Category: Software

NEW DELHI: The Zee Group will knock on the doors of the Supreme Court challenging the TDSAT order that has said TataSky is obliged only to take 19 of their channels in bouquets 1 and 2, and has declared Zee a defaulter for not providing signals to TataSky on a non-discriminatory basis.

Asked whether they are moving the Supreme Court, a top Zee official said: “Of course we shall.”

“This is a peculiar judgement, because it deals with only the factual positions of the two parties in the dispute in hand, which the judges have clearly said, and therefore, this judgement has not settled the law,” the official, requesting anonymity, held.

“Besides, we are not defaulting on anything. The court had issued an interim order earlier, stating that we have to give TataSky our channels at 50 per cent of the cable charges, which we are doing already and have not defied that, so where are we defaulting?” the official queried.

He held also that TataSky is still being given all the 32 channels of Zee‘s five bouquets, and the order has only given the former the right to switch off the channels they do not want.

“Indeed, the quirk is that in their statements, TataSky had finally said they wanted 22 channels, not 19, which was their earlier demand, but the court has settled for 19. So there are a lot of grey areas that need to be settled.”

Primarily what needs to be settled is the fact that the order, being centred around ‘facts of the case‘, has not settled the law.

“There are many statements made by our counsel that have not been taken into account,” the official said.

Besides, the entire issue hangs on a central confusion: whether the regulator says that there is a “must carry” obligation in place. This is an issue in law, and hence, the Supreme Court would be approached on this issue, Zee officials said.

The case started with TataSky petitioning TDSAT that Zee Turner was forcing it to take all its 32 channels from five of their bouquets, but they needed only 19 which were popular ones, and could not afford to jam their limited transponder space with all 32 channels, most of which (as per their contention) were “junk channels”.

The petition had been filed against Zee Turner, Zee Telefilms, Turner International and ASC Enterprises.

TataSky‘s contention was that the regulation stipulates that broadcasters “must provide… on a non-discriminatory basis” all the channels available with them, but the DTH operator could pick and choose the ones it wanted.

Zee had argued, inter alia, that the license conditions for any DTH licensee, which TataSky had to meet with, implied a statutory obligation of “must carry” all the channels of all the broadcasters that they seek to receive signals from.

TataSky later took recourse to an affidavit by the sector regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) that the specific clause 7.6 of the regulation did not mean a “must carry” obligation.

But Zee had placed several documents through which it had tried to show that the Trai affidavit was unfounded in facts and Trai‘s own previous orders.

However, the court felt: “We are unable to read a ‘must carry‘ provision in clause 7.6. A plain reading of clause 7.6 suggests that the obligation is cast on a Licensee to provide access to various content providers/channels on a non-discriminatory basis.”

This will be one of the serious issues that would come up in the Supreme Court, and any order on this would impact the entire industry.

MUMBAI: US firm Honestech, which develops and markets digital video software and internet protocol (IP) technology for multimedia content has released its MY-IPTV Anywhere Mobile product.

The product enables users to access and view television programming from anywhere in the world on their mobile phone, any Windows-based Wi-Fi PDA device, and any computer with an internet connection.

MY-IPTV Anywhere Mobile includes Honestech’s original MY-IPTV Anywhere PC server and player software and new mobile player software for mobile and handheld devices. It also includes MY-IPBOX, an external USB 2.0 TV tuner device. MY-IPTV Anywhere server software has to be set up on their home computer to host content via Internet Protocol (IP) to their mobile phone or Wi-Fi enabled mobile devices and any computer via a peer-to-peer connection.

The product allows users to watch and control their TV from anywhere, and includes features such as channel surfing and changing, a personal video recorder, and scheduled recording from any computer. MY-IPTV Anywhere Mobile supports the latest H.264/MPEG-4 video compression technology standard for mobile phone, handheld devices, and any computer, from anywhere in the world.

Now, with MY-IPTV Anywhere Mobile and a broadband internet connection, users can transmit their favorite programming from their home based broadcast network, from anywhere in the world as long as they have their enabled mobile device.

MY-IPTV Anywhere Mobile supports handheld devices from manufacturers including HP, Samsung, LG, Sharp, and other handheld devices supporting Microsoft Windows.

MUMBAI: Television content distributor Granada International has concluded a deal with video on demand (VoD) company Gakken Index in Japan.

The volume agreement is for broadband VoD rights on more than 400 hours of Granada International programming. In the deal, Gakken Index will supply all the major IPTV services in Japan with Granada International content which will be branded Granada Broadband. Titles included in the deal, among many others, are Agatha Christie’s Poirot, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sharpe, Inspector Morse, Prime Suspect. In addition, the company will also create digital versions of masters of the programming, market the service and create Japanese versions of new shows to launch on IPTV servers.

Gakken Index was established by Gakken, a leading educational content and publishing company and Index, an IT and mobile phone technology and solution servicing company. Their aim was to create a company to develop “Intellectually Exciting Content”, so Gakken Index has published popular content to enhance the educational and skill training market, as well as gaming and visual content.

Granda International MD Nadine Nohr comments, “The global VoD market is an exciting opportunity for our extensive programming portfolio. To protect all our client’s interests we have to ensure that the deal works on a number of significant levels and we are thrilled to be dealing with Gakken Index, which has its roots in two long established and well regarded companies in Japan. We are particularly pleased to have our own brand – Granada Broadband – which will allow IPTV customers to choose our programming knowing that it has a high pedigree.”

Gakken Index president Watanabe says, “We are delighted to have secured a volume deal with Granada International, one of the very best global television distributors. Their programming is famous around the world and we know our IPTV viewers will seek out Granada Broadband content.

“We will also work closely with Granada International to develop new exciting projects, utilizing our innovative technology and Granada’s quality programming to appeal to an even wider audience in Japan.”

MUMBAI: News Corp‘s social networking site MySpace has announced a partnership with former Disney head Michael Eisner‘s new independent production studio Vuguru to debut Prom Queen.

This is a scripted serialised mystery. Each episode will launch on the show‘s official profile (http://myspace.com / promqueen tv) 12 hours before being released on any other website.

This short-form series will unravel over 80 episodes, each running 90 seconds long. MySpace CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe says, “Prom Queen has the potential to be a break-out hit on MySpace. Video is a cultural cornerstone for the MySpace community – it‘s a huge part of how our users express themselves and discover pop culture. We have become a primary destination for online viewers and with exclusive content like Prom Queen, more and more eyeballs are coming to MySpace Video.”

Prom Queen kicks-off a high volume of upcoming product and content developments for MySpace Video across premium, licensed, and original content platforms.

Eisner says, “With this partnership, the future of on-line story telling is now. MySpace offers the Prom Queen audience a complete experience by giving them the ability to stay connected to the show, the characters and other Prom Queen fans in a way that no other on-line drama has ever done before.”

The MySpace Video channel and show profile page will spotlight exclusive series content including character profiles, behind-the-scenes video footage, character diaries, and storyline secrets.

MySpace Video is a video content hub and a contextual video experience for the larger global community. The video destination is a platform for content models including user generated, licensed, paid downloads, exclusive content, and original programming.

MUMBAI: UK pubcaster the BBC has started a trial to syndicate a range of its television channels and radio networks via 3G to mobile phones with mobile operators Orange, Vodafone and 3.

The trial, which will last up to 12 months, will allow subscribers to Orange, Vodafone and 3‘s TV packages to watch BBC One, BBC News 24 and BBC Three (with the exception of some sport and acquired programmes) streamed on their mobiles.

They will also be able to listen to up to eight radio stations including Radio 1, 1Xtra, Radio 2. The trial will start this month.

BBC director of future media and Technology Ashley Highfield said: “By making a range of television channels and radio networks available to 3G mobile phone subscribers, we hope to test not only the effectiveness of 3G as a means of distribution, but also how audiences respond to the BBC‘s linear services on their mobiles. The findings, combined with quantitative and qualitative consumer research, will inform the BBC‘s future mobile strategy.”

BBC Controller of Business Strategy Richard Halton said, “The BBC constantly aims to make its content available to as many people in as many ways as possible.

“The mobile platform is a great opportunity for us to reach existing users in a new way and connect better with people who are not currently big users of the BBC.

“The BBC believes that mobile content is an important part of the broadcasting landscape and is looking at ways in which mobile devices will shape services of the future for licence fee payers.

“To this end, the BBC will be undertaking extensive and unique research into consumer behaviour and experience throughout the 3G mobile syndication trial. To date we have done relatively little consumer research in this area, and it will provide us with a detailed insight into consumer behaviour.”

Separately, the BBC has also launched an enhanced version of bbc.co.uk/mobile, which is available to all mobile phones with browsers capable of displaying XHTML pages.

Users will benefit from improved navigation and design, with scope in the future for additional functionality. The enhanced service also includes a redesigned BBC Weather which features Radio 4‘s The Shipping Forecast.

Internet users accessing the BBC on their mobile phones and other high-tech gadgets racked up almost 90 million page views, according to the latest figures.

Total page views for the Wap and PDA versions of bbc.co.uk were in excess of 84 million in January 2007.

Mobile usage of the BBC‘s website has grown 100 per cent year-on-year over the last three years and these figures show the trend continuing.

NEW DELHI: In a significant judgment that will impact the entire DTH industry, TDSAT today asked Zee Turner to make available 19 channels from its bouquets 1 and 2, observing also that Zee has not been able to convince it about a regulatory obligation of “must carry” on DTH operators.

The sector tribunal further ruled that the DTH player is well within its rights to demand only 19 channels out of the 32 in the Bouquets 1 and 2 offered by Zee.

Calling this an “explosive” decision, TataSky‘s legal experts asserted that this is a crushing defeat for Zee, which has been “trying to thrust all its channels on us”.

The major issue of “must carry” has not been opined upon by the judges, as they made clear in their judgment, but legal circles here are abuzz over the implications that no broadcaster now can try to force a DTH player to take “all or none”, and hence, the must carry contention, which had been one of major Zee‘s arguments, is not an obligation as per this decision.

The court, importantly, has held that in the interests of consumers being given full choice, no DTH operator can be forced to carry all the channels of all the broadcasters, because of constraints of transponder space, a major issue so long hanging fire.

The court has also asked Trai once again to fix tariff of channels on DTH platforms.

It has asked Zee Turner to supply signals of these 19 channels to TataSky at 50 per cent of the price the broadcaster offers to the cable operators, and has directed Trai once more to fix the channel tariffs for the DTH operators, a persistent TataSky demand in the present case arguments.

TDSAT has virtually demolished the arguments of Zee, especially on the issue of what the latter stated was a “must carry provision” inherent in the Trai regulations.

Zee had raised the point that clause 7.6 of the regulation implied that there is in place a “must carry” provision, which made it mandatory for the DTH players to carry all the channels a broadcaster has on offer in all its bouquets put together, which TataSky had disputed.

In its final ruling, TDSAT has said that so far as the case in hand is concerned, the issue of must carry did not arise.

However, its observations on Zee‘s arguments are scathing.

“We are unable to read a ‘must carry‘ provision in clause 7.6. A plain reading of clause 7.6 suggests that the obligation is cast on a Licensee to provide access to various content providers / channels on a nondiscriminatory basis.

“As per this clause, therefore, the Licensee is not the seeker of channels. The broadcasters or the content providers have to approach the Licensee for providing access on its platform for their channels and then the Licensee is required to do so on a nondiscriminatory basis.”

This is exactly what senior counsel for TataSky, Ramji Srinivas, had stressed in the last phase of his arguments.

“This clause also does not say that a Licensee must carry all the channels of a particular content provider. Therefore, we are unable to see how an argument that a Licensee must carry all the channels of a broadcaster can be, advanced on the basis of the provision contained in clause 7.6 of the Licence,” the court said.

“Further, it must be noted that the interpretation suggested by the learned counsel for the respondent in clause 7.6 of the Licence is totally irrational because it overlooks the fact that it will choke the DTH operator if it has to carry all the channels of every broadcaster.

“A DTH operator naturally will provide access to every broadcaster because every broadcaster is supposed to have some popular channels which a DTH operator is likely to include on its platform.

“If a DTH operator has to take all the channels of every broadcaster, it may not be physically possible to do so. Moreover, if every channel has to be taken it means that it will have to be paid for.

“This will increase the cost for the DTH operator. Ultimately, the cost will get passed on to the consumer. If DTH becomes expensive, consumers will keep away from it. It will not be able to compete with CAS or cable. Thus, such an interpretation of clause 7.6 may be anti consumer,” the court observed.

While these are the issues that will impact the entire DTH industry and its relations with the broadcasters, the specifics of the TataSky versus Zee Turner case, which centred around the latter insisting that TataSky was obliged to take all its 32 channels, the court ruled in favour of the latter.

“… during the course of hearing we repeatedly asked the counsel appearing for respondents, if there is any documentary evidence to show that Zee Turner had offered 32 channels comprising five bouquets to the petitioner at any time before the TDSAT judgment dated 14th July, 2006 in Petition No.136 (C ) of 2006 ASC Enterprises Ltd. vs. Star India Private Ltd..

“The learned counsel was frank enough to state that there was none,” the court stated after review of all relevant letters and Emails exchanged between the parties over the period of dispute.

“The parties have placed before us a bulky record but there is nothing therein which supports this argument being advanced by counsel for respondents that Zee Turner was offering 32 channels to the petitioner during negotiations prior to the judgment of this Tribunal dated 14th July, 2006.

“There is complete silence as to when 19 channels of respondent 1 became 32. It appears that respondents got wiser after the TDSAT judgment, believing that on its basis the DTH operator could be asked to take all the channels which the broadcaster had to offer.

“Reason for us to think so is that in the short reply filed in these proceedings on 24th July, 2006, the respondent 1 for the first time stated that it was authorized to provide signals of 32 channels at a rate of Rs 149.85 excluding taxes.

“The sequence of events clearly shows that after the said judgment of this Tribunal of 14 July 2006 the respondents for the first time started saying that they were authorized for 32 channels as they wanted to thrust all the 32 channels on the petitioner,” the court stated.

The court finally ruled: “As a result of the above discussion, this petition is allowed and we direct the respondents to provide signals for 19 channels forming part of bouquets 1 and 2 of respondent 1 to petitioner.

“We further direct respondent 1 to provide these signals to the petitioner on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms which should include charges at 50 per cent of the declared list price of respondent 1 for these 19 channels.

“We also declare that respondents have defaulted in providing signals to the petitioner on nondiscriminatory basis.”

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority (Trai), is now preparing for the “big one”: extension of Cas in the rest of the areas of the three metros.

As things stand, it seems most likely to come some time this year, and yet, nothing has been done on implementing Quality of Service so far, indiantelevision.com has been told.

“We will need several meetings with stakeholders for this,” says a Trai official. The first meeting is to be held in the capital on 5 April, but the process will continue, he says.

The official explains why: “Under Cas as it stands, the universe is just about 15 lakh (1.5 million) HHs or so, but if it is extended it will go up to 80 lakh (8 million) HHs or above, and we would need to know if the MSOs are in a position to support this rate of growth. It will not be possible for us to come to a clear picture in just one meeting.”

It is only after the process is complete that Trai would recommend to the government if mandatory Cas should be unfurled at one go, or in phases.

Trai seems happy with the fact that the MSOs are feeding it with daily reports of inputs being made from Cas consumer choice forms into the database. The regulator has, however, not yet accessed any information regarding which are the channels being chosen more often by consumers.

“At the moment, MSOs are giving us daily reports on how many customer choices are being fed into the computer on a daily basis.”

Meanwhile, it is known the some MSOs have given qualitative data on customer choice to the broadcasters, but Trai has not asked for them, and hence is still unaware of what sort of trends the data is throwing up.

There have been several indications from MSOs that the data is startling and demolishes claims by many channels that they are on top. However, MSOs are keeping the data close to their chests.

But, says the official, “We shall need that data for the mid-year review, sometime in June, and we shall ask MSOs for that.”

Surprisingly, the official says that nothing has been done on on the critical issue of implementing Quality of Service norms.

“The quality of service cannot be implemented unless all the data is fed into the computer. At the moment, you are a name in a form, and when the data is entered, you become a number.

“Only then will it be possible for you to call up a BPO and, using your number, file a complaint. This data will be available with us only then, and without that quality of service cannot be implemented

“This is taking time, not so much because the MSOs are not working, but because customers are still taking a lot of time to indicate their choices,” the official explains.

The latest data that he has provided shows that the gap between the number of forms filled and the data entered by MSOs has narrowed, but the gap between the number of boxes seeded and number of customers who have filled the forms is wider.

This is a familial issue, he holds, with most families with single TV sets finding it difficult to come to a consensus on channel choice, and hence delaying filling and returning the forms.

“The MSOs have told me, however, that this exercise will be over by the first or second week of April,” he says.

NO EXCLUSIVE CONTENT FOR DTH REAFFIRMED

The official, on another significant issue, denied that Trai has said anything on exclusive content being considered for DTH players.

“We have not said anything to any newspaper excepting what is there in the DTH Consultation paper,” the Trai official has said.

The Trai position has always been that channels would have to be provided on a nondiscriminatory manner, so there would be no question of exclusivity.

A curious position exists, however, on the issue of tariff regulation for DTH players, which was pointed out to the official.

In an interim order by TDSAT involving a DTH player, the court has said that Trai should take the issue up. The counsel for the DTH player has twice in the recent past told the court to implement that interim order.

Asked to comment on this, the official expressed surprise and said he was not aware of this.

On the issue of Must Provide (all channels of a broadcaster), as against Must Carry (of such channels by a DTH player), Trai had filed an affidavit before TDSAT saying that it has never imposed a Must Carry provision on the DTH operators, but only a Must Provide of all channels of a broadcaster.

Zee Turner, in the same case with TataSky, has placed on the table of TDSAT documents of Trai itself which they said shows Trai has issued a Must Carry obligation on the DTH players. However, the case is now reserved for pronouncement or judgment and the Trai official would not comment on that.

MUMBAI: UTV is using Hewlett-Packard (HP) to build a robust and reliable IT infrastructure. Under the terms of the contract, HP will implement an Infrastructure that includes virtualized storage solutions, HP blade servers, workstations, ProCurve and services. This infrastructure will aid UTV to cater to the demands of the Indian animation genre – both films and television programming.

Says UTV animation business development VP Jyotirmoy Saha, “With the growing demand for our services and our increasing market share in the Indian animation space, there was a clear need to ramp up our backend infrastructure to support our growth. HP helped create a highly robust and reliable IT infrastructure that could address the performance requirements of demanding animation applications. With HP, we now have a unified solution and support from a single vendor.”

Adds HP India director enterprise servers and storage Hemant Tiwari, “Our technology will help build an infrastructure that is highly scalable to meet the rapid growth at UTV. This collaboration further showcases HP’s domain expertise in providing customized solutions to the growing animation and media industry in the country with its powerful end-to-end solutions”.

MUMBAI: The listing of Dish TV, Zee Group‘s demerged direct-to-home (DTH) business, is being delayed as the company is awaiting certain regulatory approvals.

Zee chairman Subhash Chandra had earlier said in an analyst meet that Dish TV would get listed either on 26th or 28th March.

The board of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) has approved an extension by two months up to 31 May for implementation of the Scheme of Arrangement (for Demerger of Direct Consumer Services Business Undertaking of the company in favor of Dish TV India Ltd). Zeel, which had the assets of Dish TV, has already started trading as a demerged standalone entity.

“The approval for extension has been done “in view of the delay in the process of allotment and listing of shares of Dish TV (formerly ASC Enterprises Ltd) due to non-receipt of certain regulatory approvals. The process is expected to be completed by mid-April,” Zeel said.

Dish TV is planning to pump in Rs 10 billion over the next two-and-a-half years through a mix of debt and equity. The company is looking at a 30-40 per cent debt component and is in talks to get in an equity investor.

MUMBAI: Excel Home Videos in association with Twentieth Century Fox are releasing movies that are compatible with gaming consoles. Says MN Kapasi, managing director, Excel Home Videos, “The initiative focuses on the ongoing convergence of various Media and enriching the Cinema experience for our viewers since it can be viewed in transit”

The movies are available on UMD (Universal Media Disc) and can be viewed on Play Station Portable gaming console. The movies that have been initially released on the format include Alien, Alien Vs. Predator, Aliens, Day After Tomorrow, Garfield: The Movie, I – Robot, Ice Age, Independence Day , Mr And Mrs Smith, Phone Booth, Speed, Here‘s Something About Mary, Transporter, The X-Men (1 & 2).