NDS in Deals with Tata Sky, Bharti Airtel
Posted by Sathish | Published on December 29th, 2008 | Comments 0
Interactive TV and conditional access technology provider, NDS, says that Indian satellite TV operator, Tata Sky, has selected its XTV PVR solution to power a new PVR service, dubbed Tata Sky+. The service features MPEG-4 technology, the ability to store up to 45 hours of programming, and such standard PVR features as the ability to pause and rewind live TV. Tata Sky–which launched its national satellite TV service in August, 2006 and now claims to have over 2.7 million subscribers (it projects that it will have 8 million by 2012)–is an existing NDS customer: in addition to the XTV platform, it has deployed NDS’s MediaHighway middleware, its VideoGuard conditional access system, a multilingual EPG from the company, and various other ITV infrastructure technologies. “The introduction of PVR technology will revolutionize the TV viewing experience in India,” Tata Sky CEO, Vikram Kaushik, said in a prepared statement. “The PVR’s recording and playback features will allow our subscribers to time-shift their TV viewing, and, thanks to the pause and rewind features, viewers can be sure that they won’t miss any of their favorite shows any more, and that they can catch all the action in live TV broadcasts.” According to NDS, the XTV platform has now been deployed by 18 other major pay-TV operators around the world, bringing the total number of XTV-powered DVR’s to 14.5 million.
In other NDS news:
- Orbis Holdings, an NDS-subsidiary that operates interactive gaming and betting solutions provider, Orbis Technology (note: the latter is best known for its OpenBet software, which is billed as enabling operators to let their customers bet and play in multiple languages and currencies across multiple platforms, including interactive TV, the Web, mobiles, retail outlets and call centers, all with a single log-in), says that it has acquired UK-based online interactive games developer, Electracade. The deal saw Orbis acquiring the entirety of Electracade’s share capital for £2.6 in cash, with further consideration payable conditional upon various future performance criteria. Orbis says that Electracade’s games will complement its existing product range.
- The company says that it is providing an end-to-end digital TV system to Indian telecom services provider, Bharti Airtel, to power the latter’s new DTH service. The system includes NDS’s VideoGuard conditional access technology, its MediaHighway middleware, a customized multilingual EPG, and interactive TV games. According to NDS, its technologies will allow Bharti Airtel to offer additional interactive TV applications and PVR service in the future. “Over the year, we have delighted millions of customers with our telecom services and now, with Airtel digital TV, we plan to deliver a magical in-home entertainment experience to TV viewers,” N. Arjun, executive director of Bharti Telemedia, said in a prepared statement. “DTH is the future of television in India and with Airtel digital TV we bring the best combination of latest technology and exciting content. With the support of our technology partner NDS, we look forward to providing superior, state-of-the-art services to our DTH service customers.” According to NDS, the 1,000-employee research-and-development facility that it maintains in Bangalore played a key role in the development of its end-to-end solution for Bharti Airtel.
- The company is providing the core conditional access security infrastructure for the world’s first commercial trial of the new Open Mobile Alliance BCAST Smartcard Profile standard for mobile TV content protection in Singapore. The three-month trial sees mobile operators, M1, SingTel and StarHub collaborating with Singaporean media company, MediaCorp. Alcatel-Lucent is providing the mobile interactive TV platform for the trial, and the trial also involves mobile devices from Samsung and Smartcard Profile-compliant SIM cards from Gemalto. According to NDS, the solution it is providing for the trial is based on its Unified Headend architecture, which is billed as providing a single point of rights management for all video broadcasts, regardless of the delivery networks or the rendering devices. The company says that the platform supports multiple mobile broadcast profiles and multiple handsets simultaneously, centralizing content distribution from a single headend for consumption on multiple devices. “We are pleased to be able to partner with NDS to provide Singapore’s leading mobile communications industry players with more advanced mobile TV options for Singaporeans,” Oliver Foo, Alcatel-Lucent’s managing director for Singapore and Brunei, said in a prepared statement. “Asian subscribers are ready for a mobile TV offering that delivers a large variety of choices, a high level of personalization, maximum interactivity and great quality of service.”
- NDS-subsidiary, Jungo, says that its OpenRG residential gateway software now offers a patent-pending fast channel-switching capability, allowing channel changes in IPTV environments to be effected as quickly as in cable and satellite environments. According to the company, the new technology removes channel-switching overheads by employing an innovative mix of tactics, including an enhancement of the regular IGMP Leave and Fast-Leave operations (otherwise known as “Aggressive Leave”), the monitoring of available resources such as bandwidth and virtual circuits (VC’s), and intelligent bandwidth usage assumptions. The company says that the technology can be used with any off-the-shelf IPTV set-top box. “Channel-switching time is a major issue in the IPTV industry,” Jungo CTO, Arik Gilad, said in a prepared statement. “Jungo is pleased to be able to offer operators a solution that will deliver an enhanced experience to users, and therefore help service providers to grow their businesses.”
- The company says it will increase investment in its Korean R&D center–in which it says it has already invested $40 billion since 2001–in order to provide full end-to-end system support and handle set-top box-integration for over 50 global projects. It claims that, by providing Korean manufacturers with access to its global customer base, it has facilitated $2 billion in export revenue for the Korean consumer electronics industry. “Our Korea R&D Center plays a crucial role in the development of core technologies to deliver the best viewing experience to consumers around the world,” NDS chairman and CEO, Abe Peled, said in a prepared statement. “We are confident that these additional resources to continue to enhance the Korea R&D Center will ensure that NDS, together with our partners in the Korean consumer electronics industry, maintains a competitive edge as global leaders in end-to-end system support and set-top box integration.”
- The company–which claims to have invested over $120 million in India since opening its R&D center in Bangalore in 2000–says it plans to increase investment in the center and in commercial support offices in India over the next three years, in order to “support the accelerating digitization of pay-TV across [India] and worldwide.” Around 26% (i.e. around 1,000 employees) of NDS’s workforce is based in India, making its Indian operation the company’s second largest worldwide.
Filed Under: Airtel Digital TV • Tata Sky
