and update our features while also making available various promotions & offers. Our viewers are of utmost importance to us and to add spice to the biggest Football Extravaganza, we have launched a Golden Goal Offer that would be beneficial to our consumers.”

NEW DELHI: With the government concluding the auction for bandwidth access (BWA) today, the total revenue to the exchequer is expected to be over Rs 385 billion.

The pan-India figure at the end of 117 rounds was at Rs 128.48 billion but this figure will double as the government has approved two contenders at each service centre. The base price for BWA had been fixed at Rs 17.5 billion.
 
The total revenue has been worked out at over Rs 385 billion as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, which have already been issued licences for BWA services, will also have to match the winner‘s price.
However, the Ministry said the auction results are provisional and subject to approval by the Government. Frequencies in MHz were also allocated to the successful bidders.

While Infotel Broadband Services Private Limited won a bid in all the 22 service centres, Aircel won the bid in eight centres; Tikona Digital Networks Private Limited in five centres; Bharti Airtel and Qualcomm Incorporated in four centres each; and Augere (Mauritius) Limited at one centre. 
 
Reliance WiMax Limited, Spice Internet Service Provider Private Limited, Tata Communications Internet Services Limited, and Vodafone Essar Limited opted out of the auction.

Mumbai had the highest bid of Rs 22.93 billion while Delhi took the second spot at Rs 22.41 billion, both being from Infotel and Qualcomm. The frequencies allocated are in the range of 2305.0 – 2325.0, and 2327.5 – 2347.5 MHz.

Tamil Nadu came next with Rs.20.69 billion, followed by Karnataka at Rs 15.43 billion and Andhra Pradesh at Rs 10.59 billion. The North-East and Jammu and Kashmir had the lowest bid at Rs 212.7 million each.

However the revenue from BWA auction may not start flowing in immediately as the network infrastructure is not in place.

Global investment bank Rothschild and telecom auction services provider DotEcon advised the government on the auctions.

NEW DELHI: The Pan-India total at the Bandwidth Access (BWA) auction today rose to about Rs 127.75 billion, even as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India expressed concern that broadband penetration in India was just 0.74 per cent confined to the main cities though 70 per cent of Indian population lives in rural areas.

After 116 rounds on the 15th day, the bids for Mumbai and Delhi remained at the top with Rs 22.73 million and Rs 22.21 billion respectively.

Tamil Nadu closed at Rs 20.49 billion, while Karnataka was at Rs 15.43 billion, Andhra Pradesh at Rs 10.59 billion, and Gujarat at Rs 6.08 billion.
 
 
While Kerala was at Rs 2.59 million, West Uttar Pradesh was at Rs 1.78 billion, East Uttar Pradesh at Rs 1.41 billion, Madhya Pradesh at Rs 1.23 billion, and at Rs 1.19 billion.

Rajasthan closed at Rs 963.6 million, West Bengal clocked Rs 709.7 million, Assam Rs 327 million, the North-East and Jammu and Kashmir Rs 210.6 million each, and Himachal Pradesh Rs 206.6 million.
  
 
The bids for five service centres remained unchanged: the rest of Maharashtra at Rs 9.16 billion; Kolkata at Rs 5.23 billion; Punjab at Rs 3.32 billion; Bihar at Rs 983 million, and Orissa at Rs 630 million.

The rest of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Kolkata, Punjab, West Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa are unlikely to see any increase with no applications for price increment for tomorrow’s rounds.

Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and North-East are expected to see minimal increase with bids of just over Rs two million each.

The telecom operators in the race are Aircel, Augere (Mauritius) Limited, Bharti Airtel, Infotel Broadband Services Private Limited, Qualcomm Incorporated, Reliance WiMax Limited, Spice Internet Service, Provider Private Limited, Tata Communications Internet Services Limited, Tikona Digital Networks Private Limited and Vodafone Essar Limited.

The successful bidders would be allowed to start commercial operations from 1 September.
 

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today issued a consultation paper on ‘National Broadband Plan‘ to figure out how to increase broadband penetration in the country.

Trai has noted that it is a matter of concern that broadband penetration in India is low in spite of the fact that 104 telecom service providers are providing broadband services. The broadband penetration is just 0.74 per cent when compared with teledensity of 52.74 per cent.

A need is being felt to identify impediments and create an environment to encourage broadband growth.The net broadband addition per month is just 0.1 to 0.2 million in contrast to approximately 18 million mobile connections per month, Trai said.
 
Availability of broadband services at affordable tariff will provide access to enormous information, facilitate delivery of civic services, increase GDP contributions, generate more employment and enhance productivity.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) had made a reference to Trai seeking its recommendations on the need to review the definition of Broadband connectivity in view of future growth in internet/broadband driven by wireless technologies.

No of fixed line and Broadband Connection in Metros
Name of Metro	No. of fixed lines	No. of Broadband connections	Broadband as a Percentage of fixed line connections
Delhi	2,710,835	785,564	28.97%
Mumbai	2,945,525	467,692	15.87%
Chennai*	1,420,342	366,539	25.80%
Kolkata*	1,463,442	248,510	16.98%

Though 70 per cent of Indian population lives in rural areas, broadband facility is limited to metro and major cities. Availability of broadband is critical for development of rural areas. Out of total 9 million broadband subscribers at the end of April 2010, just 5 per cent are in rural areas. The low broadband penetration in rural areas is attributed to non availability of transmission media connectivity upto village level.

The situation demands an urgent focus on creation of robust national infrastructure scalable to cater to future requirements not only in urban areas but also upto villages. For making all villages broadband enabled, an option being explored is taking optical fibre to 375,552 villages having population of 500 or more.

Such a network would require laying of about 12 billion kilometres of optical fibre at a cost of about Rs 323 billion.

Funding of such project could be considered from Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) for non-skilled work and from Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF) for material and equipment cost. This optical fibre network would integrate with backbones of various service providers and users would be able to get broadband with a variety of wired and wireless solutions.

Some of the questions raised are: What should be done to increase broadband demand and improve the perceived utility of broadband among the masses; what measures should be taken to enhance the availability of useful applications for broadband; How can broadband be made more consumer friendly especially to those having limited knowledge of English and computer; is the existing telecom infrastructure is inadequate to support broadband demand; the network topology perceived to support high speed broadband using evolving wireless technologies; is there a prominent role for fibre based technologies in access network in providing high speed broadband in next five years; and changes needed in existing licensing and regulatory framework to encourage cable TV operators to upgrade their networks to provide broadband.

Trai has asked stakeholders to send their comments on the consultation paper by 7 July.