Category: Software

MUMBAI: Cellcast Interactive India Pvt. Ltd., a global interactive digital broadcaster, has claimed that its TV show, Bid2Win launched earlier this month, collected over a million bids in its opening week.

The show is broadcast every evening on Sony, Sahara One, Zoom and Zee Punjabi by using an interactive reverse auction system, Bid2Win. It enables viewers to purchase high-value items such as LCD TVs, iPods, home theatre systems, digital cameras and laptops, at a nominal amount by submitting the lowest unique bid via SMS and IVR.

An official release suggests that, such the show has helped open up the market for premium mobile services in India, thus, Cellcast‘s popular format has subsequently been launched in many markets across the Middle East and China.

Commenting on the successful launch of the show in India, Cellcast plc CEO Andrew Wilson says, “Until now, the market for live interactive programming, which has been so successful in other parts of the world, has been constrained in India by extremely low tariffs. With Bid2Win, Cellcast has shown that subscribers are willing to pay for premium mobile services, particularly if they have a strong TV tie-in. With the world‘s fastest growing mobile subscriber base and a vibrant multi-platform television industry, India is now ready for the full range of interactive products that Cellcast has proven in other markets.”

Capitalising on its success in India, Cellcast plans to roll-out Bid2Win to other Indian television networks across the globe over the next three months. “Broadcasters can now expand their content offerings to the Indian diaspora beyond the current staple of movies, drama and music and enjoy new revenue streams at the same time,” added Wilson.

Commenting on future growth potential, Cellcast Interactive India CEO Pankaj Thakar says, “We have an exciting range of new products and shows which we expect to launch in India over the next six months. These include Golden Goal, a virtual soccer show to be aired during World Cup; a new virtual cricket show Beat Them All; an interactive astrology show, Interactive Astro; an exciting game similar to Tambola, Go Bingo; the numbers quiz Qeno; a celebrity-based quiz show, The Challenge; an interactive shopping show, Shop-o-holic; an interactive show based on Bollywood, Bollywood Dhamaka and Insomnia, the interactive gameshow enjoying international success.”

NEW DELHI: India’s first direct-to-home service Dish TV today issued an ultimatum to cable operators filching its signals.

In a rear guard action against piracy, a massive operation has been announced to crackdown on pirating cable operators who are using the Dish’s set-top boxes as a medium to illegally distribute TV channels (some of which are exclusively on the DTH platform) to the cable consumers.

According to Essel Group of Indistries additional vice-chairman Jawahar Goel, “It is important to send out the message that product counterfeiting will not be tolerated as it has an extremely detrimental effect on the whole fraternity, including content creators, broadcasters, and the government.”

ASC Enterprises, an Essel Group company, holds the licence for a DTH service in the country, which is marketed under the brand name Dish TV.

According to an official statement from Dish TV, a local cable operator in Saharanpur district in Uttar Pradesh was caught by the police, along with Dish’s anti-piracy team, on Saturday for illegally showing ESPN and Star Sports through a Dish TV box when he did not have an agreement with ESS to re-distribute the sports channels.

The police has seized the errant cable operator’s infrastructure and the chip of Dish TV, which gives access to the DTH service.

Commenting on the development, Goel added, “We expect support from broadcasting and the film industry as well to take up this effort to curb piracy, which is to the tune of over 10 billion annually.”

The official statement said that of the 1.1 million subscribers of Dish TV, about 5,000 have been found to be allegedly indulging in piracy of signals. While their connections have been switched off, legal action too has been initiated against them.

MUMBAI: Doordarshan will launch its Digital Video Broadcasting to Handhelds (DVB-H) service in the second half of 2006. The technology will help the consumer to access video clips on mobile phones.

“With this technology, we will be able to make available the content of our four national channels on mobiles. Earlier, we had made available DD News in moving vehicles in Delhi through the Digital Video Broadcasting to terrestrials (DVB-T) earlier. Now with the DVB-H technology, we are entering the mobile space,” says Doordarshan director general Navin Kumar.

In another initiative to explore advanced technology, DD will digitize its archive and make it available to the public as streaming videos. The content will be available to consumers on a per view basis.

“Our effort is to share this content with people through CDs and streaming videos. In streaming mode, people will be able to watch the programmes in real time basis,” says Kumar, adding that discussions are presently on with various telecom service providers in this direction.

MUMBAI: Millicom, the Luxembourg-headquartered mobile phone network operator controlled by Sweden‘s Kinnevik Investment AB, has said that it is in advanced discussions for finding a purchaser.

“We are in advanced discussions and due diligence with a potential purchaser of the entire share capital of the company,‘‘ the company said in a statement, adding that no agreement has been reached.

However, media reports name the Hong Kong-based China Mobile Communications Corp. as the company which is about to clinch the deal. According to Wall Street Journal , the company may pay $5.3 billion, or $48 a share, in cash to buy Millicom. Reportedly, China Mobile became the lead bidder for Millicom after Dubai-based Investcom agreed to a takeover by South Africa‘s MTN.

Millicom‘s competitors include Vodafone Group Plc and Norway‘s Telenor ASA. At the end of March 2006, Millicom registered 9.9 million subscribers in 16 countries across Asia, Africa and the Americas, recording an increase of 52 per cent from a year earlier.

BANGALORE: mFormation Technologies Inc, the provider of mobile device management solutions, has announced the opening of its new facility in Bangalore which will also serve as the company‘s headquarters.

It will be one of mFormation‘s three main hubs for product development and will provide professional services and support for customers across the globe.

The Bangalore office has also setup a global Interoperability test centre and enabled device vendors to test their devices against the mFormation product for OMA standards compliance. mFormation is on course to grow the India team to 200 people over the next few years. Moving into the new facility is part of mFormation‘s growth strategy to expand it‘s human capital to meet growing global customer demands, states an official release.

mFormation Technologies Inc. CEO Mark Edwards says, “Mobile communication devices and networks are no longer exclusive for simple voice calls. They have grown from e-mailing & gaming to become a full fledged corporate computing device. It‘s imperative for mobile operators to adopt cutting edge technology to streamline their data services strategy and secure incremental revenues.”

mFormation has drawn in a total investment of about $50 million, after closing a Series D round of $24.5 million in April 2006. In the initial series D funding, the company had raised $15.3 million from the same investors. Existing investors Alex Brown Venture Partners, Battery Ventures, Carmel Ventures, Intel Capital and North Bridge Venture Partners participated in this financing, adds the release.

mFormation Technologies Inc. is a provider of mobile device management software, offering a solution that enables mobile operators to rapidly accelerate their data revenues and reduce support costs. mFormation‘s market-leading mFormation Sevice Manager Suite is a comprehensive over-the-air device management software solution in the industry.A modular solution, the suite enables mobile operators to remotely configure settings and new services, diagnose faults, update firmware and software, monitor customer experience and secure device content throughout the subscriber lifecycle.

MUMBAI: Digital Cinema Show 2006, organised by Saicom Trade Fairs & Exhibitions got underway in Mumbai today. The three day trade show is packaged with an exhibition, conferences and film screenings.

This year‘s conference topics range from the Cost effectiveness of digital cinema to Animation for digital cinema. Panel discussions and analyses on topics such as Digital Intermediate Film Production, Releasing digital films through satellites, Creating storage for digital cinema at reasonable cost, Digital films from script to screen, Distribution and Exhibition of digital movies and Digital cinema technology from production to post production also feature the three-day line up.

The show as well as the conference has exhibits and speakers from around the world and India. The sponsors for this year‘s event include JVC and Panasonic of Japan, Quantel and Western Digital of UK, Digital Film Systems of Ireland and AGIV India.

The exhibitors in the trade show include ADI Media, Mhatre Electronics, Quantel Ltd, Screen World Publication, Yasuka Corporation, The FX Factory, Studio Assist and Western Digital.

MUMBAI: Digital cinema is about to take off in India with major players like Anil Ambani-controlled Adlabs Films and Subhash Chandra‘s E-City chalking out rollout plans, speakers at a seminar in Mumbai said.

There are around 400 theatres who have installed digital systems and many more are in the pipeline. But the model being followed so far is low-cost digital cinema or “e-cinema” in contrast to the 1200 installations of “d-cinema” (top quality) made across the world.

“E-cinema is going to be the larger play in India because of its low-cost model. There is no proper initiative of d-cinema with just two installations so far,” Texas Instruments India business development manager of DLP Products S Ganesh said while speaking at the sixth exhibition of Cinema India 2006.

Though digital cinema is yet to catch on, this year will see growth from the US which had 600 installations till 31 March 2006. “D-cinema installations are expected to touch 2500 in FY07 with US seeing close to 1800 screens,” said Ganesh.

Mumbai-based UFO Moviez, a service provider, services 300 theatres in B and C centres. Though it also uses hard disk mode of distribution, the main format to download movies is through satellite delivery. “Digital cinema was a dormant market that was not addressed. Digital delivery of movies has made it possible for B and C centre theatres to have first day releases of big movies. This has meant more audiences and revenues for them,” said Valuable Media Pvt Ltd chief technical officer Sanjay Chavan.

There are three modes of digital delivery of movies. At the low end is the hard drive model which is loaded into the server in the theatre. Big telecom players like Reliance Infocomm can use their fibre optic backbone to deliver content. The most cost-effective model is the satellite distribution system but it would require more bandwidth.

“Interoperability and playability across the service providers need to be tackled. We provide solutions which can interchange packages with Dolby and Kodak among others,” said real Image Media Technologies director Senthil Kumar.

Real Image, which recently received funding from Intel Capital, serves 70 cinema theatres in Tamil Nadu. The Chennai-based company has also sold servers to theatres in the US. “Digital cinema enables democracy in filmmaking and can beat back video pirates. Only a complete end-to-end digital solutions can completely prevent piracy,” says Senthil.

There is a big task at hand if digital cinema has to be a major force as India has converted only 400 out of a total of 8,000 theatres. While there are 110,000 theatres across the world, the US has 35,000 screens.

MUMBAI: As the second direct-to-home player Tata Sky gears for launch, the Telecom Disputes Redressal and Settlement Tribunal (TDSAT), in an interim order passed today, has ruled that Star channels will not be made available to any other DTH platform.

The development took place as Star India gave an undertaking in this regard to the disputes tribunal, which posted the case for hearing on 3 July on a petition filed by the Subhash Chandra-owned Dish TV.

If this order is interpreted in another way, it could also mean that Tata Sky would not be able to launch before 3 July and if it does so, it would have to do without the Star channels. Its test signals for the service also would not carry any Star channels till 3 July.

Contacted by Indiantelevision.com, a Tata Sky spokesperson refused comment saying they had not received any notification from the tribunal on the matter. Star officials also declined to comment.

The Chandra-promoted ASC Enterprises, which owns a DTH licence to operate a service under Dish TV brand, had moved TDSAT on 25 April alleging that Star was flouting the sector regulator‘s (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India – Trai) diktat on making available all content to all platforms on flimsy grounds.

The ASC petition states, “The unreasonableness on the part of the respondent is evident from the fact that the respondent has laid down impracticable and unreasonable terms and conditions for supply of its bouquet of channels.”

The petition also mentions that discussions with Star were initiated by Dish TV in December 2004. Star is 20 per cent shareholder in Tata Sky, while the remaining stake is held by the Tatas.

Meanwhile, Dish TV’s negotiations with Discovery-Sony joint venture One Alliance, which distributes signals of channels such as Sony, MTV, Nick, SET Max, Discovery to name a few, too, has not been concluded despite industry sources indicating that a formal announcement was due any time.

Dish TV has also won a favourable judgement from TDSAT that has directed MTV Networks to make available MTV and Nick to Dish TV on a commercial basis. MTV has appealed against this order in the Supreme Court.

Also Read:
Dish moves TDSAT against Star

Dish TV appeals to govt against MTV, Nick

Tdsat rules in favour of Dish TV; MTV has one month to get onto DTH platform

MUMBAI: Qualcomm Incorporated, a developer and innovator of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and other advanced wireless technologies, today announced its single-chip Universal Broadcast Modem (UBM) solution supporting three of the world‘s leading mobile broadcast standards.

The UBM solution unifies the world‘s leading mobile TV standards into a single, cost-effective chip with support for FLO technology, as well as for Digital Video Broadcasting — Handheld (DVB-H) and one-segment Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting — Terrestrial (ISDB-T), creating a common platform that handset manufacturers can leverage to address multiple standards.

“Mobile TV on handsets is gaining momentum in the wireless industry, even as network operators continue to evaluate the various standards available. Our UBM solution addresses the industry‘s need by providing a single universal chip that supports three of the world‘s leading standards, enabling mobile handsets to receive real-time content regardless of the broadcast technology selected by operators,” said Qualcomm CDMA Technologies vice president of strategic products Mike Concannon.

The UBM solution includes support for FLO, which is part of the MediaFLO system, DVB-H, and one-segment implementations of ISDB-T to address the needs of network operators in Europe, Asia, North America and elsewhere for the deployment of mobile broadcast services. The UBM solution offers a high level of integration to deliver a single-chip FLO solution for the North American market that also includes specific enhancements necessary for deployment outside of North America.

The UBM is designed as a companion to Qualcomm‘s Mobile Station Modem (MSM) baseband chipsets, but also can be used with other products. The UBM leverages the processing power of the Enhanced Multimedia and Convergence Platforms, eliminating the need for additional dedicated application processors for more power-efficient devices with smaller form-factors.

Specific performance features of the UBM solution include:

• Support for the entire UHF bandwidth — 470 to 862 MHz;
  
• Tunable modes 5, 6, 7 and 8 MHz channel bandwidths;
  
• Support for single- and multi-frequency networks.

Designed to be compatible with both CDMA2000 and WCDMA/UMTS devices, the UBM solution is expected to sample in the first quarter of 2007.