ITV

Tag: Shanghai

  • Political thriller Shanghai almost ready

    Political thriller Shanghai almost ready

    MUMBAI: With his ambitious political thriller Shanghai almost ready, Dibakar Banerjee will soon fly to Greece to show his film to author Vassilis Vassilikos on whose novel ‘Z’ the film is based.

    Ideally, Banerjee would have liked the author to come down to India to watch the film. But if that is not possible, considering the author‘s age, the director is all set to fly down to Greece to show his film.

    “The author has every right to see what has been done to his work, and in what context,” feels Banerjee. “It‘s amazing how relevant Vassilikos‘ novel
    is to present day Indian politics although he wrote it 45 years ago. He must see the deep and far-reaching resonance of his words. He is now a sprightly 78. But if he can‘t come to India, I‘d most certainly take Shanghai to Greece for his viewing.”

    Dibakar also plans to screen the film at Greece‘s Thessaloniki International Film Festival in November.

  • Shanghai to now release on 8 June

    Shanghai to now release on 8 June

    MUMBAI: PVR Pictures has rescheduled the release date of Dibakar Banerjee‘s thriller, Shanghai.

    The movie will now hit the screens on 8 June. The political thriller was earlier set to release on 26 January. But the producers, not wanting to have a clash with Karan Johar’s Agneepath, changed the release date.

    Adapted from a Greek novel, the movie is based on the life of politicians and their greed and has been inspired by the Costa Gavras- directed film Z, released in 1969. It talks about the present roller coaster expose of big money politics and how the common man gets his revenge back.

    Talking of the adaptation, Banerjee said, “Adapting a book into a film is not easier as many think. Whether adapted or original, a filmmaker faces the same problems and the same amount of blood and toil goes into it.”

    Talking of how the film has shaped up, the director added: “Frankly I was floored by the performances of our stars and character artistes. With Shanghai, viewers should look forward to taking some revenge…revenge of the common Indian man against the people who have money and who are sucking us dry with their vested interests.”

    The film stars Emraan Hashmi, Abhay Deol, Kalki Koechlin, and Prosenjit Chatterjee. While Deol plays a bureaucrat, Hashmi plays a roadside photographer and Koechlin plays an expat – a half-British caught in a corrupt society.

  • PVR Pictures’ Shanghai release date deferred

    PVR Pictures’ Shanghai release date deferred

    MUMBAI: The release date of PVR Pictures’ Dibakar Banejee-directed Shanghai has been postponed. Earlier, the film was to release on 26 January 2012.

    The makers have postponed the release because Karan Johar has decided to release his Hrithik-Roshan-starrer Agneepath on the same day.

    The political thriller has been inspired by a mid-1960s book, ‘Z‘, written by Greek writer and diplomat Vassilis Vassilikos. The book was first translated on the big screen through an eponymous French film released in 1969.

    Shanghai stars Abhay Deol, Emraan Hashmi, Kalki Koechlin, Prosenjit,
    Farooque Shaikh and Supriya Pathak.

  • Tandberg shows range of solutions for IPTV video compression in Shanghai

    Tandberg shows range of solutions for IPTV video compression in Shanghai

    MUMBAI: Tandberg Television is looking to build on its business and technology lead in the Asian IPTV video head-end market.

    It demonstrated its full suite of live, on-demand and interactive solutions at the recently concluded IPTV World Forum Asia 2006 in Shanghai.

    The event gave delegates the chance to see why the annual IPTV leadership report, published earlier this month by the Multimedia Research Group (MRG), ranked TANDBERG Television as the leading IP video head-end supplier in Asia, as well as in EMEA and rest of world.

    Worldwide Tandberg Television says that it has been involved in more than 160 xDSL and FTTH deployments and there are over 2 million subscribers currently viewing IPTV thanks to the company’s technology.

    Tandberg Television’s executive VP and GM, Asia Pacific Graham Cradock says, “Asia has always been a very important market for us. According to research from In-Stat the Asia-Pacific IP video services market will grow nearly 80 per cent per year between now and 2010, with Asia accounting for half of all worldwide IPTV subscribers by the end of 2009. We’ve been working with IPTV operators in the region for over five years and our market-leading technology is allowing telcos to deploy IPTV services right across the continent, from Dubai to Osaka and from Delhi to Shanghai.”

    Tandberg Television will showcase its fully integrated IPTV head-end product line, which provides the industry’s widest selection of encoding and video processing technologies for streaming, transrating, transcoding, ultracompression and high density encoding. The company came to IPTV World Forum Asia following its launch of next-generation high definition (HD) and standard definition (SD) MPEG-4 AVC encoding solutions at IBC 2006.

    The move continues the firm’s momentum in the MPEG-4 AVC arena and brings a step change in digital video distribution by combining the broadest choice of density and enhanced features with the industry’s leading ‘picture quality versus performance’ through bandwidth improvements of up to 50% over currently deployed MPEG-4 AVC units.

    The firm adds that uts next-generation encoding solutions enable expanded telco TV business models, including the delivery of 2 full-resolution HDTV channels over ADSL2+@2km. The next-generation compression platform is being launched simultaneously across the Tandberg encoding family with the introduction of the new EN8030 MPEG-4 AVC SD and EN8090 MPEG-4 AVC SD/HD ultracompression broadcast encoders, alongside the introduction of new MPEG-4 AVC HD and SD ultracompression encoding modules for the Plex range of high density, multi-channel encoders.

  • China plans nationwide launch of digital cable

    China plans nationwide launch of digital cable

    MUMBAI: China is planning to launch digital cable television across the country this year. The country had tested the switch from analogue to digital through a three-year pilot programme and the positive result has inspired the government to go ahead with the expansion plan.

    The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television administration vice director Zhang Gaitao said at a national conference on cable TV that the right time had come for China to popularize digital cable TV, as the country now has the technology and hardware following the three-year trial program.

    Reportedly, the pilot program has been testing the switch from analog cable television to digital cable television in 49 areas since 2003. The digital switch has already taken place in the cities of Qingdao, Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Mianyang and now the process has moved to municipalities including Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong and Guangxi.

    China has more than 120 pay television channels licensed by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, with over one million digital cable TV users.

  • UTStarcom, China Netcom ink largest IPTV deal

    UTStarcom, China Netcom ink largest IPTV deal

    MUMBAI: UTStarcom, Inc., a leader in IP-based, end-to-end networking solutions and services, has signed a contract with China Netcom for the deployment of its RollingStream end-to-end IPTV solution in northeast China. This deal represents the single largest IPTV capacity deployment in China to date.

    “We believe that UTStarcom’s IPTV technology and service epitomizes the evolution of network and service convergence. We believe the Harbin case indicates that a typical business model and value chain for IPTV in China is emerging and that there are large market opportunities and consumer demand throughout many regions. With this contract, UTStarcom continues to prove its position at the forefront of real-world IPTV deployments with the largest number of subscribers,” said UTStarcom China chief executive officer Ying Wu.

    The contract is based on a commercial trial that was launched in May 2005. The initial deployment had a capacity of 100,000 concurrent media streams, covering the major metropolitan areas of the city.

    Currently, the service offers channels of live broadcast television with “time-shifting” capabilities, 48-hour TV-on-demand, and approximate 5,600 hours of video-on-demand. At the same time, there are value-added services, such as on-line weather report, information browsing, and searching services available in the service package as well. The service has accumulated approximately 53,000 subscribers to date.

    UTStarcom has also announced commercial contracts in Shanghai and Fuzhou and Quanzhou in the Fujian Province, with an initial combined capacity of over 50,000 media streams.