Category: Software

NEW DELHI: Software producers feel that the government must step in to help the animation industry with incentives so that India can become the hub of animation and gaming.

Taking part in the concluding session on ‘VFX, Animation and Gaming: Challenges and Opportunities’ at FOCUS 2009, the third Global Summit on Entertainment and Media organized by Assocham, the producers also felt that gaming and animation need not always be blood and gore and can be productive with even educational programmes and games.
 
Entertainment Devices – Microsoft Regional Director Jaspreet Bindra demonstrated the X Box to show that this could be used not only for gaming but also other work.

Bindra said gaming accounted for $40 billion globally but did not have the necessary infrastructure in India to develop. He wanted the government to help create a conducive eco-system, consumers, capital, and hardware. He complained that the 30 to 33 per cent customs duty on hardware was too high.

Executive Vice President of Yes Bank Karan Ahluwalia said it was unfortunate that the size of the visual effects industry was still not clear, and could be anything between Rs 2-10 billion. In the United States, it was $10 billion.

Ahluwalia said the failure to market effectively was a major problem despite limitless potential. Government support was lacking and the service tax was too high without any subsidies. He also felt that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) was not geared to regulate content for this industry.

He said the country had a huge talent pool and the cost was very low – just around $20 for every hour of animation as compared to $120 in the US.

Toonz Animation chief creative officer Hari Varma said the industry had grown so fast that technology and demand had failed to keep pace with it as no one was prepared to provide content. There was also a shortage of training institutions, with the result that many entrepreneurs jumped in the fray without knowledge of the industry.

Animation is human oriented work and can help the government in educational programmes.

He said that Toonz had created one of India’s earliest animation series, ‘Tenali Rama’ but it had not realized even 15 per cent of the costs involved. Channels did not pay easily for local content. 
 
Dhruva Interactive CEO K Rajesh Rao said parents must understand that games and animation did not always mean blood and gore. He agreed that this can be used effectively for education, but said pricing had to be low. There was also need for more Indian content. The government must come up with support.

Blueriver Capital MD Muneesh Chawla said the animation industry had to mature and so any investments at present could only be speculative. He felt the future was positive but investors must realize that the capital will not flow back instantly.

The gaming industry had a more positive future as it had been found in surveys that all age groups enjoyed this.

Pixion COO Sanjay Yashroy said there is ample material available within the country to tap for content, and one did not have to borrow from the west.

Both Sanjay and Varma said they had set up institutions for training personnel in animation and gaming.

MUMBAI: UK consumers continue to embrace their digital communications and are generally paying less for them than they did 12 months ago, a Ofcom research reveals.

The UK media watchdog‘s International Communications Market data provides a snapshot of the ?548 billion communications market in 12 major economies. 
 
It looks at take-up, availability, pricing and use of broadband, landlines and mobiles, TV and radio in these and the four fast growing economies of Brazil, India, Russia and China.

The report found that not only does the UK have the highest proportion of digital TV homes (88 per cent), but last year the UK texted more than any other country except the USA.
 
UK consumers also make the third-highest volume of landline calls in the world and enjoy the lowest mobile and broadband prices. The amount of time we spend watching TV increased by more than three per cent last year – the biggest increase across all the countries surveyed – to 3.8 hours a day.
But viewers in UK watch slightly less than those in Italy, Poland and Spain – as well as the US that tops the TV viewing table on 4.6 hours a day.
 

MUMBAI: Zimbabwe will soon have its second television station that will broadcast under the state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation‘s (ZBC‘s) stable.

The development comes at a time when private media players have been waiting for the newly set up Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) to call for radio and television licence applications in accordance with the Global Political Agreement (GPA) that brought about Zimbabwe‘s new unity government.
 
The news also comes at a time when Zanu PF is decrying and de-campaigning exiled radio stations that are challenging ZBC‘s monopoly. 
 
ZBC, the country‘s sole broadcaster, has been accused of being a mouthpiece for President Robert Mugabe‘s Zanu PF party. Prime Minister Tsvangirai‘s MDC says ZBC TV continues to make broadcasts biased against his party, now in government, in violation of the GPA, which says it must provide balanced and fair coverage to all political parties.

MUMBAI: Amit Nag is joining as chief executive officer of Digi-CableComm Services.

Nag has resigned as CEO of Indian Cable Net and will be pulling his team along with him. 
 
“Nag is joining us as CEO. His core team, including sales, marketing, technical, operations and accounts, will also be joining us,” Digi – Cablecomm Services chairman Dileep Singh Mehta tells Indiantelevision.com. 
 
In June 2008, Digicable Network (India) had acquired a majority stake in Kolkata-based CableComm. The deal ensured Digicable’s expansion in the eastern region only through CableComm.

MUMBAI:The government has amended the downlinking guidelines, paving the way for Headend-In-The-Sky (HITS) service providers to access content from broadcasters.
 
The Information and Broadcasting Ministry said Thursday satellite TV channel signal reception decoders can be provided to HITS and IPTV operators. Earlier, the downlinking guidelines provided for broadcast content only to registered MSOs/cable operators and DTH service providers.

The I&B in a statement said that after the approval, the clause 5.6 of the downlinking guidelines now provides “the applicant company shall provide satellite TV channel signal reception decoders only to MSOs/cable operators registered under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1995 or to a DTH operator registered under the DTH guidelines issued by Government of India or to an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service provider duly permitted under their existing telecom license or authorized by Department of Telecommunications or to a HITS operator duly permitted under the policy guidelines for HITS operators issued by Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India to provide such service.” 
 
Last month, the government had cleared the HITS policy, allowing the use of ‘C‘ and ‘Ku-band‘ in a technology that would help boost digitisation of cable TV services across the country.

Government also allowed 74 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) for HITS service providers, higher than the 49 per cent cap for cable TV operators.

MUMBAI: Struggling to reach a deal for World Cup 2010 rights, Singaporean platforms StarHub and SingTel have issued a statement saying that the asking price to broadcast next year‘s event has “escalated substantially”.
 
The rival platforms have put together a joint bid in order to “provide FIFA with an increase in value from four years ago for the rights to the 2010 FIFA World Cup while ensuring that it would remain affordable to the broadest number of our customers,” the statement added.  
 
The platforms said that the price they offered to FIFA “would sacrifice all World Cup margins for both SingTel and StarHub while keeping the price affordable for consumers.”

A deal, however, is yet to be reached.

BANGALORE: Tata Photon Plus, the mobile broadband service of Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL), has entered into a strategic marketing alliance with James Cameron‘s adventure epic Avatar by which users of Tata Photon+ will get a chance to win ‘Avatar‘ merchandise on purchase of Tata Photon+ that would be sold in special ‘Avatar‘ packaging.

Said TTSL vice president marketing communication Trivikram Thakore, “Avatar is a blend of live-action and new virtual photorealistic production techniques. ‘Avatar‘ and Tata Photon Plus signify the excellence in technology and innovation and will take the experience to a different level.”
 
In India, Fox Star Studios has planned to release the film on a grand scale informs Fox Star Studios India Head Marketing Distribution & Syndication Vivek Krishnani, “Avatar is the biggest cinematic event of the decade and there is an incredible buzz around the film in India and we are going all out to give it the best possible release.  
 
“The film delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind and is sure to enthrall audiences. Both brands drive synergies in technological innovation and we felt this is a perfect platform to have Tata Photon Plus associate with us and support the launch of Avatar we are thrilled with the support this association brings to widen the reach of the film to a pan Indian audience.”

This is the first time that Tata Photon+ is being associated with a big ticket Hollywood project.

MUMBAI: America’s largest cable operator Comcast has launched its new streaming service, Fancast Xfinity TV. With this, its customers can now watch thousands of television episodes online.

The new service is a major step toward what the company calls “anytime, anywhere media.”

With a growing number of people bypassing their cable subscriptions and watching movies and television online, Comcast and other operators have set up streaming video sites.
 
Comcast is the first major cable operator to introduce its streaming site. Initially, the service will be available to customers who pay Comcast for both broadband Internet and digital cable.

Comcast customers will log in to the Xfinity service via Comcast.net or Fancast.com and will have to install a programme before using the service for the first time. The sites rely on an authentication system to block non-subscribers. 
 
Because Xfinity is available only to Comcast cable subscribers, the service will include premium shows that aren’t on Hulu. Comcast’s partners in the service include cable channels A&E, AMC, Discovery Channel, History, TLC and TNT that have been generally reluctant to place their shows online for fear of cannibalizing their traditional audience.

Comcast has been testing the service since last summer.

MUMBAI: Haryana cable operators and cable operators all over the country must be heaving a sigh of relief.

The Chandigarh High Court today granted a stay on a proposal by the Haryana government to auction cable TV in the state.

A consortium of cable operators had taken the Haryana government to court seeking redressal following a notice issued by it calling for applicants for auction of cable TV licences for three years in the state.
 
Says Cable Operators Federation of India president Roop Sharma (who lobbied with the government on behalf of the consortium),”The notice was sent out by the Haryana government in August and we got to know of it only in November and since then we have been representing to MIB minister Ambika Soni, Haryana CM Bhupinder Hooda, Navin Jindal and urban minister Shailaja. A cable operator in Hansi (a small town in Haryana) was sent an order to take down his cables – which was signaling that the government was meaning business. With this letter in hand we pleaded with the court , and the court granted a stay.”

Sharma says that close to 1000 independent cable operators have built the cable TV infrastructure in the state over the past two decades and leaving them out of the auctioning process would have been killing for more than 200,000 people employed in the cable TV trade in Haryana. Additionally, cable TV is a central subject and no state has the right to auction licences unless it is mandated by the central government to do so. 
 
For those in cable TV trade, it is a victory for the sector. For other players who have been waiting for some order to come into cable TV it is a blow. “If auctioning of cable TV is a central subject, it’s about time the government in New Delhi draws up a plan to license nationally,” says a private equity fund manager. “Hundreds of millions of dollars will flow into cable TV if the central government regularizes this sector.”

MUMBAI: NDTV Convergence has announced the launch of its Hindi WAP portal, m.ndtvkhabar.com. The portal has been developed by Los Angeles-based July Systems, which has also developed NDTV Active, the English WAP property of the company.

The portal brings on news from the world of politics, sports, business and entertainment, as well as photo galleries and features. It draws the content from NDTV’s Hindi web portal, and NDTV India, the Hindi news channel. 
 
The company claims that the new portal will enable users to interact with the NDTV brand and stay in touch with the latest news, information and favourite shows anytime and anywhere.

Says NDTV Networks CEO Vikram Chandra, “We are keen to extend the reach of the triple-screen play to a wider audience. With the ever increasing penetration of GPRS services, including in lower-end handsets and with highly competitive tariffs, mobile VAS cannot be limited to the English-speaking audience any more. And with 3G services all set to storm the Indian telecom sector, for us, the innovations are only just beginning.”  
 
The launch comes close on the heels of the recent revamp of NDTV Active.

July Systems CEO Rajesh Reddy adds, “July Systems and NDTV continue their partnership of innovation in the mobile internet space as we launch NDTV Khabar in Hindi.”

NDTV Convergence said that it will continue to enhance m.ndvkhabar.com, and the immediate plans include rich video offerings, Hindi fiction and user interactivity in the form of polls and contests.