18 March 2010
Research recently released by InStat forecasts that mobile TV tuners will more than double by 2014 from the 2009 level of 53 million.
Analog mobile TV broadcasting was brought to market in Asia in 2007 and has since achieved consumer adoption in Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Russia/CIS, the Middle East and Africa. It is in these key regions that the continued uptake in shipment and usage of analog mobile TV handsets is expected.
The growth is predicted to happen despite the competition from other delivery mechanisms such as over-the-top, digital broadcasting and 3G mobile TV.
Further details are available in InStat’s report “Worldwide Cellular Phone Components 5-Year Forecast”. Click here for more details
16 March 2010
The sixth edition of the BOBs – Deutsche Welle’s international blog awards – is entering its final stages.
The voting period begins on March 15, 2010. All nominated blogs are presented on the BOBs Web site (www.thebobs.com). There, visitors can find information about the blogs and help award the public prize by submitting their vote. The choice is large. This year, there are 17 competition categories and 11 languages – adding up to 187 nominated blogs, podcasts and videoblogs. Voting ends on April 14, 2010.
Once again, many users from around the world have expressed their preferences, submitting nearly 8,300 suggestions for the competition. The international jury panel – which consists of prominent bloggers – nominated 11 candidates in each category. This year there are six mixed-language categories (Best Weblog, Best Videoblog, Best Podcast, Reporters Without Borders Award, Blogwurst Award and Special Award Climate Change).
The other 11 categories are connected to specific languages: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, German, English, Farsi, French, Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
A new element in this year’s BOBs is the category Special Award Climate Change. Its goal is to recognize international blogs on the topic of climate change. A new feature this year is the cooperation between the BOBs and re:publica – Germany’s largest blogger and Internet conference. The BOBs judging session will coincide with re:publica in Berlin, and this year’s BOBs winners will be announced at re:publica during a public event on April 15.
16 March 2010
RRsat Global Communications Network Ltd., a rapidly growing provider of comprehensive content management and global distribution services to the television and radio broadcasting industries, announced today that it has signed a distribution agreement with FOX Sports, a leading sports channel and a division of the FOX Broadcasting Company. FOX Sports, the flagship network of the FOX Sports Television Group, is Americas top-rated network for sports for 13 straight years (1997-2009), FOX Sports boasts rights agreements with each of the United Statess highest-rated sports.
Distribution of FOX Sports via the Eurobird-9 satellite in MPEG-4 format provides the FOX Sports Television Group with increased, yet cost-effective, coverage within Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and with the possibility to add HD format in the future.
“We are proud that a major and leading sports channel, such as FOX Sports, chose RRsat to expand its distribution of leading US sports into Europe and the Middle East, commented Lior Rival, Vice President, Sales and Marketing of RRsat. We believe the fact that FOX Sport’s decision to expand their relationship with us, testifies their satisfaction with our existing services. We believe our expanding relationship with FOX could lead to significant additional business with FOX in the future. In addition, with this agreement, RRsat will be increasing the highly successful SD feed already being distributed to Israeli television operators with a parallel HD feed.
As one of the leading providers of sports coverage in the United States, we have a global audience and distribution is a key and an uncompromising undertaking for us, commented Julio R. Sobral, SVP Broadcast Operations of Fox International Channels. In RRsat, we have found a partner that is more than capable, and our work with them so far has met and even exceeded our expectations. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with RRsat, as we continually build our global audience of sports enthusiasts through them.
9 March 2010
GlobeCast has signed a deal for an additional full transponder on the AsiaSat 5 100.5°E (formerly AsiaSat 2) satellite for permanent and adhoc clients.
The increased capacity on AsiaSat 5 will first of all serve to meet coverage needs at major live news and sporting events slated in 2010 such as the World Cup in South Africa, Asian Games, G20 Summit in Korea, and Commonwealth Games in India.
The transponder will also be used to launch permanent channels, which will be uplinked from Jordan Media City in Amman and linked to the rest of the world via GlobeCasts worldwide satellite and fiber network.
AsiaSat 5s pan-Asian C-band footprint provides a comprehensive reach to two-thirds of the worlds population spanning across 53 countries in the Asia-Pacific.
In recent months, GlobeCast has also acquired significant additional capacity with global satellite operators Intelsat and Eutelsat.
In addition to content transport, GlobeCast provides broadcasters with a full-range of playout and digital asset management solutions, making GlobeCast a one-stop-shop for top-tier broadcast clientele.
9 March 2010
Vizrt, a provider of content production tools for the digital media industry, today announced that it is integrating Civolutions watermarking solution into its Viz Ardome media asset management software. Using Civolutions NexGuard Pre-release application, users will have the ability to deter potential piracy threat or trace the source of unauthorized copies of a video asset.
Watermarking in the field of media asset management is new, but its a growing market, explained Henrik Nordström, VP MAM Sales, Vizrt. We see more and more requests from customers, including those that handle video archives, to ensure that no media assets can be used without approval or financial compensation. TV networks with program management workflows are also potential customers for this process. They need to export content for dubbing, closed captioning, or promotional purposes before airing, but also need to ensure the latest episode of a major series, for example, is protected and they can offer theft deterrence solution before the air date.
Piracy is still a major issue for the content industry which hinders the distribution and access to content, said Wim Bus, SVP Product Management at Civolution. We are pleased to be working with Vizrt. Working together, we provide a solution to better protect, manage and allow the full exploitation of revenues. This is testament that the NexGuard Forensic Watermarking has developed into a must-have feature in any digital media management workflow.
The integration of Civolutions product with Viz Ardome is currently managed through the Nexguard plug-in for Rhozets Carbon Coder, a standalone transcoder that facilitates the transfer of media between acquisition, editing, playout, archive, Web, and mobile applications.
As Viz Ardome is already integrated with the Carbon Coder, using the Carbon XML API, it was a natural and straightforward process to add support in Viz Ardome for watermarking requests, said Erwan Gilles, System Specialist, Vizrt. The dynamic use of the Carbon XML API to request watermarking allows more flexibility than drop folders.
Civolutions Nexguard plug-in embeds a unique virtual barcode in each copy of the content. The watermark is imperceptible to the human eye and, being part of the content, remains even if the content is modified. This content serial numbering process is versatile, fully automated and scalable – all driven by the central NexGuard management server, which hosts a database of copies and corresponding recipients. By cross referencing the database with the watermarks discovered in pirated copies, the NexGuard forensic marking solution can locate the source of piracy. Rightful owners can then implement a graduated response to piracy.
