Category: Software

MUMBAI: Reliance Big TV has launched its high-definition (HD) set-top box with digital video recording (DVR) technology, making it the first DTH operator in India to offer such a service.

The Reliance ADAG company has priced the HD DVR set-top box at Rs 7,490, lesser than Sun Direct HD available at Rs 10,000.

The service will be rolled out across India‘s top 100 cities.

Big TV has also launched entry offers for the south and non-south markets. For non-south markets, Big TV has bundled the STB with three months of Diamond Pack subscription for Rs 7,990.

In the southern market, the entry offer is priced at Rs 7,790 bundled with five months of value pack with a full bouquet of sports channels. 
 
For existing Big TV customers, the company is offering an upgrade option from SD to HD DVR at an exceptional price of Rs 5,990.

Big TV CEO Sanjay Behl said, “This is India‘s first product with a dual benefit of HD viewing and digital video recorder in a single STB. Further, Big TV is the only service provider to offer recording capability upwards of 200 hours and a universal remote control which can manage up to three devices.”

The company expects the top 10 per cent of its existing customers to opt for the HD DVR service. Big TV is also eyeing 10 per cent of the monthly new activations from the top 100 cities.

“The HD services are available at a higher price, so there is likelihood that more affluent and higher income households will be opting for this. We believe, out of 2.5 million subscribers of Big TV, the top 10 per cent would go for the upgradation,” Behl told Indiantelevision.com.

The launch of the HD service is also targeted towards improving Arpus (average revenue par user). Big TV is eyeing a 25-30 per cent higher Arpu from its HD service, Behl said. However, he declined to comment on the current Arpu levels.

“This launch is part of our pursuit of quality and profitable growth by blending best in technology, content experience, reach and service to bring world-class entertainment experience to our customers,” Behl said.

As a part of its HD launch, Big TV has signed a HD content deal with National Geographic to offer its HD channels in India. It will offer the HD channels complementary through entry offers to all new customers. It is in talks with CBS, ESPN, FoX News and Discovery. it plans to launch over the next two months five new HD channels and a host of HD content by forging strategic alliances. 
 
Big TV also said Wednesday it plans to launch six new interactive services during the fiscal.

The company will launch its HD DVR marketing campaign across top 100 cities as part of the launch phase. It will comprise an aggressive multimedia campaign across television, print, digital, social, retail media and BTL mediums.

The high definition feature of Big TV HD DVR offers five times clearer and sharper image quality with two million pixel resolution and digital surround sound effect, the company said. The DVR capabilities offer features like pause, play, rewind live TV and record Live TV.

The HD DVR offers up to 200 hours of recording capacity. It also offers a 3-in-1 universal remote to control the TV, STB and any other music/ disc player system.

The company currently has eight Ku-band transponders on Measat. “We are adding two transponders that will allow us bandwidth to offer more HD content and channels for the next one year. We plan to increase our overall channel capacity to over 300,” said Behl.
 

NEW DELHI: Yahoo! India hosted community events for Flickr across Delhi , Mumbai and Bangalore this month to provide an offline platform for Flickr photo and video enthusiasts based on the theme, “Hello, India !”

“Hello, India !” community events brought together nearly 200 Flickr community members in each city and helped them connect through the language of photography.
 
Flickr offers an online photo-sharing platform that is at the centre of people’s online lives. Yahoo! India already boasts of over 2.29 million Flickr users with over 12,500 groups connected with the term “ India ”. Globally, Flickr already has over 4 billion photo and video uploads and a monthly unique visitors of 85.9 million worldwide. Flickr allows users to upload, organize, edit, control, share, explore and do more.

Said Flickr International Project Manager David Fusco, “We are all photographers now documenting and sharing individual perspectives that make up a collective memoir of the world. We appreciate one another’s contributions. We learn, we share, we grow, and that is what makes Flickr so special.”

Flickr enables interaction and control amongst its community of members and allows anyone to share their authentic photos and personal video clips publicly or privately. 
 
Says Yahoo! India managing director Arun Tadanki, “Our community events in India witnessed an overwhelming response which truly testifies Flickr’s popularity. Yahoo! India already has over two million Flickr users. With Flickr, we want to help people make their photos and video available to those who matter to them. We want to enable new ways of organizing photos and video.”
 

MUMBAI: Adult entertainment company Playboy has announced that Paul H. Lee has been named managing director of its new digital ventures.

In his new position, Lee will be responsible for launching, acquiring, partnering with, and investing in new digital business opportunities.

Lee joins Playboy from the Peacock Equity Fund, a joint venture between NBC Universal and GE Capital, where he currently serves as senior vice president. He will assume his new duties on 17 May.
 
Playboy’s Print/Digital Group executive VP Scott G. Stephen says, “Paul’s investment experience and expertise with digital business development make him the perfect choice to oversee our new digital initiatives. His keen ability to build 21st century companies from inception to growth will help us further leverage the power of the brand and build new revenue streams for Playboy.”

Lee says, “The Playboy brand presents many opportunities to create additional revenue streams. By combining new digital business models and the iconic nature of the brand, Playboy can significantly expand its digital footprint and I am excited to lead this effort”. 
 
Lee was a founding member of the Peacock Equity Fund in 2007. As a deal partner, he focussed on investments in the mobile and gaming sectors. Peacock Equity’s investments include 4INFO, Adify, Bigpoint, Blogher, Greystripe, Healthline, Ramp, and Rubicon Project.

Lee serves on the board of directors in several Peacock Equity investments.
 

MUMBAI: UTV New Media, the digital arm of UTV Software Communications Ltd, has launched a voice blogging service for its film Raajneeti.

Getting the entire cast and crew to interact with their fans, this service will have movie stars upload personalised voice blogs about the film tits-bits and gossip from the sets and from their city visits and more.
 
Exploring new frontiers of promotion in the mobile space, this initiative will have director Prakash Jha along with the cast, personally blogging on the film through the IVR platform.

By dialing *5140* on Airtel mobiles, this service will allow fans to connect with their favourite stars of Raajneeti. The cast of the film will share lesser known facts, behind the scenes drama, interesting gossip and their on-location experiences all available at the push of a button.  
 
Starting 10 May, these celebrities will also record live blogs from the Raajneeti rally which is being held across seven cities.
UTV New Media has also deviced a exciting contest, across all mobile operators on voice for which fans can dial 53035 and register a vote for their own city. The city with the highest number of votes will witness a visit by the whole lot of star cast of Raajneeti, with one lucky winner getting an opportunity to meet and greet the stars. This service is available across operators.
 

MUMBAI: After three weeks of competitive bidding for the 3G spectrum and 122 rounds of bidding, the pan India price at the 3G auction reached Rs 98.2 billion – nearing thrice the floor price of Rs 35 billion.

The bid for Mumbai crossed Rs 18 billion mark with Rs 18.16 billion, ahead of Delhi‘s Rs 17.56 billion. The rest of Maharashtra clocked Rs 10.52 billion.
 
The bids for most states are expected to rise very little with the auction having come to a virtual end in service areas including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, West and East Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and the North East. 
 
The telecom operators in the race are Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Etisalat DB Telecom, Idea Cellular, Reliance, S Tel, Tata Teleservices, Videocon Telecommunications and Vodafone Essar.

The successful bidders would be allowed to start commercial 3G operations from 1 September.
 

MUMBAI: Japan International Broadcasting Inc (JIB), NHK’s channel distribution arm, has entered into an agreement with GlobeCast’s content aggregation and distribution division for consultancy services. 
 
As per the deal, GlobeCast will assist JIB in the distribution of NHK World TV (in both SD and HD), and NHK World Premium in the Asian territory.

GlobeCast will provide market intelligence to JIB for the broadcast market within the territory and provide advice on any associated regulatory matters. 
 
In addition, GlobeCast will research distribution and revenue opportunities for the channels throughout the territory, and at JIB’s request will enable connections with potential targeted DTH/Cable/IPTV carriers and hotels in the specified country.

NHK World TV is NHK’s English news and lifestyle channel while NHK World Premium is for Japanese expatriates living overseas, with most of the programming provided in Japanese.

MUMBAI: Zapak Digital Entertainment, the gaming company from the Reliance ADAG stable, has appointed Sanjay Vasudeva as head – national ad sales.
Prior to this, Vasudeva was AVP – digital sales at Times Internet. 
 
In his new role, Vasudeva will overlook the revenue generation process at Zapak and will be responsible for generating profits at national level.

Says Zapak Digital Entertainment Ltd COO Arun Mehra, “With his extensive experience in digital sales segment, Vasudeva will now lead the team to deliver profitable revenue growth at national level. He is energetic, and has motivated large teams in the past towards excellence.”  
 
Vasudeva added, “I am delighted to take on the role of national sales head for Zapak. Gaming is an exciting new segment in the digital space which is yet to be tapped to its potential. Zapak’s positioning, market leadership and enthusiasm makes it a very exciting place for me to be in.”

Vasudeva13 years of dedicated experience in media and digital space. Prior to Times Internet, he was with Navbharat, ABP, GE, Apollo Tyres and Parle.

NEW DELHI: Doordarshan has begun a major exercise in educating the multi-system operators and cable operators about high definition television which will be introduced in the country along with the Commonwealth Games in October this year.

Doordarshan director-general Aruna Sharma told indiantelevision.com that she had met representatives of multi-system operators (MSOs) and cable operators in Mumbai and Delhi to answer any queries about HDTV.

This will be the first time in Commonwealth Games history that the event is being broadcast in High Definition digital, also marking a critical milestone for Indian television.
  
Sharma said that introduction of HDTV will not necessarily mean buying new television sets. The plasma screen TV sets are already geared for HDTV. For the other TV sets, it may be necessary to replace the set top box.

Doordarshan is establishing two HDTV studios in Delhi and Mumbai, and field production and post production facilities in four metros. The HDTV uplink will be set up at Delhi and HDTV terrestrial transmitters will be installed in four metros.

The XIX Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010 will be held from 3 to 14 October. The competition will feature 17 sports, with around 8,500 athletes and officials from 71 Commonwealth Games Federation member countries expected to attend.

Sharma denied that Doordarshan had sought any increase over the budget allocated for the games – Rs 3.66 billion. However, she said this figure is for coverage of the games and does not include expenditure being incurred by Doordarshan as rights holder broadcaster.

Sharma said the pact with Satellite Information Services Live was working according to plan. The agreement with SIS was for a contract price of Rs 2.46 billion.

Under the terms of the agreement, SIS LIVE will provide all the production facilities and personnel to cover 17 different sports across 12 venues in Delhi, as well as the Games’ opening and closing ceremonies.

Sharma said Doordarshan is deputing 50 personnel for covering three events – wrestling (for which a new stadium is being built next to Nehru Stadium), boxing and weight-lifting. Other events will be covered by the SIS teams.

Apart from providing the technical infrastructure to cover the Games, SIS LIVE is providing over 1,000 highly skilled technical and production staff at the 12 venues.

Australia ’s Global Television with its Indian partner Shaf Broadcast are designing, installing and will operate the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) for the Games.

The IBC is the hub for all Commonwealth Games broadcasting activity, handling incoming television pictures and sound from the host broadcaster, distributing that footage to international rights holders and managing rights holders’ outgoing transmissions. 
 
The Delhi Commonwealth Games IBC will house studio and reporting facilities for broadcasters and journalists from around the world. Occupying 8,000 square meters, up to 1,500 broadcast professionals will be based at the IBC.

Sharma said the Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited (BESIL) had been contracted as a delivery partner on a turn-key basis for setting up the Main Press Centre at Pragati Maidan. An expenditure of Rs 317.5 million is to be incurred on this work, which includes carrying out media operations at the Main Press Centre and the venue Media Centres for the Games. BESIL is expected to complete its work by 30 September.

Doordarshan earlier this month received clearance of Rs 6.20 billion for digitalisation of 40 transmitters and studios in the Doordarshan network during the 11th Plan. This includes networking of DTT through satellite, augmentation of DMCs by providing equipment and facilities for maintaining the digital infrastructure, providing five sets of digital measurement equipment at zonal offices, providing 60 UPS at High Power Transmitters to ensure uninterrupted power supply, R&D and Training, digitalisation of 31 partially digitalised and 8 analogue studio centers, digitalisation of archiving facilities, and digitalisation of news automation system and e-governance and IT Scheme.

Earlier, Doordarshan had set aside an amount of Rs 12.09 billion of a total approved outlay of Rs. 13.69 billion just for digitization in the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-2012).
 

MUMBAI: Zapak Digital Entertainment has launched Zapak Social Connect in a bid to offer social media solutions to brands.
 
Zapak Social Connect‘s offering includes social and casual games, applications and contests in social networks, stand alone applications in portals which leverage social connect, Online Reputation Management (ORM) and buzz marketing for brands and product launches. 
 
“To further scale this up, we‘ve setup an eight member strong dedicated team, of social media professionals with immense experience in the social media marketing arena to cater to our advertisers,” says Zapak Digital Entertainment COO Arun Mehra.

MUMBAI: ESPN Star Sports and Digicable Network (India) have sorted out their commercial disputes, ending a four-month blackout of the three sports channels on the pan-India cable network ahead of the T20 World Cup that kicks off today.
 
The channels – ESPN, Star Sports and Star Cricket – were off Digicable‘s network due to billing, payment and a host of other issues.

“We had some commercial disputes with ESS and had shut out the channels across all our cable TV networks. But we have resolved them amicably and the channels are back again,” Digicable joint MD Yogesh Shah told Indiantelevision.com. 
 
ESS has some hot properties during the course of the year including the T20 World Cup, soccer World Cup, Champions League and ICC World Cup.