Category: Software

NEW DELHI: All India Radio has launched an exclusive Carnatic music channel.

The channel will be beamed through Doordarshan‘s free-to-air Direct To Home (DTH) platform from Tiruchirapalli..

Christened Raagam, the channel would cater to the needs of musicians and music lovers, All India Radio sources told indiantelevision.com

MUMBAI: Digital pay-TV adoption will grow exponentially in India, but broadband consumption will remain modest. As a result, India will lead the Asia-Pacific region in pay-TV industry revenue generation by 2015 but lag most of its neighbors in broadband value creation.

These are the findings of a research report released today by Hong Kong based Media Partners Asia (MPA) entitled “Asia Pacific Pay-TV and Broadband Markets 2007”.

Some of the highlights of the report are that India will lead Asia in pay-TV industry revenue generation by 2015 but lag most of its neighbours in broadband value creation. The total revenue opportunity is estimated at $16 billion by 2015

MPA sees pay-TV penetration growing from 61 per cent of TV homes in 2006 to reach almost 90 per cent by 2015. Of this, more than 37 per cent of pay-TV users will be connected to a digital network by then, the larger numbers coming from DTH. The report estimates that there will be 23 million digital pay-TV cable subs by 2015 as against 38 million for DTH.

What the report clearly indicates is that pay-TV cable will always be playing catch-up to DTH, a situation that is already being witnessed today. Comparing the sub base of the major DTH players with that of the big cable MSOs, these are the numbers thrown up: Zee’s DTH service provider Dish TV has crossed the 2 million mark as far as its subscriber numbers go. Also gathering speed is Tata Sky with 800,000 subs. Zee’s cable arm WWIL on the other hand, currently stands at 250,000, still some way behind Rajan Raheja’s Hathway Cable & Datacom, which is at 310,000.

Meanwhile, as regards advertising, the report estimates C&S TV revenues to grow at a CAGR of 12.4 per cent to reach $ 3.5 billion by 2015.

As for broadband HH penetration, it is expected to scale up to 11 per cent by 2015, implying 26 million users.

Commenting on the report’s key India-related findings, MPA executive director Vivek Couto said: “Digitization, consolidation and the gradual relaxation of regulations will help develop the market for pay-TV. With greater investment, last mile consolidation and digital upgrade, the cable industry in general and MSOs in particular should become increasingly corporatized and profitable. DTH will enter a phase of mass adoption between 2008 – 2012 with six operators likely to compete in the market. We expect consolidation in the long-term. The market for cable & satellite broadcasters will undergo commoditization in the near-term and profitable consolidation in the long-term. Increased pay-TV penetration, digitization and long-term economic growth will drive the market.”

MUMBAI: US software major Microsoft has announced a contest for the xbox 360.

People can not only play games and watch premium entertainment content on their Xbox 360 they can now create content for it, too.

Microsoft and the New York Television Festival (NYTVF) have announced the Xbox Live Originals contest, granting aspiring television producers the opportunity to create a pilot that could be chosen for the first original series developed specifically for the Xbox Live online gaming and entertainment network.

Microsoft will award the winning entrant a $100,000 budget and an opportunity for a six-episode commitment to air the television series on Xbox Live, the social network. The pilot episode of the winning series is scheduled to debut later this yearl at the third annual NYTVF, the industry’s first showcase for independent television, before being featured exclusively on Xbox LIVE, home to a community of more than six million people worldwide. This marks the first time that user-created entertainment content will be available worldwide for download exclusively on Xbox LIVE.

Microsoft senior director of Xbox Live Bill Nielsen says, “Not only can aspiring TV producers from across the globe try their hands at creating new TV shows, but because of Xbox LIVE Marketplace, they can now win a chance to have more than 6 million people worldwide see their work.

“This is an incredible opportunity for us to participate in the festival, and we are thrilled to be able to bring community-created TV content to the Xbox community for the first time.”

Xbox Live is already home to more than 1,500 hours of full-length films and TV series in the United States. This contest will showcase the user-created content alongside films and TV shows from many of the top networks and studios in the entertainment industry.

NYTVF founder Terence Gray says, “The New York Television Festival has always strived to give artists opportunities to get their voices heard in the industry, and we think that showcasing their work on the Xbox 360 will give our artists unprecedented exposure.

“The Xbox Live Originals contest acknowledges that new technologies are enabling artists to tell their stories in innovative ways, and Xbox LIVE Marketplace, one of the top digital distributors of online entertainment content, is a great place to showcase the talent that takes part in the NYTVF. The NYTVF is proud to join with Xbox 360 on its groundbreaking initiative to create and provide original programming.”

To participate in the Xbox LIVE Originals contest, entrants must produce and submit a short comedy pilot running between five and 15 minutes long. Submissions will be accepted till 29 June, 2007, from contestants in any of the 25 countries currently supporting Xbox Live.

A group of selected finalists will be shown on Xbox Live Marketplace’s video-on-demand service in July, and a winner will be announced at the end of the month. The creators of the winning pilot will receive a budget of $100,000 and an opportunity to produce six additional episodes of the comedy series for Xbox Live, and the first episode will premiere at an exclusive event at the 2007 NYTVF in September.

MUMBAI: Narrowstep the TV on the Internet company has announced that its proprietary technology system, telvOS has been chosen by Firecracker Media, a film and media company, to bring the best of East Asian cinema to the UK, US, Ireland and Australasia via a broadband channel called Firecrackertv.com.

Firecrackertv.com is a streaming online movie channel featuring Asian movies on demand and provides a catalogue from across Asia, featuring rediscovered gems to brand new movies in a range of genres from martial arts to anime to art-house, including films from cult Filipino grindhouse director Bobby A. Suarez and films such as Nuan from China, Monday Morning Glory from Malaysia, 2005, Post Revolutionary Era from China, 2004 and Love‘s Lone Flower from Taiwan.

The company notes that in recent years, the success of films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2, Hero and Oldboy has made Asian films increasingly popular to mass audiences, but access to them has been limited. Firecracker launched the TV channel to make similar films and TV shows available to a wider audience, to complement their existing online and print magazine, and highlight the Firecracker Showcase, a UK-based, annual East Asian Film event.

Narrowstep chairman and CEO David McCourt says, “Firecracker TV is a brilliant example of how broadband television is working to give viewers control over what they watch and when they watch it. There is a very devoted group of people who love this genre of film and through our technology Firecracker is able to expand their distribution reach and bring the content to them.”

MUMBAI: Isilon Systems which works in the area of clustered storage has announced that US media conglomerate NBC Universal will use Isilon IQ to archive and access growing stores of media programming including entertainment TV and production, movies, news, and sports.

Under the multi-year agreement with Isilon, NBC Universal plans to deploy multiple Petabytes of Isilon IQ clustered storage in its main production and broadcast operations to maximize the value of their media assets across NBC Universal‘s media properties. Isilon also announced that NBC is deploying Isilon IQ to facilitate its coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

NBC Universal director, storage solutions, global operations David Evans says, “With the rapid move to digital media and broadband connections, the broadcast industry has forever changed. This shift in the broadcast paradigm — multiple distribution channels, formats, and consumption models — has resulted in massive increases in the amount and importance of archived media.

” It is not enough to simply store this content; it must also be always on-line and instantly accessible. Isilon IQ is uniquely architected to address the business needs of NBC Universal, enabling us to transform our digital media assets into new breakthroughs in the creation, management and delivery of high-quality programming.”

Isilon says that it is being deployed to complement and, in some cases, replace traditional tape based technology which allows for faster access times and increased reliability. With major deployments of Isilon IQ, NBC Universal‘s multiple broadcast and production units now have instant access to the vast libraries of media programming regardless of physical location, enabling NBC Universal to enhance live broadcasts or create new breakthroughs in the delivery of programming through NBC Universal‘s multiple media distribution networks.

Next year in Beijing, NBC is primed to deliver the first-ever television broadcast of the Olympic Games availablen completely in High Definition. Following NBC‘s successful use of Isilon IQ for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens and the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, NBC is storing the majority of the 2008 Beijing Games proxy and broadband content on Isilon clustered storage, providing NBC producers with access to critical content for rapid review, identification and selection operations necessary to quickly produce and deliver coverage of Beijing Olympics in the US.

MUMBAI: Computer chip major Intel has unveiled a integrated media processor for the consumer electronics (CE) market segment.

This will power a new generation of devices, such as digital set top boxes and networked media players, and bring consumers advanced in-home information and entertainment services.

The Intel CE 2110 Media Processor is a complete system-on-a-chip (SoC) architecture that combines a 1GHz processing core with powerful A/V processing and graphics, and I/O components, onto a single chip. This all-in-one component design the company says becomes increasingly important in today’s marketplace as CE manufacturers look to accelerate time to market, and develop smarter, more cost-effective consumer electronics designs that provide the processing performance, flexibility and headroom needed to deliver advanced revenue-generating services, such as Voice over IP (VoIP), video phone, interactive gaming, enhanced karaoke and e-learning.

Intel’s Consumer Electronics Group GM William O. Leszinske Jr. says, “The Internet is a powerful disruptive opportunity for the CE industry. Intel’s work with the CE ecosystem to power new intelligent devices will help accelerate the availability of a new range of exciting Internet-based information and services, and video entertainment experiences for consumers throughout the home.”

Chunghwa Telecom, a telecom service provider in Taiwan, has adopted the new SoC media processor for its Multimedia on Demand (MoD) service deployment. Based on the new Intel media processing platform, Chunghwa Telecom will expand its high-definition video content, karaoke, e-banking and e-learning services, and introduce emerging usage models to consumers.

Intel and Chunghwa Telecom will conduct research to ensure a deeper understanding of consumer needs and desires in Taiwan, which will then help Chunghwa Telecom design and deploy solutions that transform how consumers absorb television-based content and services.

Intel works with CE companies to bring advanced video and interactive services to consumers. ASUS has a set top box with the new Intel SoC media processor today. Digeo plans to deliver new Moxi Multi-Room HD digital media recorders, and OKI and ZTE will build set top boxes based on the Intel CE 2110 Media Processor. System integrator Hwacom plans to provide application layers for IPTV services using the new Intel media processing platform.

In addition, Radvision will deliver VoIP and video conferencing capabilities; Amino Communications will provide the IntAct IPTV client software stack and Verimatrix will deliver content protection software based on the new media processing platform.

The Intel CE 2110 Media Processor includes an embedded 1 GHz Intel XScale® CPU, MPEG-2 and H.264 hardware video decoders, DDR2 memory interface, 2D/3D graphics accelerators, and is supported by a modular software development environment. The platform architecture also allows CE developers and manufacturers to deliver pure IP or hybrid set top boxes designed to receive content from IP and digital broadcast pipes.

MUMBAI: Media firm Comcast has annoauncd a deal with News Corp and NBC Universal.

The distribution agreement sees Comcast‘s Comcast.net and Fancast.com serving as distribution sites for News Corp and NBCU‘s recently announced online video venture. Under the agreement, Comcast will also provide available non-exclusive content for domestic distribution on NBCU and News Corp‘s site from Comcast Networks, including E!, Style, G4, Versus and Golf Channel and will become the venture‘s first non-equity content provider.

In addition, the companies announced the new online video venture will utilise media management and video distribution technology from the Platform, a Comcast subsidiary and a leading provider of broadband and mobile video publishing solutions.

News Corp president and COO Peter Chernin says, “We are delighted that the nation‘s largest cable provider will be a major player in this new venture. News Corp. and NBC have long histories with Comcast and we‘re committed to expanding our relationship in this new media universe. We believe there is a wealth of opportunities to exploit broadband distribution to benefit both our businesses.”

NBC Universal president and CEO Jeff Zucker says, “We are very excited by the positive response our new venture with News Corp. has generated. Comcast‘s participation is yet another affirmation of our strategy to place top-quality, protected content in as many places as possible.”

Comcast COO Steve Burke says, “We are pleased to have the best of NBC and Fox‘s TV content available to our customers on Comcast.net and Fancast.com. Making TV content available on multiple devices will enable our customers to view their favorite shows on television, online and on video-on-demand.”

Distribution across Comcast sites will include Comcast.net, and Fancast.com, a new entertainment site launching this summer that will enable users to view video as well as search, discover and manage both TV and movie content.

NBC Universal and News Corp‘s recently-announced video site will launch in the summer with thousands of hours of full-length TV programming, clips and movies, representing premium content from more than a dozen networks and two major film studios. The new venture‘s content will be distributed via some of the most-popular sites on the Web, including AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo. The aim is to offer an alternative to Youtube.

MUMBAI: Microsoft and the International Standard Audiovisual Number International Agency (Isan-IA) have announced an agreement.

Isan-IA has licensed Microsoft’s new High Capacity Colour Barcode (HCCB) technology developed by Microsoft Research to assist in the identification of commercial audiovisual works such as motion pictures, video games, broadcasts, digital video recordings and other media.

The Isan-IA, which coordinates a globally recognised identification system for audiovisual works, will make the Microsoft-developed bar code available to other organisations for use in tracking, helping protect and manage their audiovisual content. The new multicolor bar code is expected to start appearing on DVD media toward the end of 2007. Isan-IA also said several of its registration agencies will use the innovative technology to help their customers derive more accountability and value from their media asset libraries.

Microsoft Research director of engineering Gavin Jancke says, “The capability of these new bar codes to store more data in a smaller space should provide a rich resource for the industry and consumers alike. The new code offers several advantages over existing black-and-white bar codes most people are accustomed to seeing on product packages, enabling new consumer experiences, more visual appeal where aesthetics are important and the ability to incorporate advanced security features.”

Current Isan codes allow an audiovisual work to be uniquely distinguished from other works through a simple identification system, but they do not allow additional features or functions to be incorporated. Microsoft’s new multicolour bar code will enable the inclusion of more data in the code itself, as well as the ability for consumers to interact with it by scanning the code with webcams and, eventually, cell phones with colour cameras.

For audiovisual publishers, identification and tracking technologies will provide detailed data that can aid in royalty payments, anti-counterfeiting efforts, market analysis and a host of other business functions. For consumers, the new bar codes can be combined with Web services to offer enhanced information such as product versioning, ratings identification, parental control, product availability, special releases, contests, pricing and promotions. Software to be made available from Microsoft and Isan-IA will interpret the bar codes and will be integrated with Web services to enable these interactions.

The services enabled by HCCB are expected to become more prevalent as lens quality advances in cell phones to capture these small bar codes. For existing cell phones to read a black-and-white bar code, a practice that is widespread in Japan, the code must be larger than 1.5 by 1.5 inches in size. The use of those codes is impractical in small spaces or where visual appeal is important. Eventually, consumers should be able to scan the new, smaller bar codes directly from television, phone or PC screens; movie posters; DVD and CD jewel cases; magazine ads; billboards; and a host of other platforms to retrieve additional information.

New security features can also be incorporated into Microsoft’s multicolor bar code. DatatraceDNA plans to provide technology for anti-counterfeiting security protection features through nanotechnology that is invisibly embedded within the material and ink of the Microsoft bar code and product packaging.

This combination of technologies will allow Isan-IA to offer media publishers the ability to connect to consumers using interactive services and provide counterfeit protection in a single package.

Isan-IA CEO Patrick Attallah says, “The capabilities enabled by this combination of bar code technology and supporting software are important for everyone. This includes content owners tracking the use of their work and media publishers seeking to connect to consumers using interactive services and provide a combination of DatatraceDNA counterfeit protection in a single package.

“This technology provides a way to identify commercial programming and improve the consumer’s experience. Secure Path Technology LLC, our Hollywood-based ISAN registration agency, will be the first organization to implement the HCCB format to deliver content identification, management and distribution capabilities to its customers in the entertainment industry across a variety of media.”

NEW DELHI: The once humble video projector may be now giving Plasma TVs a run for their money, with pin-head clarity of high contrast pictures to get an image that goes far beyond the 42″ Plasma screen… Optoma, the manufacturers of the latest DLP say home screens ca now go up to 200 inches!

Up until now, in recent years LCDs and Plasma TVs had been the rage, but now, a reinvented technology has arrived on the scene that may change the whole big screen TV concept forever. It is the DLP, or Digital Light Processing.

The key to DLP is the DMD (Digital Micro-mirror Device).

In essence, every pixel on a DLP chip is a reflective mirror, which amplifies the light generated from the chip.

Since the light generated by each pixel has its own amplification ability, there is no limit to the size of the screen that can be manufactured. Brightness and contrast is even across the entire surface of the screen.

The advantage of DLP is two-fold:
* It produces bright, high-contrast images, viewable from a wide angle, and (2) It can be projected onto any size screen (from home theater setups to movie theater setups), with equal image quality; and
* With the advent of HDTV, DLP is the best option for reproducing high-resolution projected images.

On the industrial front, DLP is being used in large projection screen applications such as concert venues and movie theaters.

Several films have been released to special take advantage of DLP projection technology, including: Star Wars: Episode I, Mission To Mars, Toy Story 2, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Disney‘s Dinosaur, and Spy Kids.

In a recent BBC feature on its technology programme, Click, it said that domestic video projectors come in two different flavours: LCD or DLP.

The brainchild of Texas Instruments, Digital Light Processing (DLP) first appeared 20 years ago. In video projectors the key to DLP are optical semiconductors covered in millions of tiny mirrors.

These mirrors reflect light which is projected onto them, and each mirror represents an individual pixel. The higher the resolution the more mirrors are required.

Bob Johnson of Optoma told BBC‘s Click on April 16: “It‘s a digital device, whereas the majority of the other technologies are all analogue devices. So if you‘re using an HD DVD player or your normal home DVD player, that‘s a digital device, you get a digital image on your screen.”

There is one drawback to DLP technology.

In order for the chips to produce colour images, a spinning wheel fitted with coloured filters is placed in front of the chip. When this wheel spins it can create an effect which looks like rainbow patterns appearing around the pixels. This can be a bit irritating.

LCD projectors don‘t enjoy the same level of contrast or dark blacks that DLPs produce, and up close some individual pixels can be visible as squares. There is however a price difference – many LCD projectors are cheaper than their DLP counterparts.

Improvements in lamp technology mean that a wide variety of the bulbs that are fitted to the current generation of video projectors are so bright they can viewed in almost daylight conditions.

And as LCD screens have embraced HD 1080P resolution so to have video projectors. So it‘s possible to use projectors in rooms that aren‘t as dark as your local multiplex – and with HD support, movies, TV and video games now look pin sharp.

But if you‘re planning to ditch the TV in favour of a projector what sort of features should you be looking out for?

Picture size is altered by the distance the projector is away from the screen, known as ‘throw‘. As a rule of thumb about 10ft away from a wall or a screen will produce an image of 100 inches.

It‘s important to select a projector and bulb which can produce a sufficient amount of light to work in a domestic setting. Known as the lumen value, this allows you to know how bright a bulb is. For a room which has ambient lighting in it a bulb which produces in excess of 1200 lumens will be required.

Projectors used to make more noise than a normal TV due to fans that are needed to cool the unit down. Although modern projectors are considerably quieter than their forebears, fan noise is still evident.

The biggest drawback is the cost of replacement lamps. Lamps usually last around 2000 to 3000 hours, but after that it‘s time for a new one and this can be expensive, in some cases up to ?400. But overall prices of domestic projectors have dropped. It‘s possible to get a DLP HD -ready projector for around ?700, which compares favourably with large LCD or Plasma screens.

Great big video projectors are fine if you‘ve got a great big home to put them in, but if there‘s a shortage of space a tiny little DLP projector can provide a solution to the problem.

And as laser technology becomes introduced to projectors they are going to get even smaller.

There is a company in the United States that‘s developing a projector which is so small it will fit inside a mobile phone.

NEW DELHI: WWIL is all set to file its rejoinder, to TDSAT, over the Trai decision to keep MSOs out of sharing the basic tier (FTA) revenue.

The Zee Group cable franchise has drawn up a three-year revenue model which shows that after investing of Rs 713.4 million, MSOs would earn Rs 55.3 million, whereas LCOs, making nil investments, would walk away with Rs 500 million (Click here for details).

The case will come up for hearing on 30 April, and WWIL is determined to get the order reversed. A WWIL official told indiantelevision.com that if TDSAT had once sent back the original regulation for review by Trai, it must have felt that it was inadequate or something was wrong with it.

Meanwhile, Roop Sharma, president of the Cable Operators Federation of India told indiantelevision.com: “If needed we shall take the issue up with the court giving our version, but if Trai has sent back the original model intact, it has made up its mind that that model was correct.”

The MSO has also said, in a document made available to indiantelevision.com, that Trai itself had said that “carriage fee” is a temporary and nebulous feature and may vanish under a digital, addressable regime such as exists in Cas.

Interestingly, Hinduja Group cable company InCableNet has also filed a three-year projection of revenue with Trai. InCable, in its response to the Trai consultation paper on revenue sharing, had supported WWIL and demanded a 40 per cent share from the basic tier.

While issuing its order last week, Trai had said that under its original revenue sharing formula, MSOs have the benefit of 100 per cent of the money coming from ‘carriage fees‘, but WWIL had in its response to the consultation paper on revenue sharing held that carriage fee is a temporary issue.

WWIL has said: “It is submitted that against an apparent Zero investment by cable operators, they will take approx. 80 per cent of the revenue share (approx. 50.16 crore out of approximately 62.61 crore).

“Broadcasters with Zero investments will get approx. 11.5 per cent of the revenue share (approximately Rs 7 crore) and MSOs with an investment of Rs 71 crore i.e. Rs 6-7 crore more than the total revenue, are to get only aproximately 8.5 per cent of the revenue share.”

WWIL‘s revenue model assumptions have been made on the premise that a subscriber on an average would opt for about 15 pay channels in the CAS notified areas.

The assumption, in fact, is in conformity with the actual choice made by the consumers in CAS notified areas of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, where the average subscriber is choosing only about 15-16 pay channels.

Accordingly, it says, the revenue projections submitted by the company reflect the actual potential earning from pay channels revenue stream as well as the basic tier revenue stream by the multi system operators / cable operators.

The MSOs has sought to do away with the misgiving, as it put to indiantelevision.com, that it would be getting additional revenue from carriage fees. In fact, it has shown that Trai itself has said it is a temporary phenomenon.

The presentation by WWIL has quoted the Trai amendments effected by TRAI to the Interconnect Regulation on 4th September 2006:

“Regulation of carriage fee in the present circumstances is very difficult as it also implies regulation of positioning. In different parts of the country, there are different viewership patterns. The capacities of cable networks also vary a great deal. Thus, the levels of carriage fee are different in different parts of the country depending upon demand and supply gap.

“Presently, there are more than 6000 multi system operators, which follow different systems of accounting. Payment of carriage fee is very often done in cash or in kind. Thus, it is not possible to find out the actual payments being made towards carriage fees. The carriage fee is a temporary phenomenon and is likely to disappear with the advent of digital cable systems.”

Reiterating that carriage fees were a phenomenon of the analogue mode, as there was limited carrying capacity (roughly 60 to 70 channels)

Hence, it says “It is very well known in this industry that it is only when a new channel is launched that its broadcaster makes efforts for the carriage / placement of the channels on the analogue non-addressable system by making certain payments to the networks which carry those channels.”

Besides, it echoes Trai‘s own statement that There is no standard or yardstick for the charges which are paid by the broadcasters for carriage of their new channels by the cable networks.

WWIL holds that at any given point of time, say if there are more than 150 channels to be carried on analogue technology in a non-addressable system, it may only be for 15 per cent to 20 per cent of the new channels that make efforts for carriage of their channels by payment of ad hoc amounts.

It says that under Cas addressable digital system, when a typical MSO headend can easily carry up to 600 channels, if not more, “no one would be fool enough to even consider paying a carriage fee, even if an MSOs is fool enough to ask for it,” a senior WWIL official told indiantelevision.com.