Category: Software

MUMBAI: Today 14 February 2007 US broadcaster ABC.com is giving Lost fans a Valentines Day surprise with the first installment of four video back stories (Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Locke).

Created to provide new viewers insight into the lives of the series characters and to give fans an opportunity to see characters back stories in chronological order, each video combines scenes from previously aired episodes. Every Wednesday four back story segments will debut on ABC.com until the end of the season.

Fans need to go to ABC.com for this seasons previously aired episodes on its broadband video player. ABC.com has also added several new features on its Lost site, including a new video podcast with executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, which offers a special sneak peek at extra content from the series Season Three DVD, to be released later this year.

Additionally, visitors to ABC.com will find a new feature called Writers Rotation that showcases music and listening selections of members of the Lost production team, plus an updated version of Lost and Found. This highlights not-to-be-missed moments in upcoming episodes, as well as excerpts from the official Lost magazine, updated games, photos and video clips.

MUMBAI: WorldSpace Satellite Radio is looking to provide subscribers with a personalised listening experience throughout this month.

It kicked off ‘Honors Week‘ with its own inaugural satellite radio awards show, Worldspace Honours, on 12 February 2007 live from Studio 2 at Abbey Road, the legendary recording studio of The Beatles.

WorldSpace Honours is the first satellite radio award show to recognise music and artistic contribution by artists from more than 20 musical genres represented on WorldSpace channels ranging from Up Country to Jhankaar and The System to Shruti. The honorees will be chosen by WorldSpace’s executive selection committee made up of programming staff from each of the 20 channels represented.

WorldSpace Satellite Radio VP global programming William Sabatini says, “WorldSpace Honours presents a completely new format for satellite music awards and was created to reflect the diversity of our music programming, the expertise of our staff, and the broad range of preferences of our subscribers. We are also thrilled to be announcing our choices for the WorldSpace Honours, live from the prestigious Abbey Road Studios.”

WorldSpace VP content marketing Ted Kelly, and WorldSpace india director of network programming Velu Shankar will host the awards show and will announce this year’s 23 honourees. Specialty programming is being created by the company to showcase each artist and will include interviews, career highlights, background information and their music.

Subscribers can listen throughout the day for all honourees and can tune in to their favorite WorldSpace Satellite Radio channel from 16-19 February 2007, when each honouree’s works will be showcased throughout the weekend.

“Honours Week” will also feature the second annual “UPop @ Abbey Road Sessions” which has officially kicked off with the Honours Award Show on 12 February 2007 and run through 15 February. The sessions feature four days of performances and recording sessions from some of yesterday’s and today’s stars, live from Abbey Road Studio 2. Additionally, WorldSpace will again host the global broadcast of Europe’s biggest music event—the Brit Awards—on Feb. 14. The live broadcast will feature backstage and red carpet interviews, celebrity appearances and performances by more than a dozen superstars.

Channels that will air music of the honourees include including Maestro, Riff, Potion, Radio Voyeger, Spin, Surabhi, Ghandharv, Jhankaar, Spandana and Moksha.

MUMBAI: US video game developers Slitherine Software and Black Bean Games have partnered with US broadcaster The History Channel to deliver a gaming experience, The Hustory Channel Great Battles of Rome.

Combining gameplay, historical footage and battle simulation, the product allows players to fully immerse themselves into history as never before. The game will begin to roll out worldwide in the second quarter of this year.

Merging action and strategy in a setting that replicates the atmosphere of the period, the game allows players to take control of a series of campaigns against Barbarian hordes, while carving out the Roman Empire.

Over 100 battles are available for play including the Punic and Samnite Wars, and Julius Caesar’s conquest of Britain. Players can customize and control massive armies with an array of soldiers including legionaries, archers, cavalry and even mighty war-elephants. The game delivers battle realism in various environments, including steppe, forest, desert and coastline, with both day and night lighting.

Players can also choose to either plan their own battle tactics by selecting an army to suit a gameplay situation, or they can leave strategy decisions to the AI, freeing them to be involved in nothing but action.

The game also features 3D special effects and instant control response.

In addition, 30 programme clips from the archives of The History Channel have been specially blended and narrated to match the game and guide the player through the greatest story of all time.

Black Bean marketing head Marco Minoli says, “We are proud of this collaboration between The History Channel, Slitherine and Black Bean enabling us to publish a licensed video game with excellent graphics and realism. The endorsement of such a prestigious brand, reinforces and confirms Black Bean’s global credentials as one of the most innovative and respected publishing houses in the business.”

Slitherine‘s Iain McNeil says, “We have been working with The History Channel and our partner Black Bean to bring the highest quality and exciting historical video games to our audience. Our relationship with The History Channel has enabled us to use material from their archives that we could only dream about. This builds on our previous range of historical strategy games and brings a new dimension to the genre”

The History Channel director licensing Carrie Trimmer says, “We are very pleased to be working with Slitherine and Black Bean on the development of The History Channel Great Battles of Rome, the first international console game to be released under our brand. The History Channel is always looking for ways to make history experiential for our viewers, and by giving them the power to build their own armies and plot battle strategy, this game truly allows players to be a part of the building of the Roman Empire.”

MUMBAI: US media research firm Nielsen is consolidating its initiatives involving digital television set top box data into a new service offering named Nielsen DigitalPlus.

Nielsen DigitalPlus will work with set top box (STB) data from cable system operators (MSOs) and satellite providers to create new insights and services for clients by integrating set top box data with other Nielsen information.

Nielsen DigitalPlus will draw upon the resources and information assets of numerous Nielsen businesses including: the television measurement services of Nielsen Media Research, commercial activity data from Nielsen Monitor Plus, retail and scanning information from A.C. Nielsen, as well as the modeling and forecasting capabilities of Claritas, Spectra and BASES.

Initially, Nielsen DigitalPlus will focus on several high-potential client initiatives:

– Exploring how set top box data can contribute to Nielsen‘s Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement (A2/M2) goal of bringing electronic measurement to all local television markets

– Providing measurement of advanced advertising applications such as interactive, targeted advertising

– Bringing insights on advertising effectiveness through granular reporting of commercial activity

– Providing analytics to support MSO Customer Relationship Management (CRM) by combining television viewing data with other data sets to provide new insights to MSOs and satellite providers about their subscribers‘ activity.

Nielsen DigitalPlus senhior VP Jed Meyer says, “With our wide array of media and marketing information services, expertise in advanced technology, and experience working with large volumes of data, Nielsen is uniquely positioned to help clients unlock the potential of set top box data.

“As the industry begins to analyze and use the vast amount of information available through these devices, Nielsen will work with clients to develop comprehensive solutions to this new frontier of measurement. We are intensely focused on using all our resources to succeed at this challenge.”

Nielsen DigitalPlus will build on Nielsen‘s long history of set top box data projects going back to Warner Amex‘s QUBE system in the 1980s. More recently Nielsen has worked with Comcast to process and develop insights from their Video On Demand server data. Nielsen also worked with Tivo to establish a joint panel of TiVo subscribers whose set top box data Nielsen processed on a daily basis. Nielsen is currently working on research projects with several MSOs and satellite providers to study set top box data for potential analytical and audience measurement purposes.

MUMBAI: Availability of set-top boxes (STBs) is one of the key concerns for the successful roll out of conditional access system, speakers at a workshop on “Cas and Digital CATV” said here today.

Cable operators should not only look at the price of the boxes but also the quality of features it offers as there is revenue to be earned from the consumers. “While what is being pushed now in India is basic boxes, there is need also to go in for middleware that enables enhanced facilities. The important question to be asked is what the boxes can do. Cable operators will be able to, after all, earn revenues from features like video-on-demand and gaming,” said Technosat managing director Irshad M Contractor.

The Dubai-based company is prepared to set up a manufacturing facility in India if the demand for STBs pick up. Technosat has boxes ranging from basic to premium features on MPEG-2 and is currently conducting trials on MPEG-4.

Though multi-system operators (MSOs) are currently importing boxes, several manufacturers in India are keen to come up with local production facilities. “We are introducing 4-5 flavours of STBs that are fully developed in India. The boxes will have personal video recorder (PVR) and digital video recorder (DVR). We are integrating the encryption system with Conax. We are also in talks with other Cas technology providers,” said Surbhi Broadband general manager sales P C Mishra.

The two-day workshop, which concluded today, was organised by Satellite & Cable TV (SCaT) magazine and attracted over 250 delegates. The focus was on facilitating cable operators to make the transition from analogue to digital cable. The issues covered ranged from digital headends to billing solutions for Cas.

Speaking on digital headends for simulcasting digital video broadcasting – cable (DVB-C), Peter Batt of Teleste said there was need to offer on demand TV and other value-added services. The third generation headends improved footprint and power consumption while offering unicast/multicast video services and triple play. But the fourth generation IP-centric headend for DVB-C and IPTV combined everything and offered “ultimate flexibility.”

Earlier SCaT editor and executive director Dinyar Contractor said Headend-In-The-Sky (HITS) would mean rapid digital and Cas roll out as it would reach out to the smallest and far flung last mile operators (LMOs). Even as Cas made it unviable for LMOs to set up a digital Cas headend and offer a large pay bouquet, HITS offered several advantages to them.

“The transmodulator cost is as low as Rs 2000 per channel and the LMOs can assemble their own, local basic tier. It is economically attractive if the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) permits nationwide Cas,” he said.

SCaT chairman Sudeep Malhotra spoke on uplink and downlink policies, elaborating on the regulatory framework prescribed for the different genres of channels such as news and sports. “There are 164 Indian channels licensed to be uplinked from India. The channels that are registered and allowed to be downlinked into India amount to a total of 54 channels,” he said.

MUMBAI: It is the ‘Big Fat Asian wedding‘ and if the British Telecommunications (BT) survey is anything to go by the wedding industry is just about to get richer.

British Telecommunications has launched its calling card packages in South Asian countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh recently.Many of its survey findings have helped understand the telecom giant‘s South Asian clientele better. For many young British Asians, large-scale weddings cost more than 30,000 pounds according to the biggest annual survey into British Asian relationships and weddings.

The survey results compiled by BT Together International have been released in conjunction with the Asian Wedding Exhibition 2007 from a poll of over 1,000 Hindu, Muslim and Sikh men and women. The survey shows that on an average over 300 guests are invited for 72 percent of the Asian weddings. Between 10 to 20 per cent of these invited guests live overseas. It is information of this nature that has helped BT Together International zero in on new cheap calls package to South Asia.

Some other findings by the survey revealed a contrast between the Asian community‘s more traditional values towards romance compared to the general British population. The nationwide average age for marriage is 31 years for men and 29 years for women yet not a single Asian respondent thought it was ideal for a woman to marry in her thirties.Only 56 per cent of Asians would cohabit with their partner before getting married and almost two-thirds (64 per cent) said they would live with their in-laws after tying the knot. Attitudes on living with a partner outside of marriage also differed significantly from the national average.

MUMBAI: Eros International, an integrated media and entertainment Company,announced that tracks from its recent Bollywood music albums- Omkara, I See You, Kudiyon Ka Hain Zamana and Namastey London will now be available for download on Apple‘s iTunes on a worldwide basis and on Real Network‘s Rhapsody for North America.

Eros International Plc chairman & CEO Kishore Lulla said, “This is a significant milestone as far as our new media distribution is concerned. We remain focused on identifying and securing strategic distribution partners to showcase our Bollywood content to a wider audience.”

He further added, “The Mauj Telecom deal for mobile content license announced this January and now the iTunes and Real Rhapsody deals make our recent move into music publishing all the more exciting. We remain positive about the opportunities presented by new media in this digital era.”The original sound tracks from Eros‘s forthcoming film Eklavya, a Vinod Chopra Films Production, releasing in cinemas on February 16 will also be available for download.Eros launched the Bollywood video on demand services with cable giants Comcast and Rogers cable and has online movie download services with Movielink and RTL.

MUMBAI: Thomson, through its Technicolor Content Services business, has announced it is expanding its entertainment services capabilities with a strategic investment in Bangalore based Paprikaas Animation Studios, an animation and game content provider.

This transaction further strengthens Thomson‘s commitment globally and in India to expand its service offerings in the feature film, television animation and video game industries.

The addition of Paprikaas‘ creative, technical and computer animation work will give Technicolor added capabilities and resources to capture the growing industry demand for high end 3-D digital animation for feature films, television animation, commercial advertising and video games and provide Thomson with a leading position in the rapidly expanding Indian entertainment industry, informs an official release.

“Technicolor Content Services has been looking to capture a larger share of the growing market trend toward outsourcing in theatrical, broadcast, commercial advertising, animation and video game segments,” said Technicolor Content Services president Ahmad Ouri. “Paprikaas has proven that their animation and game content creation work consistently meets our high standards, enabling us to further expand our capabilities and global reach, while also achieving cost efficiencies.”

MUMBAI: Rainbow Media has announced several new sales for its Women‘s Entertainment (WE tv) programming.

London-based iD Distribution will take WE tv content into Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, The Netherlands, Australia and Brazil. In 2006, WE tv series were sold to the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Turkey, Finland, Korea, the Middle East and New Zealand.

Series planned around weddings like Platinum Weddings , Making Love Happen with Lou Paget, Katrina Weddings: A Second Chance, I Can‘t Believe I Wore That and Bride vs. Bride has the most takers with Wedding TV buying a number of these series.

New international sales were also announced for the ULTRA HD production Style Me With Rachel Hunter, which airs on Rainbow‘s WE tv. Style Me was sold to Club Channel (Poland/Hungary), Kino Channel (Ukraine), Living (New Zealand) and Globosat (Brazil). In this reality-based show, 12 contestants vie for $10,000 in cash and the chance to be the next top celebrity stylist for series host Rachel Hunter.

MUMBAI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) feels Cas (conditional access system) should roll out voluntarily rather than be mandated in other parts of the country.

“We may think of mandatory Cas for the larger metros but in other parts of the country it may not be the best way forward. We haven‘t, though, made up our mind on this. We have constituted a small group representing all the stakeholders to suggest on how to take voluntary Cas forward. We realise that Cas has gained momentum and wouldn‘t like to miss on that opportunity,” said Trai advisor M C Chaube while speaking at a workshop on “Cas and Digital CATV,” organised by Satellite & Cable TV (SCaT) magazine in Mumbai.

With some cable operators continuing to transmit unencrypted signals in the Cas areas, the broadcast and cable sector regulator intends to come down heavily on them.

“We are aware that there are still slippages and there are complaints that encryption have not taken place in some areas. We are going to take action against this as it is at the core of Cas,” said Chaube.

Reacting to a suggestion from the three multi-system operators (Wire & Wireless India Ltd, Hathway Cable & Datacom and Incablenet) that Cas should be opened up to the other areas of Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata by April, Chaube said the process needed a certain run-up time. “Cas is not just about three MSOs. The smaller MSOs should be given time to prepare for laying out the digital infrastructure. Consolidation is bound to happen as digitalisation requires deep pockets, but as a regulator we shouldn‘t have such a time frame in mind that makes it difficult for the smaller MSOs,” he added.

Trai would relook at such areas like pricing and a la carte issues in the middle of this year. “We are going to revisit at some of these decisions and take a call whether appropriate adjustments are needed. We would be examining such issues as similar pricing for all genres of channels, a la carte offerings and Rs 77 on free-to-air (FTA) channels,” Chaube said.

The seeding of set-top boxes (STBs) would touch 500000 in a week‘s time out of an estimated cable and satellite home of 1.2 million in the Cas belt. “The average penetration would be 40 per cent. Kolkata is seeing slow offtake because regional channels are popular and they are in FTA mode. Our aim is not to see that boxes are sold but to offer consumers choice through Cas,” Chaube clarified. The penetration percentage though will be clearer when figures are available on the number of homes that have more than one TV sets.

The next stage of progress would be when consumer forms return to the MSOs and they are fed into the subscriber management system (SMS).

In case of voluntary Cas, the crucial element was for the broadcasters and MSOs to enter into commercial agreements, he added.

In a panel discussion, WWIL MD Jagjit Kohli pointed out that Trai should come out with some regulatory framework to facilitate voluntary Cas and Headend-In-The-Sky (HITS). “Broadcasters may not support voluntary Cas. So it would be essential for Trai to define some rules as the momentum for digitalisation should not be lost,” he added.

Hathway Cable & Datacom MD and CEO K Jayaraman pointed out that cable operators in non Cas areas should be ready to adopt digitalisation which has grown much faster in India than what was being initially preicted.

Incablenet head Ravi Mansukhani said the seeding process has been successful and the next step for MSOs would be to stop free access of pay channels in phases.