ITV

Tag: broadcast technology

  • Sushil Khanna takes top CEO spot at Shaf Broadcast

    Sushil Khanna takes top CEO spot at Shaf Broadcast

    MUMBAI: Shaf Broadcast Pvt Ltd has announced the appointment of Sushil Khanna as its new chief executive officer. Khanna steps into the full-time role this month, bringing a wealth of experience in broadcast technology, archive solutions, and AI services.

    Khanna joins Shaf Broadcast from Prime Focus Technologies, where he served as a senior consultant for two years. Before that, he was the international business development manager for MEMNON, covering the APAC and MENA regions for over four years. His extensive background also includes a significant tenure as global chief operating officer at MediaGuru for nearly nine years, demonstrating his versatile leadership and strategic partnership acumen.

    His appointment is expected to bolster Shaf Broadcast’s position in the evolving broadcast technology landscape, with a focus on business development, team management, and system integration.

  • Media veteran Sulina Menon joins Rise India Chapter’s advisory board

    Media veteran Sulina Menon joins Rise India Chapter’s advisory board

    MUMBAI: Sulina Menon, a seasoned professional with over 37 years of experience in advertising and communications, has joined the advisory board of Rise India Chapter. Rise is a global organisation committed to fostering gender diversity in the broadcast and media technology sector, with initiatives such as its award-winning mentoring program, the Rise Awards, and the Rise Up Academy that inspires the next generation.

    Having served as a mentor at Rise for the past two years, Sulina expressed her excitement about contributing further to the organization’s mission to empower women and promote inclusivity. 

    She remarked, “Being part of this transformative journey is an honor.”

    Sulina’s career spans leadership roles across major advertising agencies, broadcasters, and brands, including Zee group, Carat Media, Cheil, Starcom, and Omnicom group. Her extensive portfolio includes work with globally renowned brands like Airtel, Gillette, Nestlé, Samsung, Dabur, and Levi’s, where she helped shape impactful brand strategies.

    An ICF-approved Grow More Coach, Sulina is also passionate about mentoring high-performing individuals and leaders, offering strategic counsel to help them overcome challenges and realize their potential. Known for her empathetic and intuitive coaching style, she combines deep industry knowledge with a results-driven approach to foster growth and innovation. She currently runs her own consultancy Media Power and has been doing so for the past three years or so. 

    As a new advisory board member, Sulina aims to leverage her expertise to further Rise’s mission of creating a more inclusive industry and inspiring the next generation of leaders.

  • Planetcast Media Services to showcase NexC at IBC2024

    Planetcast Media Services to showcase NexC at IBC2024

    Mumbai: Planetcast Media Services, the global broadcast technology and media services provider, will be demonstrating its new end-to-end, single-window media management and delivery offering at IBC2024 (RAI Amsterdam, 13-16 September, Booth 5.H59). The event will witness the public EMEA debut of Planetcast’s cloud-first NexC architecture. NexC empowers media companies to overcome the complexity challenge of today’s distribution landscape, enabling frictionless movement of content assets across each stage of post-production, content management, distribution, and monetisation.

    “We are showcasing NexC’s capability to solve the complexity challenge faced by media companies today as they deal with even more formats, markets, devices, and distribution points than ever,” said Planetcast Media Services CEO Sanjay Duda. “Media organisations find it increasingly cumbersome and costly to navigate the various stages of post-production, content delivery and monetisation. Our in-house development team of over 250 professionals are meticulously building and upgrading NexC to offer a seamless integration of media asset management, cloud playout, over-the-top (OTT), and IP distribution. In addition to developing the NEXC product roadmap, the team also provides bespoke solutions tailored to specific customer needs, significantly reducing time and cost compared to outsourcing.”

    NexC: A game-changer for the media industry

    As a comprehensive, cloud-based service suite, NexC offers a unique platform as a service (PaaS) proposition. It integrates content supply chain management with upstream services like post-production and content prep as well as downstream services like cloud playout, digital delivery, FAST and OTT into a single system, streamlining operations and enabling clients to meet the complexity challenge of today’s media industry.

    “NexC pairs flexible workflows with product-level customization, providing the best of both worlds,” Duda explained. “Its ability to scale and deploy solutions at significantly lower cost is highly popular among CTOs & CFOs with tight budgets.”

    By integrating content supply chain management, content preparation, metadata enrichment, tagging, subtitling, dubbing, editing, playout, OTT platforms, and FAST channels into a single, cohesive system, NexC stands out as a comprehensive solution for media companies. The platform’s architecture is built on several core components, each accessible through Planetcast’s unified customer user interface (UI) and dashboard:

    . Contido – content supply chain orchestration and media asset management.

    . Content preparation and localisation services – a full suite of core technical post-production services from quality control, technical and compliance checks to subtitling, dubbing, editing, and re-scoring.

    .  RECASTER – a dynamic and robust IP transport solution, which delivers a secure internet stream from anywhere to anywhere, be it a linear channel or a live sports stream.

    .  Scheduling, playout and distribution through Cloud BATS scheduler, Cloud.X playout and RECASTER digital delivery platforms.

    .  MediaHQ – a white-labelled OTT solution for non-linear content distribution that has delivered complex, multi-award-winning online streaming solutions, from ingest to delivery, for major brands and live events worldwide, including the Olympics, FIFA World Cup, and Formula 1 for customers such as Foxtel Australia and Media Prima Malaysia.

    .  FAST channel services – provided by Planetcast across the US, Europe, Latin America, and Asia, in tandem with established ad-tech partners in USA, Europe and Asia.

    In addition to the core components of NexC, Planetcast’s team will also talk about the company’s other services, including:

    .  Post-production – a software and cloud-curated ecosystem of services with a high degree of process automation, plus AI-enabled capabilities to provide best-of-class services at impressive turnaround times and competitive rates.

    .  Playout disaster recovery – cloud-based DR solution that provides incredibly cost-effective protection against broadcast service disruption.

    Demonstrating innovation and strategic investments

    “Our acquisition of Switch Media earlier this year highlights our drive to expand our solutions portfolio to provide customers with proven world-class OTT capabilities,” noted Duda. “As audiences become more reachable, we recognise that there is a growing need to leverage technology that will empower media companies to open new markets and broaden their audience base. Switch Media’s modular and flexible solutions and versatile workflow engine, Planetcast ensures that its customers can power exceptional online content for viewers and drive OTT monetisation.”

    Planetcast’s in-house development of intellectual property provides a significant competitive advantage for its customers. This agility allows for rapid deployment of new solutions, enabling quick response to market demands and client needs.

    “The seamless integration of individual solutions into our NexC unified platform simplifies user workflows and enhances content management efficiency,” Duda noted. “Our focus on innovation and strategic investments, particularly in multi-cloud-based solutions, is crucial as the industry moves towards more personalized and integrated viewing experiences, enabled by advanced analytics and AI-driven technologies.”

  • Amagi launches cloud-based live orchestration platform Amagi Live

    Amagi launches cloud-based live orchestration platform Amagi Live

    Mumbai: Cloud-based Software-as-a-service (SaaS) company Amagi has announced the new and enhanced version of its premium live orchestration platform ‘Amagi Live’. The cloud-based platform enables content owners to spin up channels in minutes or orchestrate broadcast-grade live events on the go. It also offers cloud-based master control features for ‘breaking news’ and multi-event live sports orchestration workflows. It can be operated from any remote corner of the world using a simple web dashboard.

    Through this service, Amagi is addressing the growing appetite for sports and news on linear OTT. News has seen explosive growth on OTT and free-ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) platforms with 56 per cent of the total content consumed. A study by Amagi indicated that 30 per cent of cable TV viewers have shown strong intent to cut the cord if they can stream their favourite news and sports content on OTT platforms. “The numbers indicate that live video streaming is poised for tremendous growth in the coming months/years,” said the statement.

    Amagi Live allows users the ability to insert a wide range of advanced graphics, auto-recording of live events that are then delivered as delayed playback, automation of live streams to OTT with machine learning systems, reduced need for multiple live operator personnel, easy scheduling of ad breaks in the live playlist and multi-source, multi-protocol content ingestion.

    For 24/7 live linear channel operators, particularly 24/7 news and sports channels, Amagi Live enables the orchestration of various live production-master-control tasks including the ability to switch between up to four feeds in single live event production and advanced 4K UHD delivery including tone mapping.

    “Viewers of live content are uncompromising in their demand for the quality viewing experience,” said Amagi co-founder KA Srinivasan. “Amagi Live powers content brands to create a broadcast-grade experience, especially with premium sports live events and news in a scalable, reliable and cost-effective manner.”

    “We’ve launched a tremendously successful sports channel on ad-supported platforms with Amagi as our partner,” said Tennis Channel International senior vice president Andy Reif. “The use of advanced automation has made the ad and live break insertions seamless for us, while the superior graphics capabilities have led to stellar content display. The user experience this platform delivers is not only delightful but unparalleled in the industry.”

  • Prasar Bharati to phase out most analog terrestrial TV transmitters by March

    Prasar Bharati to phase out most analog terrestrial TV transmitters by March

    Mumbai: Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has clarified that with the exception of 50 analog terrestrial TV transmitters placed in strategic locations, it will phase out the rest of the obsolete technology by the end of March.

    The pubcaster said that till now 70 per cent of all analog transmitters have been phased out and rest are being sunset in a phased manner while ensuring appropriate measures are taken for redeployment and manpower.

    The statutory body governing All India Radio and Doordarshan network addressed misinformation put out by certain media outlets that it was planning to shut down its DD Silchar and DD Kalaburagi channels. “Prasar Bharati has made it clear that these DD centres shall continue to generate program content for broadcasting on the satellite channels of Doordarshan dedicated to their respective States, apart from maintaining their presence on digital media via YouTube and on social media. For instance, program content generated by DD Silchar and DD Kalaburagi shall now be broadcast on DD Assam and DD Chandana respectively,” it said in a statement.

    “Prasar Bharati has been swiftly phasing out obsolete broadcasting technologies like Analog Terrestrial TV Transmitters, paving way for paradigm shift to emerging technologies and new content opportunities,” it added.

    The pubcaster stated that analog terrestrial TV is an obsolete technology and phaseout of the same is in both public interest and national interest as it makes valuable spectrum available for new and emerging technologies such as 5G apart from reducing wasteful expenditure on power.