News summary from scratmag India INTERNATIONAL NEWS JAPAN: 4K TV TEST TRANSMISSIONS In June, Japan commenced test broadcasts of satellite television programs in 4K, as major firms including Sony and Sharp hope the new TVs will change their fortunes. The technology has four times the resolution of High Definition (HD) TVs, but high prices have inhibited sales. The technology has four times the resolution of High Definition (HD) TVs, but high prices have inhibited sales. I think i t s wonderful that 4K broadcasting through a s a t e l l i t e will be a v a i l a b l e i n households nationwide for the first time in the world, said Yoko Kamikawa, vice minister of the Internal Affairs and Communication Ministry, as the test started. We will continue working towards a full-fledged 4K broadcast and 8K test broadcasting in 2016, she added. Japan hopes to unveil 8K technology commercially before Tokyos hosting of the 2020 Olympics. DUBAI: ANTI-PIRACY AGAINST DISHTV The UAE Criminal Investigation Department (CID), in collaboration with Dubai Police, has launched an aggressive campaign to track down illegal DTH providers. Its economic crime department is taking strict action against pirates, and has carried out a number of raids, seizing illegal equipment and decoders. The CID has now obtained a list of illegal subscriptions to South Asian TV channels, mostly comprising of illegal DishTV feeds. This has helped the recently formed Anti-Piracy Coalition and the concerned authorities to crack down on unauthorised satellite service providers and dealers. THAILAND: NO POLITICS ON TV Voice TV owned by t h e Shinawatra f a m i l y remains off the air. Thailands National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) said Voice TV is likely to be allowed to broadcast again now that it has submitted a revised programming schedule and proposed content that contains nothing related to the political conflict, said Col Pirat Banjongkhien, director of the Royal Thai Armed Forces Military Technology Center and who is in charge of media supervision for the junta. The NCPO said the ban on TV channels took into consideration content, particularly political content, that might foster social division and state disharmony and did not look at the stakeholders involved. Currently, 13 politically focused satellite TV channels & about 6,000 community radio stations have been banned. GERMANY: DVB-T2 & HEVC Germany is shifting from digital terrestrial DVB-T to the new DVB-T2 standard. HEVC compression will be used for these transmissions. High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is a successor to H.264/MPEG-4. HEVC provides much higher data compression than H.264/MPEG-4 & supports 8K UHD and resolutions up to 8192x4320. The new transmission standards will save valuable terrestrial bandwidth. Public broadcasters will stay Free-To-Air while private broadcasters will encrypt. The gradual DVB-T2 deployment is scheduled to commence in mid-2016 and expected to be completed on a nationwide scale in 2020. At the end of the transition process, transmission capacity will be vacated which may then be handed over to mobile network operators. 4K TV MISSES WORLD CUP GOAL The World Cup is the biggest single sporting event in the world. It was also the biggest opportunity to sell new 4K TV sets. Ultra High Definition (UHD), or 4K, sets dominated CES 2014, much was expected from the Football World Cup to popularise these new TV sets. Sadly, only 3 matches will actually be filmed in the format, with Sony handling the production. The 3 matches will form part of the official World Cup documentary movie, can be downloaded after the tournament is over. GEO TV SHUT FOR 15 DAYS In April, this year, Pakistans popular television channel, Geo TVs news anchor Hamid Mir was attacked. The channel believed and linked the countrys intelligence agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), to the attack. The channel has been entangled with a defamation row with the powerful ISI. Geo TV publically apologised to the ISI. However, in mid-June, based on a complaint by the defence ministry, Pakistans Electronic Media Regularity Authority (PEMRA) suspended the Geo TV from broadcasting, for 15 days. PEMRA also imposed a fine on the channel of Rs. 1 Crore, if the channel wanted to resume telecasts. The suspension of Geo TV is a serious attack on press freedom in Pakistan. It is the latest act in an organised campaign of harassment and intimidation targeting the network on account of its perceived bias against the military, said Amnesty Internationals Asia director Richard Bennett. SRI LANKA BATTLES CABLE & DTH PIRACY Around 300,000 Sri Lankans use illegal DTH STBs to view Indian and other foreign TV channels, according to a survey by Lankas Ministry of Mass Media and Information. A large black market supports over 500 pirate operators in the satellite and cable TV sector, Ministry Secretary Dr Charitha Herath told Sri Lankas Business Times. Pirated connections are available for LKR100 to LKR300 compared to LKR500 to more than LKR2,000 a month paid by legitimate subscribers. A notice from the Ministry has appeared in newspapers warning unauthorised satellite or/and cable TV stations, vendors, distributors, and users of illegal DTH STBs. SAUDI NOW OPEN TO SAT TV Riyad Najm, chairman of Saudi Arabias Audio-Visual Media Commission (AVMC), and a former senior official in the countys information ministry, said the Kingdom was revisiting how it regulated and licensed broadcasters and online news websites. He even hinted that cinemas might be allowed [there are no cinemas in Saudi Arabia]. He also discussed the possibility of public Saudi Radio & Television, and the Ministry of Culture & Information, being rolled into a new media-based entity. Najm said some 40% of Saudi-owned channels were waiting for the chance to operate in Saudi Arabia. 60 CABLE NETWORKS DUMP VIACOM For almost 2 months, about 1 million households in small towns across the U.S. havent been able to watch Nickelodeon, MTV or Comedy Central, as a result of a blackout of the Viacom Inc. owned channels by some 60 small cable operators. The cable networks say they are not under any pressure since they have hardly received any complaints from their customers. SPAIN: PAY-TV 10% The number of homes with a Pay-TV service in Spain has fallen further to 21.2%. Spanish homes refuse to pay premiums for their TV viewing and less than 1.5% of homes subscribe to payper- view services, according to the latest report from the competition watchdog CNMC. n
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 05:04:42 +0000
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