Satnews

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ALi partners with MNITI to propose Russian reference DVB-T2 STB Solution
Editor    | 22-10-2012

Set-top box provider ALi Corporation has joined forces with MNITI on introducing a reference solution to assist Russian STB manufacturers in DVB-T2â€"based DTT deployment.
MNITI, the Moscow Scientific-Research Television Institute, claims to be the leading organisation in Russia in the field of television equipment and currently heads the development and organisation on the production of receivers for digital television.
Its leadership is vital given that DVB-T DTT transmissions launched in Russia in 2009 with DVB-T2 roll-out being planned after completion of analogue switch-off. However, Russian authorities later decided to continue digitisation in DVB-T2 format, upgrading networks in regions where DVB-T was already deployed or was being tested. DVB-T2 is expected to launch in 39 of Russia's federal areas by the end of March 2013.
MNITI believes that the success of the DVB-T2 platform is contingent on two factors, area of network coverage and availability of STBs.
Explained Konstantin Bystrushkin, Deputy Director of JSC MNITI: "Since 1998, the Institute has been actively participating in the preparation for digital television transition in Russia. At present, MNITI is in cooperation with domestic enterprises to develop digital set-top boxes for the deployment of DVB-T2... With the collaborated reference solution from ALi and MNITI, local STB manufacturers can speed up the supply of DVB-T2 enabled set-top boxes to meet the demand from Russian viewers."
"Some 12 million urban and 5 million rural households in Russia were able to receive DVB-T2 based digital terrestrial TV at the beginning of 2012 with growth being strong in urban centres, according to a study by J'Son & Partners Consulting…We are very pleased to ally with MNITI in assisting with the promotion of DVB-T2 in Russia, enabling Russian consumers to receive enhanced services over the digital terrestrial networks," added Tony Chang, General Manager of ALi's International Business Unit.

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France Télévisions, Dailymotion launch web-fiction platform
Pascale Paoli-Lebailly    | 22-10-2012

France Télévisions, France 4 and Dailymotion have launched a new web-fiction platform, Studio 4.0.
The platform will be promoting Canadian Out with Dad and web-fiction Herois and dedicated events will also be set up to publicise these creations.
Fans will be able to share and exchange all Studio 4.0 contents through social networks and extend the reach of those productions across the web community.

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Viasat hit by copyright dispute


MTG’s Viasat is facing a major copyright dispute in Ukraine, where it operates the country’s leading DTH platform.

Kommersant reports that ARMA-Ukraine, a local collective rights management organisation, has accused Viasat of not having paid royalties of UAH2.9 million (â,¬267,637) for broadcast clips and movies over the last four years.
It has also demanded that the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting to withdraw Viasat’s licence and for the Prosecutor General take legal action against the company.


Viasat’s legal representative Vyacheslav Yakubenko has responded by saying the company is willing to pay the copyright fees. However, “it is a complex issue, there are many difficulties, even with a certain amount. By law this has to be 2% of income received directly from the broadcast product (but) how to calculate the 2% is not clear to us”.
The problem apparently lies with ARMA-Ukraine asking for royalty payments for content on must-carry as well as pay channels.


There are around 30 of the former and Viasat has no contracts and does not pay fees to them.
Viasat launched its DTH platform Viasat Ukraine in 2008 and it is currently believed to have around 150,000 subscribers, or some 50% more than its nearest competitor Xtra TV.
Last month it was announced that the company plans to shortly launch a second, pre-pay platform known as UA.TV and targeting the lower end of the market.

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French TV Numeric goes into receivership
October 22, 2012 08.35 Europe/London By Robert Briel

With just 40,000 paying subscribers, the French DTT pay platform TV Numeric will probably close down its services at the end of the year.

TV Numeric has gone into receivership and if no buyer will be found, the platform will cease operations.

The operator has fallen victim to the large number of freely available terrestrial channels. In the past few years, a number of terrestrial premium channels closed down including, Canal J, TPS Star and CFoot.

TV Numeric has been selling the remaining premium channels, but saw its client base dropping sharply from 100,000 homes at the beginning of the year to around 40,000 in October.

With the company in receivership, this also casts doubt of the feasibility of the SelecTV project, push-VOD service over DTT, which was authorised by the media authority CSA.

Officially, SelecTV is not affected by the financial difficulties of TV Numeric, as it is a separate entity, but the announced launch of the service has yet to take place.

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Rostelecom names government relations chief
October 22, 2012

Russian telco Rostelecom has named former deputy minister of communications Naum Marder as vice-president of government relations.
Marder, who oversaw mobile and fixed communications, was recently replaced in his post by deputy minister Denis Sverdlov

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ALi to provide reference platform for Russian DTT
October 22, 2012

Set-top chipset provider ALi Corporation has joined forces with the Moscow Scientific-Research Television Institute (MNITI) to develop a reference set-top solution for the country’s DVB-T2 digital-terrestrial TV deployment.

DVB-T2 services are expected to be available in 39 of Russia’s regions by March 2013.

Konstantin Bystrushkin, deputy director of JSC MNITI, said, “Since 1998, the Institute has been actively participating in the preparation for digital television transition in Russia. At present, MNITI is in cooperation with domestic enterprises to develop digital set-top boxes for the deployment of DVB-T2. ALi is a world leader in set-top-box solutions providing high level of integration, design flexibility, and cost/performance value. With the collaborated reference solution from ALi and MNITI, local STB manufacturers can speed up the supply of DVB-T2 enabled set-top boxes to meet the demand from Russian viewers.”

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CTC Media names business support chief
October 22, 2012

Russian broadcaster CTC Media has named Konstantin Khachaturov as head of business support and a member of the management board.

Khachaturov is in charge of administration and organizational development, human resources, IT and TV technology. He was previously vice-president of corporate development at technology company Sitronics.

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French filmmakers denounce EC’s lack of support
October 22, 2012

/French filmmakers have denounced the refusal of the European Commission to accept the principle of taxing telecom service providers to support content creation.

The filmmakers, gathered at the Rencontres cinématographiques event in Dijon at the end of last week, denounced what they saw as the purely economic view of culture taken by the EC in rejecting the latest version of the tax, which sees distributors of TV services contribute to audiovisual content creation through the Cosip fund.

A number of well-known filmmakers signed a manifesto deploring the absence of a cultural policy at European level and the EC’s apparent view that rules should be dictated entirely by the market.

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KDG providing free Wi-Fi in Berlin
October 22, 2012

German cable operator Kabel Deutschland has teamed up with the Berlin-Brandenburg media authority to launch a public Wi-Fi project in Berlin.

KDG is supporting 44 public hotspots across the city, providing download speeds of up to 100Mbps. Current areas covered include Hackescher Markt, Gendarmenmarkt, Unter den Linden and Kastanienallee and Kollwitz. A further 60 hotspots will be created by next summer in Berlin-Mitte, Tiergarten and Charlottenburg in the center of Potsdam.

A Hotspot Finder has been created, available via the Apple App Store, to enable people to find the nearest hotspot, with an Android version to be launched in November.

Each user will have access to 30 minutes of free surfing a day. Payment options will be introduced next year for users that require more time online. KDG customers who register will have access to open-ended free Wi-Fi.

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Ziggo exte$$$ Wi-Fi hotspot trial
October 22, 2012

Dutch cable operator Ziggo is to extend its existing Wi-Fi hotspot trial across the city of Groningen. The trial, which uses Ziggo’s installed base of cable modems to create public Wi-Fi hotspots, will initially extend hotspot functionality to some 10,000 modems in the city from November 1, extending to 18,000 two weeks later.

Each of the 18,000 Ziggo internet customers in the trial will be able to make use of the Wi-Fi hotspots created by other modem users. Ziggo had previously carried out a small-scale pilot in some parts of Groningen.

Customers must agree for their modem/router to be partitioned with part of the bandwidth being made available to other users.

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Swisscom launches new TV app
October 22, 2012

Swisscom has launched a new TV app, which now offers access to over 80 live channels as well as time-delayed programmes on tablets and smartphones.

The new app combines the previous TV Guide and TV Air apps into a single app and includes a number of new functions, according to the Swiss telco.

Programmes can be recorded while on the move and accessed later on a TV, PC, tablet or smartphone, regardless of which device the programme was recorded on. Live pause and replay functions for time-delayed TV are now available on mobile devices for the first time.

The free app is available for iPhones and iPads and for Android smartphones. A Swisscom TV Air subscription is required to use the replay and live pause functions. This is included in the Vivo Casa combined packages or is available for CHF9 (â,¬7.45) per month.

The Swisscom TV Air app will continue to be available for Windows Phone devices.

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Canal Plus’s Belmer speaks against change to SVOD window
October 22, 2012

Canal Plus chief Rodolphe Belmer has spoken out against any significant changes to the ordering of rules governing the window in which films are made available on-demand in France.

Speaking at the Rencontres Cinématographiques event in Dijon on Friday, Belmer, who named last week as director-general of Canal Plus Group, said that there was no need to make any distinction between the windows for small films and major movies. While he said Canal Plus was not totally opposed to discussing an evolution of the rules, this could only be with a view to maximising the value of content and not in the name of an “ideology” that everything digital was good.

Belmer’s views seem to mark a change from an indication earlier this year that Canal Plus was ready to bring forward the distribution window for certain factual and niche films, making them available in subscription VOD services 22 months after theatrical release rather than 36. Since then, however, the country’s competition regulator has ruled that Canal Plus cannot sell SVOD rights exclusively as one of the conditions for renewed approval of its 2007 merger with TPS.

Belmer was speaking against the background of the enquiry by former Canal Plus chief Pierre Lescure into France’s support for the media industry and growing pressure from some quarter for changes in the way windows are structured to accommodate new digital distribution platforms.

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Netflix recruiting for international service
October 22, 2012

Netflix is looking for a range of language specialists leading market watchers to speculate it will roll out in new territories or launch new local language versions of its existing service.

A job advertisement for specialists that can help Netflix localise its service in Turkish, Dutch, Hindi, German, Italian, Norwegian, Korean, and Japanese has been posted on its website.

It is not clear whether there are plans afoot to launch streaming services in some or all of these markets or whether Netflix plans to offer its service localised into these languages for ex-pat audiences in territories where it already has a presence.

“We are looking for experienced linguists with the ability to translate and customise marketing, UI and content materials for the target market,” the post says. “We are looking for highly motivated individuals with the right mix of technical, organisational and communication skills to provide localisation for the Netflix experience.”

The job post originally appeared last year, but was subsequently withdrawn. It has now been posted again and is on the careers section of the Netflix site.

The company launched across Scandinavia last week and has also rolled out in Canada and the UK and Ireland as its refocuses on its international launch plans having returned to growth in its domestic US market.

Netflix announces its third quarter results tomorrow.

No-one from Los-Angeles-based Netflix was immediately available for comment.

At last count Netflix had 22.7 million paying subs in the US and 3.02 million in international markets.

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Record month for iPlayer, TV platform and games console use grows
October 22, 2012

BBC iPlayer recorded a record month in September, with use of the service on TV platforms up 22% and games consoles up 16%. Mobile and tablet use accounted for 21% of requests.

The record 199 million iPlayer requests during the month topped the 196 million recorded in August, with the increase driven primarily by radio requests, which grew 8% month-on-month.

TV platform operators, including Virgin Media, accounted for 13% of requests, with internet TV/connected devices â€" including the likes of Freeview and Freesat smart TVs, set-top boxes, Roku media players and Blu-ray players â€" accounting for a further 2%. Computers were still responsible for the lion’s share of requests at 52%, with tablets accounting for 9% and mobile devices for 12%. Games consoles accounted for 6% of requests. For TV requests only, the proportion accounted for by computers fell to 47%, with other platforms all up.

The gender profile of iPlayer use reached a even split between males and females for the first time in the second quarter, according to the BBC, with a record 23% of requests also being made by people over the age of 55.
The first episode of series seven of Doctor Who was the most requested programme, with 2.19 million requests.

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Media centres hit in Israeli air strikes

Louise Duffy | 19-11-2012

Israel has denied targeting foreign media in Gaza after the Israeli Defence Forces released a video of an airstrike on media buildings; it says it was aiming for Hamas communication sites.

Military planes struck two media centres on Sunday - the al-Shawa building and the al-Shuruq building. Broadcasters based there include Sky News, al-Arabiya, al-Quds television, Dubai TV and al-Aqsa TV. Eight people were injured in the attacks.

Sky News Middle East Correspondent Sam Kiley was in the offices when they were hit. "I think what happened to us just illustrates in a general sense that no one in Gaza can feel safe," he said.