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Lured by the ever growing
opportunities in
the IPTV market in India, yet another player-ACT
Television Pvt. Ltd. (ACT) forayed into the market.
Based out of Bengaluru, the company has launched its
IPTV service in February this year. And now taking-up
the challenge to spread the IPTV market, the company is
now bringing the Digital Cable, IPTV, data and other
broadband services through cable to customer's place in
other towns of Karnataka as well as in other states like
Andhra Pradesh in South & Madhya Pradesh in Central
India.
The company was set-up by Sunder Raju as an
MSO in 2000 with the aim to become the most admired
in-home entertainment, education & interactive service
provider and thus create radical socio-economic
transformation in the country.
The main technology behind IPTV is 'Internet Protocol'.
This technology implies the use of an underlying
networking infrastructure that supports broadcast videos
using multicasting techniques. This enables in
transmitting data (broadcast channels, video streams)
from service provider's Headend to the Set Top Box at
the customer's end.
Cable Services
IPTV being truly interactive, that allows two way
communication and data transfer, is the future of
Entertainment. ACT Interactive TV, therefore, allows its
users to make their televisions work at their will And
some of its unique features are:
• Ability to view TV at your convenience - Viewers do
not have to miss a single second of their favorite
shows. They can simply pause live TV and attend to the
doorbell, or take phone calls, etc. and then can come
back and resume their show from where they left.
• It also allows subscribers to record one show while
watching another. Not only this, subscribers can set
multiple recordings of shows that are scheduled to come
at a future time/date. This feature, therefore, allows
subscribers to record shows while they are away and then
watch them later at their convenience. Recordings are
possible on local storage devices / hard disks which
subscribers have at their disposal. In case they do not
have a storage device, ACT Interactive TV gives
subscribers the facility to record their favorite shows
using the ACT Network!
• Last but not the least, ACT's network servers archive
popular television shows for select channels, long after
they have been broadcast. These can be accessed by the
subscribers, on request, for a specified time period.
Therefore, now with the help of this exciting feature,
subscribers will never have to worry about missing any
episode of their favourite shows.
Internet on TV
A vast amount of information / entertainment available
on Internet remains inaccessible to most of the Indians
either due to lack of computer knowledge or because they
do not own a computer at home which makes it difficult
for them to access the net even if they know basic
computer/internet applications.
ACT Interactive TV has managed to solve this problem in
a fantastic way by enabling complete Web Browsing on
Television. With the help of a compact and
non-alphanumeric remote control, customers can key in
any desired website's name in the soft search keypad
available on TV and can access any website in a matter
of seconds. Not only this, ACT Interactive TV gives
complete access to Youtube on television. Therefore,
viewers can now watch any and every Youtube video on the
big screens of their TVs instead of on PCs.
ACT Interactive also offers Internet Videos that have
been categorized, keeping in mind popular themes across
various genres and catering to all age groups. Each
category has links to hundreds of online videos which on
being selected start playing immediately. Some of the
many categories are 'Cookery', 'Sports', 'Travel',
'Movie' and 'Music Videos' etc.
True Video on Demand (VOD)
Customers can choose from ACT Interactive TV's extensive
library of Kannada, Tamil and, Hindi films, and view
them instantly, at the click of a button. Customers can
also pause, rewind and forward these videos at their
convenience. This makes VOD 'True VOD', on ACT
Interactive TV. Soon Telugu and World movies shall also
be added to the library.
Value Added Services
ACT Interactive TV offers IRCTC on TV which enables the
customers to check the PNR status of their train tickets
on their TV sets itself. Not only this, customers also
get access to daily Panchang on their TV sets and can
play various entertaining and informative games which
cater to all age groups. Apart from this, ACT
Interactive TV has the potential to offer various other
services based on consumer demands in the future.
The Regulatory aspects.
As far as Govt. regulations are concerned, the basic
need for IPTV is to increase broadband penetration.
However, the guidelines for IPTV given by the Govt are
by and large acceptable to the players and the sector
and the framework provided is satisfactory and workable.
Content Protection in the new
scenario.
IPTV Content is encrypted using widely accepted DRM/CAS
principles.
There are not many IPTV players in the Indian market. A
few other players that are offering this service, have
also just launched and all the players are still in
an-going process of developing their product & exploring
the new technology. IPTV is still at a nascent stage.
Therefore, spreading awareness about the technology and
making consumers aware of the unique features are the
most important things for all the players.
Some of the various unique features offered by ACT
Interactive TV are 'Internet on TV', 'True Video on
Demand', and various 'Value Added Services'. These
outstanding features keep ACT Interactive TV much ahead
of the other players in the IPTV race.
High infrastructure cost is a big hurdle in speedy
implementation of IPTV. It uses 'Internet Protocol', to
send and receive data. Therefore, in order to ensure
that consumers do not experience any packet loss or
delays on their TV sets, it is essential to build and
provide complete network, right from a strong Headend to
an error-free last-mile connectivity. This implies a
huge cost to service providers. And since IPTV is still
in its nascent stages, the return on investment is
currently small.
IPTV requires a higher bandwidth in comparison to DTH
and other wireless services. That is why considering the
scenario of current Indian market, low broadband
penetration is one of IPTV's biggest challenges.
IPTV has a huge potential in the times ahead as this is
the way the entertainment & VAS industry is destined to
go. It is currently in its nascent stages and not many
are aware of the fantastic features that this technology
offers. However, The day is not far when IPTV will grow
by leaps and bound |
