ITV

Category: Software

  • TRAI to get another Advisor in Technical

    TRAI to get another Advisor in Technical

    NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has decided to recruit more persons who are experts in Technical.

    The regulator has advised for the post of Advisor (Technical) ‘on deputation on foreign service terms‘. According to the TRAI website, the initial deputation will be for two years.

    The work entails to the technical aspects of broadcasting – Network, spectrum and licensing division and technology development division as well.

    TRAI had been set up for the telecom sector in 1997 but was given the work of broadcasting in 2004 at the time of the introduction of the Conditional Access System.

  • TRAI to get another advisor in Broadcasting and Media

    TRAI to get another advisor in Broadcasting and Media

    NEW DELHI: Often accused of being more telecom-centric, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has decided to recruit more persons who are experts in broadcasting and media.

    The regulator has advertised for the post of Advisor (Broadcasting and Media) ‘on deputation on foreign service terms’. According to the TRAI website, the initial deputation will be for two years.

    TRAI already has one Principal Advisor,N Parameswaran, and two Advisors, Wasi Ahmed and Raj Kumar Upadhyay.

    The work entails to the non-technical aspects of broadcasting – covering general management, economic and social dimensions of all forms of the media. Economic work relating to wholesale and retail tariffs and interconnection will form part of the work of the new Advisor.

    The work will also entail specialisation in the digitisation of the media and interaction with all stakeholders.

    TRAI had been set up for the telecom sector in 1997 but was given the work of broadcasting in 2004 at the time of the introduction of the Conditional Access System.

  • Amazon is gung-ho for digital music giveaway

    Amazon is gung-ho for digital music giveaway

    MUMBAI: Online retailer Amazon has stepped up the battle for music sales by announcing it will give away digital versions when customers buy CDs and vinyl records – and they will be backdated for any past purchases.

    The free MP3 service, called AutoRip, will enable music fans to have instant access to music they have bought – several days before their purchases arrive in the post.

    The company has already lined up in excess of 350,000 albums for AutoRip with more to be added, and said there will be no knock-on effect on prices.

    Tracks will be added to their AmazonCloud Player account and can be either streamed or downloaded to devices such as iPhones, iPads, Kindles and smartphones.

    AutoRip – which gives consumers their purchases in two formats – will be seen as a new weapon in the fight for dominance in the music sector against rivals such as iTunes which specialises in only digital versions.

    The Amazon site will show whether AutoRip versions are available when consumers check out information about potential purchases, although it will not work if items were bought as gifts for other people. And it does not apply to items bought from private sellers in the Amazon Marketplace – only those bought directly from Amazon.

    Latest figures for the UK market show Amazon became the leading music retailer in 2012, accounting for 25.6 per cent of expenditure (15.3 per cent for home delivery and 10.3 per cent downloads) and taking over from troubled HMV, which had been in front the previous year.

    But iTunes is way out in front for digital sales, and represents 22.5 per cent of the entire music market – up from 17.9 per cent the previous year – according to data from Kantar Worldpanel, which is used by the British Phonographic Industry. Both companies will be keen to push up their share, particularly after HMV went into administration earlier this year and is now operating on a smaller scale after formerly being the market leader for physical sales.

    Amazon‘s AutoRip will be backdated to purchases of CDs, vinyl or cassettes since its music store was established in 1999, if a digital version is available.

  • Adobe continues digital marketing spree with $600 million Neolane acquisition

    Adobe continues digital marketing spree with $600 million Neolane acquisition

    MUMBAI: Adobe extended a multi-year acquisition spree to build its digital marketing business today with the $600 million acquisition of Neolane , a French company that helps marketers manage their marketing across channels such as the Web, social networks, mobile, and point of sale.

    The cash purchase further builds up what Adobe calls the Marketing Cloud, a set of services that help marketers manage their online advertising. Adobe, still better known for its iconic design and content creation and editing software such as PhotoShop, has made a big push in recent years to marry those products with the fast-growing area of online marketing. It bought Omniture in 2009, Day Software in 2010, Demdex and Auditude in 2011, and Efficient Frontier last year. Neolane will become Adobe‘s sixth digital marketing business unit.

    The acquisition of the 12-year-old company essentially catapults Adobe from providing strictly digital marketing services to broader marketing, even offline channels such as direct mail and call centers, John Mellor, vice president of strategy and business development for Adobe‘s digital marketing business, said in an interview. For instance, a travel firm planning a summer getaway marketing campaign wants to start sending out direct mail in February, follow up by email and perhaps create a special website all as part of one campaign. “I don‘t want to walk into a CMO‘s office and just talk about digital marketing,” says Mellor. “They don‘t think of it that way. People want to coordinate all this stuff together.”

    Brad Rencher, Adobe‘s senior vice president and general manager of digital marketing, further explained in a blog post about the acquisition:

    This is a critical addition to our complete set of analytics, targeting, social, content management and media optimisation solutions. Neolane will integrate with our solutions to empower cross-channel and highly personalised campaign management across the web, email, social, mobile, point of sale, direct mail, call center and other emerging channels.

    The combination of Adobe and Neolane will give customers richer customer profiles, greater activation of social and mobile data, better definition of highly valuable customer segments, and more sophisticated automation and execution platforms. Many customers already rely on both Adobe and Neolane and will benefit from further integration between the Adobe Marketing Cloud and Neolane‘s cross-channel capabilities.

    The company‘s revenues rose 40 per cent last year, to $58 million. Adobe said it doesn‘t expect the addition to materially affect its revenue forecast this year.

  • BBC Weather app hits a million downloads in two weeks

    BBC Weather app hits a million downloads in two weeks

    MUMBAI: The BBC Weather app for iOS and Android devices has reached the milestone of a million downloads.

    Taking just two weeks to hit the landmark figure, the application is said to have driven mobile traffic to BBC Weather up from 20 per cent to 25 per cent post-launch.The broadcaster reported a 47 per cent increase in mobile access on the weekend of the apps launch, compared to the previous weekend, and the hourly forecast feature accounted for 84 per cent of those users.

    Both the Android and iOS builds of the BBC Weather app offer many of the same features, though the former version includes the option to create a homescreen widget and NFC support.

    The BBC also revealed that the app is most commonly used between 6.00 am and 9.00 am in the morning.

  • Oliver Poppelbaum joins Havas Worldwide as MD Digital Europe

    Oliver Poppelbaum joins Havas Worldwide as MD Digital Europe

    MUMBAI: Havas Worldwide announces the appointment of Oliver Poppelbaumas as managing director Digital Europe. In his new role, starting 15 July, Poppelbaum will be responsible for digital strategy and digital new business development as well as enhancing the agency‘s current capabilities across Europe.

    “We are very happy to have Oliver Poppelbaum join us,” said Havas Worldwide Europe CEO Andreas Geyr. “With his deep digital knowledge and strong new business expertise, Oliver brings to the agency the perfect experiences and qualifications to help us continue our digital expansion strategy in Europe.”

    “Today, already 25 per cent of Havas‘s revenue stems from its digital business. My task will be to further increase this share,” Poppelbaum said. “Besides the active new business development, we will also further expand and strengthen our existing client offerings.”

    Poppelbaum previously founded ECE flatmedia GmbH, where as a general manager he developed the first comprehensive and fully digitalised network of out-of-home communication in ECE (Otto Group) shopping centers across Germany.

    Prior to that role, Poppelbaum was managing director at Scholz & Friends, where he was responsible for the entire digital business as well as serving as director of business development at the holding company Commarco. At Wunderman he was managing director and head of the customized European digital and CRM agency “Team Ford.” Poppelbaum started his career at Springer & Jacoby.

  • 4K technology shines at BroadcastAsia2013 exhibition

    4K technology shines at BroadcastAsia2013 exhibition

    MUMBAI: Ultra HD (or 4K) was the buzz word at BroadcastAsis2013. The show underlined various aspects of the entire 4K ecosystem, right from the cameras to production, and from post-production to content delivery technology.

    BroadcastAsia2013‘s first-time exhibitor Ericsson partnered with CommunicAsia2013‘s MEASAT to provide the encoders and receivers to facilitate the delivery of Ultra HD content from MEASAT‘s satellite feed- a perfect example convergence of technologies across information and communications technology (ICT) and broadcasting sectors.

    “BroadcastAsia2013 has been a successful experience for us. We had an extensive showcase of our technology solutions from acquisition to delivery of content on multiple devices. We are pleased with the quality of visitors to our booth,” informed Ericsson, Hong Kong head of TV, Asia Pacific Ward Hansford.

    The trade show also witnessed unveiling of Blackmagic Production Camera 4K and its latest 6G-SDI products that allow Ultra HD products to be integrated into current SDI based television systems. The highlight was Panasonic‘s Ultra Wide Angle camera that can showcase an entire football field at once and GoPro that showcased its latest camera HERO3 that is 30 per cent smaller and 25 per cent lighter, and twice more powerful than its predecessor and includes 4K video recording capability.

    Envivio‘s Muse live video encoder and transcoder for broadcast and multi-screen services was one among the exhibition highlights. Designed for 24X7 TV services over satellite, cable and managed and unmanaged IP networks, Muse compresses live SD or HD TV signals to any format and resolution while maintain an outstanding video quality.

    The tradeshow also witnessed worldwide launch of Space Bridge, which offers the ability to re-purpose existing Fibre Channel or SAS storage and ‘Bridge‘ it into the world of space. Grass Valley‘s latest LDX Flex studio camera system was also one of the attractions.

    “I was updated on the latest audio-visual trends and technologies, especially HD related technologies pertaining to projection and cameras, through the trade show. This exposure has left me thinking of investing in it,” revealed ETG Singapore Anthony Ng.

  • Time extended for comments on draft amendments to the Interconnection Regulations and Tariff Order

    Time extended for comments on draft amendments to the Interconnection Regulations and Tariff Order

    NEW DELHI: Stakeholders have been asked by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to file by 3 July their comments on interconnect regulations and tariff order under the digital addressable system.

    TRAI has also said no request for any further extension of time for submission of comments will be entertained.

    The “Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Interconnection (Digital Addressable Cable Television Systems) (Second Amendment) Regulations, 2013” and the draft “Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Services (Fourth) (Addressable Systems) Tariff (Second Amendment) Order 2013” seek to amend some regulations that TRAI had passed earlier in relation to tariffs and interconnect agreements in earlier years. (Earlier, TRAI had notified the Interconnection Regulations for DAS dated 30 April 2012 as amended on 14 May last year and the Tariff Order applicable for the Addressable Systems dated 21 July 2010 as amended on 30 April last year).

    The amendments it has proposed state:

    Multi system operators (MSOs) cannot seeks signals of a particular TV channel from a broadcaster under ‘must provide‘ clause while at the same time demanding carriage fee for carrying that channel on its distribution platform.

    No minimum channel carrying capacity has been prescribed for the MSOs. However, the MSOs are mandated to carry the channels of broadcasters on non-discriminatory basis under the ‘must carry‘ provision.

    The service providers of the addressable systems are allowed to price and package their offering of channels, however, they are required to comply with the modified twin conditions, as proposed in the draft amendment to the tariff order. These twin conditions are (a) the a-la-carte rate of a pay channel forming part of a bouquet shall not exceed two times the a-la carte rate of the channel offered by the broadcaster at wholesale rates for addressable systems (b) the a-la-carte rate of a pay channel forming part of a bouquet shall not exceed three times the ascribed value of the pay channel in the bouquet. The TRAI says it is doing this to ensure that the a-la-carte rates offered to the subscribers are reasonable vis-? -vis the bouquet/package rates.

    As in the case of pay channels, operators can specify a minimum subscription period, not exceeding three months, for Free-to-Air (FTA) channels subscribed on a-la-carte basis by the subscribers.

    Subscribers are free to choose channels on a-la-carte basis or bouquet/package basis or any combination of a-la-carte and bouquet/package.

    Channels, such as HD or 3D, requiring special type of set top boxes are to be offered on a-la-carte basis and if such channels are also offered as a part of a bouquet(s), corresponding to each such bouquet, the operator would be required to offer bouquet(s) excluding the HD and 3D channels, at a reduced price, commensurate to the rates of these HD and 3D channels.

    Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Interconnection (Digital Addressable Cable Television Systems) (Second Amendment) Regulations, 2013

    Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Services (Fourth) (Addressable Systems) Tariff (Second Amendment) Order 2013

  • Directive for making electronic goods comply with Indian safety requirements

    Directive for making electronic goods comply with Indian safety requirements

    NEW DELHI: Even as contradictory reports keep appearing on whether the digital set top boxes comply with Indian standards, the government today announced that its order for making several electronic items adhere to Indian safety standards will come into effect from 3 July.

    The “Electronics and Information Technology Goods (Requirements for Compulsory Registration) Order, 2012” mandates compliance to Indian Safety Standards for 15 notified categories of electronic goods. These electronic goods are STBs, Video Games, Laptop/Notebook/Tablets, Plasma/LCD/LED TVs, Optical Disc Players, Visual Display Units, Printers/Plotters, Scanners, Wireless Keyboards, Telephonic Answering Machines, Amplifiers, Electronic Musical Systems, Electronic Clocks, and Automatic Data Processing Machines and Microwave Ovens.

    Keeping in view the fact that some manufacturers and importers have yet not received registration numbers from Bureau of Indian Standards, the Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY) has put in place an interim mechanism from 22 March this year.

    According to this notification, DeitY shall provide provisional clearance to the manufacturers and importers to sell goods and to obtain registration for a period of three months beyond 3 July. A copy of this extension order is available on website www.deity.gov.in/esdm.

    The Department has accordingly put in place a system for granting provisional clearances for units which have not obtained their registration. The application forms and related documents for seeking provisional clearance are available at www.deity.gov.in/esdm. The applications have to be made to Nodal Officer (Standards – Extension), in the Department of Electronics and IT in terms of the aforesaid notification. All manufacturers and importers are requested to make their applications at the earliest to avoid any difficulty in getting their products sold in the market.

  • Global industry leaders come together at Trade Fair in Singapore

    Global industry leaders come together at Trade Fair in Singapore

    MUMBAI: Fulfilling business interactions and knowledge exchange amongst like-minded industry professionals marked CommunicAsia2013, EnterpriseIT2013 and BroadcastAsia2013, a one of its kind industry event in Asia. The four day event, starting 18 June, got global industry leaders together to showcase latest technologies and solutions for information and communications technology (ICT) and digital media industries.

    The event which was held at a uniquely spectacular venue, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore saw 51,000 attendees from 100 countries/regions. Unlike past years, CommunicAsia/ EnterpriseIT and BroadcastAsia this year was conducted under one roof. While CommunicAsia was held at basement 2 and level 1, BroadcastAsia was organised on level 3, 4 and 5. The arrangement proved advantageous to visitors as they had to only climb different levels, instead of different venues.

    This year, while CommunicAsia had 1,328 exhibitors, of which 82 per cent was from overseas, BroadcastAsia had 716 exhibitors of which the overseas exhibitors comprised 86 per cent.

    Themed ‘The Next Wave: Empowered Customer‘, CommunicAsia focused on the central information requirements and featured 8 tracks and 2 interactive workshops. The BroadCastAsia international conference was designed on the theme ‘Enhancing User Experience, Monetising Content.‘

    What marred the excellent organisation was the heavy smog, which made visibility difficult even at 100 metres.

    “The show has done extremely well this year. All the attendees, including exhibitors, conference speakers, delegates as well as members of the press, have expressed satisfaction in terms of the content of the show. For us, this is testament to our success,” said Singapore Exhibition Services (SES) Chief Executive, Stephen Tan. SES is the organiser of CommunicAsia2013, EnterpriseIT2013 and BroadcastAsia2013.

    “By holding all the shows under one roof, we could leverage the increasing convergence of technologies across both sectors, and still have each show maintain its own appeal,” he added.

    Unveiling of Panasonic Toughpad JT-B1, a 7-inch Android rugged tablet designed for Asian customers, Huawei‘s- P6 Ascend, world‘s slimmest smartphone and Thuraya‘s innovative phone sleeve, that converts ordinary iPhone into a satellite phone for mobile communications almost anywhere in the world, by connecting the phone to Thuraya‘s satellites, were among the major highlights of Enterprise and Communic Asia 2013.

    Retail Juice chief executive officer Richard Jones said, “This is our first experience with exhibiting at CommunicAsia and it has been fantastic. It has exceeded our expectations both with the number of visitors and leads we have generated, and also the quality and diversity of opportunities we have created.” Jones through the exhibition has developed new relationships with potential customers and partners in Asia, Europe and America. “We will be returning next year and also recommending the event as a great business investment,” he opined.

    CommunicAsia2013 also brought together its largest ever contingent of more than 130 satellite communications companies. Asia Broadcast Satellite, APT Satellite, Asia Satellite Telecommunications, China Satcom, Eutelsat, Intelsat, Inmarsat, MEASAT, SES, SKY Perfect JSAT and THAICOM among others showcased their latest satellite communication solutions and applications in broadband, HD content delivery and remote area connectivity for government, military and maritime sectors as well as innovations that will bridge the gap between the ICT and broadcasting industries.

    Adding to the list of many of the firsts, the tradeshow also streamed live ultra high-definition content to an Ultra HD TV screen over MEASAT‘s satellite network, using Ericsson‘s compression technology.

    “There is a good representation of international exhibitors at CommunicAsia2013 and I‘m impressed with the show. In particular, the solutions provided by the exhibitors from China attracted my attention because of their competitive pricing. I am here to find suppliers for fibre optic deployment and I have found useful contacts for future partnerships,” said PT. Ketrosden Triasmitra of Indonesia business and risk analysis manager Irene Mayarani.