New TV viewing trends

While we in India have started to use digital television for watching our TV programmes from 2004 with launch of DTH & Digital cable, and digital TV has pick up in recent years after launch of TV services by several operators, here's some new trends emerging for watching television (in western countries). Many people are getting habituated with new trends, and in coming days this would completely change the TV viewing habits.

PVR: In India, TATASKY have introduced PVR to the TV market, but in Western countries PVR is becoming essential device for catching up TV programmes. Many viewers now record programmes in hard drive inside STB, so they can watch & enjoy the programmes at their convenient time. The programme can be scheduled to record manually, through EPG. Whole series of the programme can be scheduled so any episodes are not missed.

NPVR (Catch-up TV): It could be just like PVR, except the programmes are not stored in customer's STB, but stored on the network by operator. Customers of the operator can watch the programmes On-Demand at their convenient time and have not bother of scheduling the recording for their favourite programmes.

Push VOD: Video On Demand (VOD) is a popular term about Video delivery service by DTH/IPTV where customers can order video (Movies/TV Programmes). Push VOD is similar to VOD, except here customers don’t order VOD, but VOD content is downloaded by operator in STB’s hard drive. The content can be rented until the offer period, after which the content is automatically deleted from STB. This service is beneficial for HD videos in IPTV where HD video live streaming is not possible due to high bandwidth requirements.

Online TV: Many Channel broadcasters are providing web-consoles (web based applications) on which their programmes can be watched. Many consoles now also offer live channels. So Live TV can be directly watched on PC, and TV is no more needed to watch programmes.

Home Networking & Game console: Game console providers like Sony Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo are joining hands with TV operators to provide TV content through game console through broadband or home networking. Over the broadband, the game consoles are connected to TV operator’s network and Live TV is streamed directly to console. In home networking, the recorded content from PVR STB can be watched on console within home network

Ridiculous channel packages by TATASKY

DTH operator TATASKY is well known for its after sales service & good Customer Care service. But one thing many of its customers agree (as per different forums) is that channel packaging by TATASKY is worst.
Their move to remove Sports channel out of base pack was welcomed by many saying that this would bring base price lower, and also avoid burden on un-interested customers. But later it introduced Life-style Gold pack and putting all new channels like Imagine, Colors in it, but what was ridiculous that FTA channels like 9X were also added in that pack, and even business news channel from UTV. This channels were no way related to lifestyle! And many other DTH operator do provide this GEC channels in base pack with other Hindi GEC.
Later they introduced many pack a Cosmo pack for English movie channels like TCM, World Movies, etc. It looked fine as package contained special genre channels, but again TATASKY made a strange decision of adding business news channel ET NOW to this pack. This would be most stupid decision about channel packaging by any pay TV operator.
Customers should lodge a protest about such packaging to TATASKY, and better TATASKY should explain about their ridiculous packaging. This type of channel packaging is causing lot of discontent among customers, and TATASKY should act on it before it is late (i.e. customers shift to better options).

India: Small states or Big states?

India had 28 states, of which 3 states being recently added (in 2000), and now Telangana would be 29th state of India. And list of aspirant states is also long. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirant_states_of_India).
But have we achieved equal development for all states? Most of states have not achieved development even after 60 years of independence. Reason being availability of resources, key cities presence in that state. But main reason is number of representatives/ministers in centre (?). Besides language & cultural differences within the states have led to conflicts between states.

So... I think whole system of the states need to scrapped, all states of India needs to be dissolved. We should reorganise all districts in country into 8-10 major provinces. The provinces would NOT be based on languages/cultures, but it should be created such that every province would have enough resources (electricity, water, infrastructure, etc). All provinces should have equal representation at centre so that there is no unfair advantage to any particular region due to majority of representatives. Each province could have 1 or more official language which would be used in daily administration. Each province should have centre appointed administrator who has more powers (unlike Governor), who could run administration on behalf of centre, while elected members could form local government managing the province.

But after so many years, is it possible to change the borders? change the whole administration process? Or let India get divided into smaller states?

Marathi Movies on Zing Channel UK

ZEE has rebranded its free-to-Air music channel 'ZEE MUZIC' to ZING creating a niche channel catering music as well as non-music content. It included bollywood updates, interviews, events and movies.
From recent weeks, ZING is broadcasting Marathi Movies with English subtitles on weekends. It would be good opportunity for Marathi viewers to watch Marathi movies on FTA channel. Recently movie 'Matichay chuli' by Mahesh Manjrekar was telecast on ZING

Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2009 - Congress again

As predicted, Cong-NCP retained power in Maharashtra and Shivsena-BJP's dream to come to power has been shattered. Leaders from both parties now started blaiming (again) MNS to taking away vote share. They should have not done that considering that MNS contested on 100 odd seats while SS-BJP contested on all 288 seats. So still SS-BJP lost on seats on which MNS didn't contest.
Though defeat in Mumbai region was major setback to SS-BJP and MNS emerged winner in this region alongwith some seats in Pune and Nashik. It was overall defeat to SS-BJP alliance and they should accept it, and play responsible role as opposition party in Assembly.
Now about Congress, its wonder how they beat anti-incumbency factor (or was it vote divide of opposition), but result is they are winners and going to form govt for next 5 years (and public have lost rights to complain on electricity load-shedding, price rise, bad infrastructure and farmers suicide, and be ready for more bridges and roads named after ...).

पुढील मुख्यमंत्री मनोहर जोशी???

विक्रोळीत सोमवारी झालेल्या युतीच्या सभेत अचानक पाऊसधारा कोसळल्या. शिवसैनिकांनी नेत्यांच्या विचारांनी न्हाऊन निघण्यासाठी कोण्त्ताही व्यत्यय येऊ नये, यासाठी खास भगवी छत्री तयार ठेवली होती. यापैकीच एक भगवे छत्र शिवसेना नेते मनोहर जोशी यांच्या शिरावर ठेवण्यासाठी भाजपचे राज पुरोहित, सुभाष देसाई पुढे सरसावले. कदाचित महाराष्ट्रचे पुढील मुख्यमंत्री म्हणून जोशीसरांना भाजपाची मान्यता असे तर सुचवायचे नाही ना!
सौजन्य:- महाराष्ट्र टाइम्स

Dil Bole Hadippa - Rani is back!

YRF are ready with release of new film 'Dil Bole Hadippa'. This time YRF trying to cash in on India's fav topic - Cricket! Many films have released with cricket centric topic, and now YRF trying their hands on it.
Film has Rani Mukherjee who is making comeback, would be interesting to see how she performs, if film flops, it could be end for Rani.
But I guess film is banking on Shahid. Shahid perhaps tring to do Shahrukh in the film. He replaced Salman in Rajshri Films for Vivah, Shahrukh in Aziz Mirza film, and now if he bring success to YRF, he could replace Saif, Hritik & etc khans from YRF. Shahid is also proved his worth with hit films like 'Jab we Met' and more recent 'Kaminey'
Trailer of films from YRF's Youtube channel

Doordarshan plans DTT in India. Pvt channels may also be allowed on terrestrial

We in India are familiar and watched DD's analogue terrestrial channels (mostly DD1, DD News and regional channel time shared with DD1). But in 4-5 years we could enjoy more DD channels in Digital mode, and if permitted some private channels could also be seen on terrestrial transmitted as 'Digital Terrestrial Transmission' (DTT).

In India we are so far aware of Digital TV through satellite (DTH), where digital channels are carried over satellite signals and sent to customer’s home. In DTT similarly digital TV signals are carried over RF signals, but broadcasted from terrestrial transmitters over VHF/UHF frequencies. The standard commonly used for DTT is DVB-T which is widely adopted. Besides 8VSB for ATSC (used in North America) and ISDB-T (used in Japan & Brazil) are the standards used for DTT.

DTT would have advantage over analogue transmission. On the single frequency more digital channels can be transmitted. Audio/Video quality is better compared to analogue channels. DTT also has benefit of transmitting EPG and other active services.

But DTT channels cannot be received through conventional TV. We would need Set Top Box or TVs with built in digital tuner for DTT reception.

India has adopted DVB-T standard. Turning digital, will improve DD’s transmission strength to accommodate about 6-8 channels/transmitter. Interested private broadcaster could use the additional channels to offer paid TV services to nearly 120 million homes. They could also put up digital transmitters at their own cost on DD’s towers and add more channels to the bouquet

Doordarshan has already conducted trials of its digital terrestrial transmission services in Delhi. In 2006, the projected cost of migrating to digital had been estimated at Rs 3,531 crore by a Committee of Financial Restructuring of Prasar Bharati. Earlier, an expert group set up by the Prime Minister’s Office had set 2015 as the deadline to phase out analogue TV transmission completely. Prasar Bharti was to start DTT in 2010; the report of this group had, keeping the Commonwealth Games in mind, even coined a slogan ‘Digital Delhi by 2010’ for the Capital.

Reference: DD may go digital, open up for pvt broadcasters

ESPN enters UK

US broadcaster ESPN last night won a £90million contract to show 46 live Premier League games next season.
Espn, owned by Disney, picked up both packages which were put up for auction by the Premier League after they were taken away from Setanta.
And in a separate deal, they also won the rights to screen 23 games for three seasons from 2010 in what is a double blow for Sky.
Sky have long feared ESPN bidding for Premier League rights as the US giant represents a huge threat to their domestic dominance.
Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore said. "ESPN have a formidable worldwide reputation and I am sure we will enjoy a long and fruitful relationship."

So now SKY's dominance in UK's sport broadcast market could come to end after entry of strong player like ESPN. It would be good if ESPN could also get rights of other sporting event like Cricket of UK, so they could offer some refreshing broadcast for UK Cricket

Loksabha Election Results 2009 - My Analysis

The results of India's Loksabha Elections are out, and were beyond anybody's expectation, neither the party that won, nor the parties that lost. Cong has won with this large margin almost after 2 decades, this has almost brought Cong rule like it was after independence. All other parties like Left, SP, LJP, MNS and main opposition parties lost very badly.
Some of the reasons of the results could be:
1. Global Financial Situation: With the financial situations globally very bad, Indian may have felt, its better to play safe and country run by a party who is headed by a economist, who looked more liable then BJP's Advani who didn't came up with any strong solution for this. And with such financial situation, 3rd/4th etc front getting elected was never possible.
2. Terrorism: Terrorism could have been the reason to get current govt out of power, but the irresponsible statements by opposition parties may have lost the chance for them. Besides past record of BJP was not good to prove their point to tackle terrorism.
3. Leader: What ever number of persons aiming for post of PM, there were only 2 people capable for the post. Manmohan Singh & L K Advani. Singh though termed as weak PM by opposition parties, he had respect from public, besides he never let his image drop from minds of people, while Advani has changed his image several times. From hardliner to soft stance secular. But still people may not willing to accept the change of image of Advani causing low response to his party.
4. Leaders of 2nd rank: 2nd rank leaders from both Cong & BJP were fully involved in campaign. Cong used Rahul, Priyanka, Milind Deora, Sachin Pilot, J Schindia. Rahul may appear dumb at present, but his father & Grand-mother also had same reputation when they joined politics, but later became centre of power. Rahul could also become centre of power. On other BJP's 2nd rank leaders were never in sync. Spat between Rajnath & Arun Jaitley was well-known. Narendra Modi campaigned mostly, but may be his magic was not acceptable outside Gujarat. So Cong also scored on its 2nd rank leader's image.
5: Media Support: The credit of victory of Cong should also given to media. Major media groups constantly put news/articles against BJP, but never uttered any criticism towards Cong. Media project negative image of BJP heavily which may have resulted soft-minded voters turning their back to BJP.

What next: For Cong its celebration time, before they settle to form new cabinet. Now that it has majority it will not have problem of giving ministries to worthless people from their earlier alliance.
But for BJP, it would be tough time. BJP had crumbled completely after 2004 defeat. This defeat is even bigger. Although BJP operates in democratic manner, it needs central authority person heading (like Sonia for Cong) to keep control on 2nd rank leaders. Senior leaders like Advani should step down and party should strengthen 2nd rank leadership, for that party should lead by younger leaders with mass appeal. It should also create leadership at state level in most of states where it has to depend on alliance partners (who could not always be trusted, like BJD & JD(U) & perhaps Shivsena).

Its good that India gets stable govt for next 5 years, and lets hope India comes out of financial crisis strongly and continues to progress.