Adobe Flash platform coming to televisions and set-top boxes

Adobe Flash platform coming to televisions and set-top boxes
Adobe's Flash to Come to TVs

Adobe’s Flash software will be built in to many of the microchips used inside television and digital boxes, enabling developers, broadcasters and content providers to make applications and software that deliver a rich web-browsing experience. It will allow people to check their emails, the weather and live travel updates through their TV set. Adobe says it expects the first generation of Flash-enabled devices to hit the market next year.

Several manufacturers, including Sony and Samsung, already make internet-enabled televisions capable of running small programs, known as “widgets” that give access to a variety of popular services. Television makers are keen to ensure that TVs are not usurped by computers as the centre of the digital home, and piping the internet and web-based TV services, such as BBC iPlayer and YouTube, directly in to the living room, is seen as crucial to this.

Adobe says it hopes the next-generation Flash-enabled devices will bring high-definition video streaming, interactive news tickers and quizzes to television viewers. It has signed content deals with movie rental service Netflix, Disney and the New York Times to create the first applications for the platform.

For this programme, the company has tied-up with Broadcom, Sigma Designs and MediaTek-all of whom are in the business of making system-on chips for set top boxes. The program will be incorporated on the chips made by these companies. This will throw open a hitherto untouched market for Adobe Flash, which has traditionally been restricted to PCs and of late, mobile phones. In fact, almost 98 percent of PCs have flash installed. As for mobile phones, the shipments of devices enabled with FlashLite support is expected to cross the 1 billion mark in 2009, according to data compiled by Strategy Analytics. The report adds that by 2010, it is expected to more than double and reach a staggering 2.5 billion! The digital TV market too is growing and is expected to clock a 12 percent growth year on year till 2012 - in the U.S., according to latest data.


Adobe says the first devices will be for the digital televisions and will be seen later this year. These will be followed by set top boxes with the SoC chips. Strangely, Adobe has not listed any TV manufacturers who have agreed to incorporate flash. Competition is already there for Abobe on the form of Microsoft - which has Flash rival Silverlight in its kitty. However, Silverlight does not have the market penetration of Flash which has rather become the de-facto standard for displaying rich web content.

Expect the first devices supporting the new Adobe platform by the second half of this year, in the U.S.

Videocon eyes one crore DTH subscribers; to start services on May 1

Videocon eyes one crore DTH subscribers; to start services on May 1
Diversified business house Videocon Group is making an ambitious foray into the direct-to-home services with plans to garner one crore subscribers in the next six years.

The group, which made an announcement of Rs 1,000 crore for the DTH venture earlier, made a soft launch of its 'Videocon D2H' services last evening in Macau in front of its 2,500 dealers, who where specially flown in there.

"The full commercial roll-out will start from May 1. In the first year, we are looking at 15 lakh subscribers and add similar number every year. The target is to have one crore subscribers in six years," Videocon Group Chairman Venugopal Dhoot told PTI.

He said the company is set for a mega roll out of its DTH services as the 2,500 dealers will have around 15,000 showroom across the country.

"That gives us an advantage. Besides, we will also be offering TVs with in-built set-top boxes (STBs), which no one in the market offers," Mr. Dhoot said.

He said over 40 engineers of the group spent nearly two years in developing the TV sets with in-built STBs.

The DTH services will leverage on Videocon's brand equity. "We had also unveiled a new brand logo for the group, which will be common for DTH, mobile services and the consumer durables segment," he said.

Asked about the pricing of its DTH offering, he said: "It will be competitively priced with those of the existing players. We will also have packages which are innovative and give customers value for money."

Senior Players, IPL and T20

First Laxman was sacked by Hyderabad T20 team, then Rahul Dravid was sent on Holiday and now Ganguly is not the captain of Kolkata team. Sachin is only senior player holding flag for senior players for IPL (although he would never play T20 for India).
But looking at above events, it looks like senior players are sidelined in the 'commercial' version of the game. Actually senior players were not anybody's choice from day 1 of IPL when auction began. Some were perhaps just lucky to get icon status and get into team.
So now what's future for these players in IPL? I guess they should better ignore IPL and concentrate on national (?) service of the game, and let the IPL for young generations and aspirant players who never get chance to showcase their talents.

HD era begins on Indian Television - Sun Direct HD Launched

After launch of DTH (Direct to Home) TV via satellite few years back, Indian television has come long way from 1 operator to 6 operators. As number of operators increased, the competition increased resulting need to operators to provide something new. BIG TV came with bunch of PPV movie channel catering various genre of movies. Airtel's DIGITAL TV provided 'Worldspace' Radio.
Now SUN DIRECT, the DTH service from SUN Group (India) and Astro Group (Malaysia) have launched HD service. Initially it will have 2 movie channels in Tamil & Telgu, while Hindi movie channel would be added soon. It is also expecting HD content from FOX, Warner Bros who have recently began their services in India. Then Common wealth games 2010 in HD would also made available.

Targeted initially at a niche set of TV viewers, Sun Direct’s HD services will begin with two channels–one each for Tamil movies and Telugu movies–at a cost of Rs 10,000 per subscription, before the company’s plans of eight channels are put in place.
It has entered into an arrangement with Korean chaebol Samsung to supply the set-top-boxes required for the HD services.
While various international channels and content providers have queued up to obtain permission for HD broadcast in India, it is the Commonwealth Games 2010 that will flag off the HDTV wave in the country, as the mega event is set to be telecast on the HDTV platform, Sun Direct officials said.
Stating that HDTV was a growing market D’Silva said, “In this coming year at least 20% of the 1.5 million LCDs sold will be of the HD format. We look to capture approximately 20% of this market in 2009-10… So we have a target of around 60,000-70,000 subscribers for the first year.”
Having lined up global channels like Fox International and Warner Brothers to be telecast on its service, Sun Direct looks to capture 40-45% of the DTH market this fiscal, up from its present 30% share. Towards this end the company has earmarked Rs 150 crore as marketing budget.

SUN DIRECT HD website
Sun Direct launches HD services in India - Televisionpoint.com
Sun Direct ushers in high definition TV viewing - Times of India

Madness of Reality TV !!??

Rakhi Sawant to marry on national television

In a unique, first of its kind experience on television, NDTV Imagine presents a new reality show that traces the journey of a bride-to-be, from selecting her groom to the marriage ceremony, all captured on television. In a move that is true to her expressive personality, the bride-in-waiting Rakhi Sawant has chosen to search for her real life-partner on Imagine’s new reality show Rakhi Ka Swayamvar . Rakhi is taking matters of the heart into her own hands with a nationwide search for her perfect husband along with the support of the audiences. After exhaustive challenges and eliminations, Rakhi will take the saath-pheras with her husband in a grand ceremony that will be a fitting finale to this unique journey, and everyone is invited.

Where is reality TV going in India!

गारवा... (Garavaa Marathi Song)

ऊन जरा जास्त आहे... दर वर्षी वाटतं...
भर ऊन्हात पाऊस घेऊन... आभाळ मनात दाटतं...
तरी पावलं चालत राहतात... मन चालत नाही...
घामाशिवाय शरीरामध्ये कुणीच बोलत नाही...
तितक्यात कुठून एक ढग सुर्यासमोर येतो...
ऊन्हामधला काही भाग पंखांखाली घेतो...
वारा उनाड मुलासारखा सैरावैरा पळत राहतो...
पानांफुला झाडांवरती छपरांवरती चडून पाहतो...
दुपार टळून संध्याकाळचा सुरू होतो पुन्हा खेळ...
ऊन्हामागुन चालत येते गारगार कातरवेळ...
चक्क डोळ्यांसमोर ऋतू कुस बदलून घेतो...
पावसाआधी ढगांमध्ये... कुठून गारवा येतो...

Politics Direct-To-Home

http://www.indiantelevision.com/mam/headlines/y2k9/apr/aprmam9.php

Political advertising money has started moving to the DTH sector. Dish TV and Tata Sky have firmed up ad deals with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and are in talks with other political parties, including the Congress, as India goes to the Lok Sabha polls this month.
The BJP has committed Rs 1.5 million to Dish TV, which has a subscriber base of close to five million. Tata Sky, however, did not disclose the ad money it would get from the BJP.
“We have signed up with BJP for Rs 1.5 million and will be running their ads for a period of four weeks. We are also in talk with other parties,” Dish TV MD Jawahar Goel tells Indiantelevision.com.
Starting today, Dish TV will have ad spots running on its default landing interactive channel no. 999 and branding on its News Active and Bhakti Active services.
“We have developed this platform as a specialized media for advertisers. As the elections are coming, this is a good opportunity for national political parties like BJP and others to reach out to the 25 million viewers that Dish TV has,” says Goel.

So now politicians have understood the power of DTH TV services. BJP as always trying to have hands on all available mediums to reach out to public, has now joined hands with leading DTH operators TATASKY & DISH TV. Congress too can't ignore the power of this new medium and has joined DTH operators.
Now after elections are over, lets hope any of these parties look into reforms in DTH about pricing, channel packages and other issues faced by DTH customers.

STAR PLAYER

Now don't worry if you miss any of your favourite serial on STAR channels. STAR has launched its online Video site STAR PLAYER (www.startv.in). So now you can catch all episodes on STAR channels on STAR PLAYER.
This concept is very popular abroad, in UK BBC & SKY has its video applications BBC iPlayer & SKY Player respectively, but now Indian channels have also started online war, because STAR is not the first to launch Video site, it was NDTV who launched first video site www.tubaah.com