3G to TV

Description

Market Trends The Ground Reality of Media today Television trends have changed in the last decade; today the TV world has gone interactive! As people tend to have their mobiles with them on the sofa, “it’s a very natural form of interaction,” says Adam Daum of the consultancy, Gartner, in a recent article in The Economist. Indeed, interactive television is all the rage in Europe and the Asia pacific region, and one of the important technologies used to implement it is the mobile phone and SMS. Subscribers/viewers have the ability to interact via a short code or keyword with any program that allows SMS Polling, Info requests, Push SMS, SMS Advertisement, etc. The most popular interactive TV application is voting, where home viewers can respond (often motivated by prizes) to a series of questions, which relate to a TV show. According to a report from Van Dusseldorp & Partners, the German edition of MTV’s ‘Video-clash’ (which invites viewers to vote for one of two rival videos) generates up to 40,000 messages an hour, each costing €0.30; and Belgium’s ‘1 against 100’ attracted 110,000 contestants in a month (each paying €0.50 per message). And there are other interactive TV applications: news shows soliciting user opinions; game shows attracting participation from home; music shows taking requests by text message; and on screen (usually as a ticker-tape screen ‘overlay’) chat rooms. Interactive TV has similar success stories in Asia. The Philippines, for example, has more than 30 interactive TV shows, including four dedicated SMS-driven TV channels. A popular show can attract as many as 1 million messages in an hour, charged at a premium message rate of between €0.05–0.25 –compared to a regular SMS fee of €0.02. In Europe, these rates are known to exceed €1. Although Premium SMS accounts in general for 5-10 percent of SMS volumes, revenues are more like 30 percent! Looking ahead into the future Technology is evolving! Today we have the ability to make a video call rather than a voice call, to send an MMS instead of a simple SMS. This adds a new dimension to the world of media, which allows viewers to be a part of mainstream TV. A viewer can not just interact but actually participate in any program. Participation & Interaction are key factors to the success of Media and 3G video applications, it is a new way to interact with and contribute to live TV broadcasting by means of Video portals traditional broadcaster, IPTV providers, mobile TV operators might create new formats that enable viewers to send 3G video messages with their opinions, comments and questions. Participation TV provides an attractive opportunity for users to get their views on to mainstream TV, either through a circuit switched call or via MMS. The Video portal enables TV channels and shows to encourage viewer participation: build a strong community around their program. Benefits to the Operator 1. Increase the ARPU 2. Introduce innovative services to the subscribers 3. Increase the usage of 3G video calls. 4. Increase the usage of Multimedia Messaging. 5. New revenue streams by coupling with other value added services such as SMS and IVR. – can use SMS or IVR as voting mediums for user generated content via Campaign Producer – Television program participants can be selected through SMS or IVR campaigns which will earn additional revenue for the operator Benefits to the Subscriber 1. Live participation with TV programs 2. New avenue to present one’s creativity 3.Immediate news reporting to the nation via participation TV 4. Participate in Television games, chat shows, debates, etc 5. The viewer can be more in control of the content he/she gets to watch 6. Ideal opportunity for amateur actors to make their mark in a smaller forum 7. A chance to make their friends and family feel special with personalized dedications and greetings Benefits to the Media Station 1. Live participation with TV programs 2. New avenue to present one’s creativity 3. New avenues to create innovative television programs 4. A new extension to reality-TV programs 5. New way to find innovative content – introduction of User Generated Content for programs like AFV. 6. The ability to enhance existing programmes with the inclusion of a video dimension – i.e. greetings/ request shows 7. Higher audience participation and demand for celebrity programming 8. The immediacy of obtaining breaking news and opinion polls which is viewer generated. Features of Campaign Producer WaveNET’s campaign producer promotes the viewer participation via various channels. ii. Video Calling (3G) iii. MMS (Multimedia Messaging), These are the areas of interest in this document. When it comes to video calling, 2 types of viewer participation is introduced a) Live In this way, viewers can participate in television programs in real time. Examples of such participation would be live breaking news (citizen journalism), participation in live television shows such as talk shows, debates etc. b) Offline In offline video calling, callers are called into a certain operator ‘Video Inbox’ and leave their messages. The recorded video clips are then downloaded to TV station MIC and aired depending on the programs. Examples of such participation would be, news reporting (citizen journalism), video request shows, entertainment and reality tv programs like AFV (Americas Funniest Home Videos). For MMS, it will anyway be offline. Users will be sending videos wrapped up in MMSs. Again, viewers send the Multimedia Messages into a certain operator ‘MMS Inbox’. The recorded video clips are then downloaded to TV station MIC and aired depending on the programs. Following are some more features and functionalities of the WaveNET Campaign Producer, 3. Answer the 3G calls from the subscribers 3G calls coming to a media station number (short code/ long number) will be answered and connected with the media station video portal. Once in the video portal, subscribers will be taken through different video menus. 4. Accept MMSs from the subscribers Multimedia Messages coming to a media station number (short code/ long number) will be accepted and the necessary processing is done to retrieve the content and then the video content will be sent to the MIC. Received MMSs are served in a FIFO basis. 5. Video Call Queuing There can be multiple callers calling in. In such situations, Video platform sitting at the operator premises will queue calls. They will be served to the MIC on a first come first serve basis. Auto-attendant feature like in PBXs is implemented. 6. Support for live and store & forward video calls Two types of participation TV video calls are provided. Using live video calls, users will directly be connected with the TV station programs. With the store and forward video calls, users will be able to do offline call recordings so that they can be played over the television programs as desired by the program directors. 7. MMS supports only store & forward videos With the store and forward video MMSs, users will be able to do offline video recordings so that they can be played over the television programs as desired by the program directors. 8. Transform the circuit switched video call to SDI This is an important functionality of campaign producer. It will transform the circuit switched video coming from the mobile user to a format which will be understood by video mixers at the television studios. 9. Transcoding of offline video content to SDI Transcoding will transform the received video content into SDI interface output to be aired on Television. 10. Providing the fault tolerant and scalable configurations Campaign producer is scalable for the growing demand. System is designed in a way which allows easy upgrades on the system. The scalability will be n + 1. Number of circuit switched interfaces & SDI interfaces can be scaled up depending on the mobile operator or media station requirements. 11. Moderate/preview the video calls/MMSs via console Video caller/MMS will under go a moderation process before being put on to the TV screen. Operator sitting at the MIC (under the guidance of the media station) is able to talk to the caller where each party will be able to see each other. With MMS, console operator is able to preview the content of the MMS received. 12. Delay between received video and transmitted video to studio mixer This is a part of the moderation process. This allows the prevention/filtering of broadcasting unnecessary comments by the live video callers/participants. 13. Outbound Calls MIC operator is able to make outbound calls towards the 3G callers. Once connected, they will be patched on to the TV mixer via SDI. 14. Alteration Mixing of the incoming video feeds from 3G callers or video content from MMSs with different graphics/sub titling is provided. This allowsgf projecting of a modified video on to the TV rather than inserting the pure video coming from the 3G caller or MMS. 15. Support for multiple SDI outputs Allows projecting multiple callers on to the TV screen via the SDI interfaces. This way the TV program producer can decide the locations of the different video inputs received via the SDI interfaces.

What we deliver?

1. Increase the ARPU 2. Introduce innovative services to the subscribers 3. Increase the usage of 3G video calls. 4. Increase the usage of Multimedia Messaging. 5. New revenue streams by coupling with other value added services such as SMS and IVR. – can use SMS or IVR as voting mediums for user generated content via Campaign Producer – Television program participants can be selected through SMS or IVR campaigns which will earn additional revenue for the operator

Why is the project unique?
Mobitel (Pvt) Ltd Religious festivals and holidays are many in Sri Lanka. For Easter Sunday in 2008, the entire sermon from one of the leading catholic churches in the country; was streamed live and direct from the church to the mobile. Thousands of Subscribers who were not able to make it due to reasons pertaining to distance, work, or other commitments were still able to be a part of the ceremony where ever they were MISS SRI LANKA 2008 Contestants were able to maintain their own mobile video blog sites, (mobile Youtube) Fans were able to view uploaded videos, Rate it Vote for their favourite contestant Share it with a friend Comment on the video This generated in excess of 140000 votes per day for all contestants. 3G LIVE – Convocation 2008 General Convocation of University of Moratuwa-Sri Lanka was broadcast over 3G network on 27th June 2008

Contact
Wavenet International (Pvt) Ltd
Sanjini Munaweera
201, Sir James Peiris Mawatha ,
Colombo 02.Sri Lanka

URL/Website – www.wavenet.lk