Convergence India 2010: NDS Showcases Proven, Cost-Effective Digital Pay-TV Solutions for India

NEW DELHI — 18th Convergence India 2010 Exhibition, Stand C-70, Hall 18 – At the show, NDS Group, the leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, will showcase a range of tailored solutions for Indian pay-TV operators looking to make a rapid and cost-effective transition to digital. Also on display will be a number of interactive solutions and advanced advertising applications to help digital pay-TV operators in India generate new revenue streams and reduce churn.

NDS is an established provider of end-to-end digital TV solutions for Indian pay-TV operators looking to launch affordable digital pay-TV platforms. NDS offers VideoGuard® conditional access solutions (CAS), MediaHighway® set-top box software, multi-lingual Electronic Programme Guides (EPGs) and systems integration expertise to all sizes of pay-TV operators in India. NDS solutions that have already been deployed by DTH operators, Tata Sky and Airtel Digital TV and cable TV providers DEN and Hathway, will be featured at the show.

NDS XTV™, the world leading digital video recorder (DVR) technology, with 25 million units deployed worldwide, will also be demonstrated. This technology allows subscribers to pause, record, play back, rewind and fast forward their recorded TV programmes, offering consumers real freedom and flexibility, and pay-TV operators with a proven way to grow revenues and reduce churn.

In addition NDS will be demonstrating NDS Dynamic™, the suite of technologies which enable pay-TV operators, channels, agencies and advertisers to improve existing advertising sales, deliver highly addressable adverts, receive a wealth of valuable information on consumer viewing behaviour and develop new advertising models. The result is improved addressability and enhancing interactive advertising. The NDS Dynamic suite has three main elements: Audience Measurement, Addressable TV Advertising and Interactive TV Advertising.

Following significant investment in the NDS R&D centre in Bangalore and commercial offices in both New Delhi and Mumbai, more than 26 percent of NDS’ employees are now located in India – enabling local development of applications for the Indian market, a selection of which will be showcased at the exhibition including the first Hindi EPG and interactive games.

“India is one of the world’s most dynamic pay-TV regions and is an exciting and significant growth market for NDS.” Said Sue Taylor, Senior Vice President and General Manager of NDS Asia Pacific. “There is a strong appetite for new technology and value added services like DVR, HDTV and iTV in the Indian market; to address the growing demand we have developed a range of cost-effective, scalable and fully customisable end-to-end solutions for convergence in the region.”

At the conference, Alan Dishington, General Manager, NDS India, will be speaking on a panel on Digital Satellite, Terrestrial and Cable Broadcasting Technologies on Tuesday 23rd March from 16:05 -17:30hrs. In his presentation on ‘Digitizing your cable TV network: Myths and Facts’, he will address the issues and challenges faced by small and medium sized cable operators in digitizing their network.

Other demonstrations on the NDS stand will include:

• NDS Interactive Applications that provide subscribers with the ability to view additional news stories and sports coverage of interest to them, check the latest sports results, travel information and weather forecasts. They can even ‘chat’ with their friends, place bets and interact with their favourite programmes. NDS will demonstrate iTV applications from Tata Sky and Hathway.
• NDS Interactive Games that increase subscriber loyalty and deliver additional revenue opportunities to operators by extending interactivity beyond scheduled programming.
• NDS Interactive EPGs, which make it easier for viewers to find and access programmes, and for operators to introduce value-added on-demand services. The NDS EPG can display both English and Hindi and NDS can easily add additional Indian languages on an ‘as needs’ basis.
• NDS PC Show™, an end-to-end solution enabling digital pay-TV operators and telcos to extend their services beyond the TV to the end-user’s PC, using the open Internet or the operator’s existing broadcast stream. PC Show is designed with NDS’ proven VideoGuard CAS & DRM solutions to ensure secure content delivery. It enables service growth by enhancing cross-selling opportunities, and paves the way for offering future revenue-generating and churn reducing services, such as advertising and home networking.