Category: Software

MUMBAI: While distribution channels are similar for product brands and media brands, a product price notion for television content needs to be built. This is especially important as conditional access takes hold in the metros.

Tam‘s Pradeep Hejmadi made this point while speaking at Nielsen‘s annual client conference. He noted that a lot of ground has to be covered to enable consumers to understand what the Cas implementation is about.

A Tam study done earlier this year showed that people in Delhi and Mumbai felt that Cas was mandated for their entire cities.

“In a changing media environment, subscription revenues need to be pushed seriously. The consumer needs to understand what it is he is paying for. Also, the number of channels that account for 80 per cent of the viewership has grown astronomically over the last four years. Now there are 307 channels on DTH and cable versus 148 channels in 2002.

“Broadcasters have to do a balancing act. This is to maintain loyalty while hooking new entrants. They also have the challenge of the higher SEC homes exploring the content frontiers. 65,168 spots air daily on these channels. How does one balance commerical time and programme time in this environment? One key is to identify non standard advertising which is what cricket has done. Also brands need to monitor programme integration options.”

MUMBAI: Matthew Postgate has been appointed as BBC‘s controller of mobile.

In his new role, he has specific responsibility for coordinating the corporation‘s public service presence across mobile platforms.

BBC Future Media and Technology director Ashley Highfield says, ” Mobile is an increasingly important area for us and a key part of our multi-platform strategy. Matthew brings a wealth of knowledge to the role and will drive the BBC‘s continued success in this field.”

Before joining the BBC in 2003 as an executive producer, Matthew worked as an emerging channel strategist with many blue chip organisations through digital consultancy Rufus Leonard including the Royal Mail Group, Shell, QinetiQ and BT.

MUMBAI: Nvidia corporation today announced that Stage 3 Media, creators of the new online science-fiction series Sanctuary, has integrated Quadro professional graphics solutions and Quadro FX 5600 graphics into its production pipeline.

With professional Quadro solutions, Stage 3 hopes to create, render and deliver compelling CG characters and visual effects on extremely tight production deadlines.

VFX Supervisor for Stage 3 Media, Ron Martin, said, “Sanctuary ushers in an exciting new era for online entertainment. By using Nvidia Quadro solutions throughout our creative process, we are able to rapidly generate exceptional quality CG content for the series at an unprecedented pace. We‘ve enhanced our productivity, allowing us to deliver an online entertainment experience unlike any other.”

NEW DELHI: The Government says it is opposed to fixing the prices of the channels for direct-to-home television but is hopeful that market forces would bring down the prices with an increase in the number of service providers.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi said in Parliament yesterday that “regulation of pricing for DTH services is likely to be interpreted to mean that the new entrant DTH operators are asymmetrically regulated against the incumbent mode of delivery which has dominant market share”.

He said in reply to another question that the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) had stated in an order on 31 March that price fixation for DTH should be done by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) as soon as possible and reiterated that till then, its order of June last year that the broadcaster will charge the DTH operator 50 per cent of its listed price for cable platform should be continued. The question of whether a distributor could pick and choose what he wanted to beam should be decided on a case-to-case basis, TDSAT said.

The minister, in answer to another question, said that over 500,000 set top boxes had been installed in the three metros of Delhi (210,000), Mumbai (240,000) and Kolkata (60,000), out of the 1.5 million estimated cable households in the notified areas of these metros. He said this also indicated a conscious decision by other households who preferred to opt for watching free-to-air channels through their cable networks, take DTH, or subscribe to DD Direct.

MUMBAI: MySpace today announced the launch of a new section within MySpace Video featuring premium content from the top news and lifestyle brands relevant to the community.

In the coming months, MySpace Video will launch ‘branded channels‘ for its global network with news outlets including National Geographic, The New York Times, Reuters, and lifestyle outlets including The Daily Reel, Expert Village, Flow, Fox‘s IGN Entertainment, Octane TV, Kush TV, Ripe TV, Studio411, VBS.tv (from the makers of Vice Magazine), and Young Hollywood.

MySpace general manager of video and SVP of public affairs Jeff Berman said, “The upcoming branded channel launch continues the growing momentum of MySpace Video. We‘re empowering our partners to customize their own video channels and use them as hubs to create a niche experience for users.”

All branded channels will live inside MySpace Video and will contain varying content offered by each respective partner. In response to user demand, the initial set of MySpace Video branded channels will focus news and lifestyle categories.

MUMBAI: Sun Microsystems India and Tech Mahindra are jointly setting up a next generation Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) lab at the Tech Mahindra facility in Pune.

The joint venture is a part of the strategic alliance to enable the rollout of cost-effective and efficient IPTV services to the Indian and Asia Pacific markets.

The IPTV lab at Tech Mahindra would feature solutions from an exclusive consortium of solution partners including, Digisoft, Envivio, Harmonic, I-Make, Verimatrix and Mototech, and Sun‘s own Streaming System.

The State-of-the-art lab will showcase a pre-integrated end-to-end IPTV system for tier1, tier2 and tier3 service providers. Tech Mahindra would use this lab to showcase its IPTV domain expertise to its global customers. This lab will also allow potential customers, OEMs and ISVs to test the Sun Streaming System‘s capabilities, architect and validate an end-to-end solution.

Tech Mahindra is already engaged with various service providers to offer IPTV solutions in various geographies.

Sun recently introduced the Sun Streaming System — the industry‘s first massively scalable and cost-effective video delivery platform for cable and telecommunications operators, which helps operators increase subscriber revenue by offering new video-based services and personalized, unique video streams to each consumer.

Speaking at the launch, Strategic Alliances Sun Microsystems India director K.P Unnikrishnan said, “Through this alliance with Tech Mahindra, we are looking forward to showcasing an end-to-end IPTV solution based on carrier grade Sun systems featuring the revolutionary Sun Streaming System. This is Sun‘s first such alliance in the country for IPTV services. We are extremely excited about this partnership and what it entails for us.”

MUMBAI: Revenue from mobile video services jumped 317 per cent to almost $ 200 million worldwide during the period 2005- 2006, and is expected to triple in 2007.

These are the findings of a report published by market research firm Infonetics Research – Mobile Video Devices, Services, and Subscribers.

The report shows that the number of worldwide mobile video subscribers has increased more than 300 per cent between 2005 and 2006, and is set to soar to over 46 million by 2010. Asia Pacific will be the regional stronghold of mobile video subscribers through at least 2010, with 57 per cent of the world total in 2006, followed by EMEA at 31 per cent, North America at 10 per cent, and CALA at 3 per cent.

The number of mobile video handsets sold worldwide nearly doubled from 2005 to 2006 (including video-capable handsets not necessarily tied to a specific mobile video service).
Mobile video service Arpu (average revenue per user) in all regions increases significantly from 2006 to 2010, tripling in Asia Pacific (from a low base) and more than doubling in CALA, adds the report.

MUMBAI: Epson has announced the launch of Epson Dreamio EMP-TW1000, a home theatre projector. The company claims 1080p 3LCD High Definition projector is the world‘s first consumer projecting device with a HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) 1.3 input interface.

Priced at Rs 2,15,000 the Epson EMP-TW1000 delivers impeccable image quality with a slew of advanced breakthrough features. Equipped with vertical and horizontal lens shift, one can get the right image even if the projector is off-centre. The 2.1x wide zoom is incorporated into the lens which makes the projector capable of beaming an 80-inch screen from just 2.5m.

While standard HDTV broadcasts and DVD movies are delivered on 8-bit colour depth, HDMI 1.3 supports a revolutionary 30-bit ‘Deep Colour‘ format. ‘Deep Colour‘ supports 1.8 times as many colours as the common RGB (Red, Green, Blue) primary colours that make up most of the digital images that we see.


With a high 12,000:1 contrast ratio, Epson Cinema Filter and Epson Super White, the projector gives ultra realistic images both in deep blacks and bright backgrounds.
Epson‘s Auto Iris Optical System is an intelligent engine which controls lamp brightness at an amazing 60 times per second. For optimal optical efficiency, Epson‘s proprietary E-TORL (Epson-Twin Optimise Reflection Lamp) with 1200 ANSI lumens is more than capable of beaming clear and striking images for the home theatre.

MUMBAI: ViDeOnline Communications (VDO) has signed a multi-year video-on-demand (VoD) and subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) agreement with Warner Bros. International Television Distribution (WBITD) for the Hong Kong rights to films. all current feature-length motion pictures and hundreds of library feature films distributed by WBITD.

The agreement, negotiated on behalf of WBITD by Ted Lai, VP of its international television division, will allow ViDeOnline to offer legal downloads of premium content from Warner Bros. through its “08Media portal, which launched in March in Hong Kong.

The service will initially feature more than 100 motion pictures distributed by WBITD, including a mix of recent theatrical releases and favorites from the Studio’s vast entertainment library. Featured titles to be initially offered will include recent releases such as Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, V For Vendetta, Superman Returns, The Ant Bully, Lady in the Water and Happy Feet as well as popular titles such as The Polar Express, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Firewall. All video content can be streamed or downloaded and played on compatible home computers.

WBITD president R. Schlesinger says, ” Making our movie content available to ViDeOnline’s Hong Kong consumers is an important step in our global digital distribution strategy. This deal fits perfectly with our philosophy of providing consumers around the world with access to our world-class entertainment.”

The expansive rollout of high-speed broadband and wireless services in Asia has created a customer base with an increased demand for new, quality content. ViDeOnline acts as the partner in providing an optimal platform for aggregating content with the necessary technology to download and track DRM-protected feature films and TV shows to broadband carriers throughout Asia.

MUMBAI: News broadcasters are getting into the media outsourcing business as a serious source of incremental revenue. If NDTV signed up with Genpact last year, it is TV 18 Group which has announced a strategic alliance with Infosys BPO to launch Source 18 for providing a full spectrum of services to media and entertainment companies globally.

The relationship will not involve equity tie up to start with, but this could change later.

The services on offer will include digital archiving and met tagging, repurposing content, work flow charting, ideation, reediting, transcoding, quality control as well as media process outsourcing which shall include promo production, traffic management, uplinking and inventory management.

Also available as an outsourcing service would be analytics, finance and accounting services, order management, rights management and HR.

Source 18 will utilize the services of Tangerine Digital Entertainment, a company specializing in content repurposing and media process outsourcing, for part execution of the contracts.

TV 18 Group CEO Haresh Chawla said, “Source 18 will be a key part of our strategy to address all aspects of the media value chain. We believe that as a full play entity, process outsourcing and media repurposing and production services are key focus areas for us. With SOURCE 18, we combine the technological, process and management know-how of Infosys BPO with the domain knowledge of the TV18 group and this will be a market making alliance.”

While Infosys BPO will psrovide the initiative the much needed process and technological support, TV 18 will bring in domain knowledge and expertise to the alliance.

“We believe this strategic alliance is a great symbiosis of competencies of two great organizations – Infosys BPO and TV 18. We expect media and entertainment to be a key growth driver for us. This partnership with TV18 is a significant step in that direction as we together cater to the tremendous opportunities in Media and Entertainment industry”, Infosys BPO Limited MD and CEO Amitabh Chaudhry said.

National Geographic Channel International (NGCI) has been roped in as the first client for repurposing their archived and current content for the mobile platform.

The media outsourcing market is set to throw up an exciting business opportunity with the global media and entertainment industry growing to almost $ 2 trillion by 2008 and proliferation of content in multiple formats across media platforms.