HDTV in Beijing Olympics

BEIJING, Aug. 8 -- Most people will not be able to watch the Olympics live but many have embraced new technology to enjoy the once in a lifetime experience. Yao Min, Liu Xiang and Roger Federer will be appearing on screens sized from two inches to 100 inches.

It's a rush now with more than 3,000 people installing IPTV every day, flat-panel TV sales surging and fans using laptops or PDAs to access the Olympics everywhere from hotels and shopping centers to airports.

High Definition TV

This is first time HD technology has been in use for a major international event ?? it has only been on the market for the past two years.

The CCTV HD channel's image quality is four times higher than that of DVD and HD truly enhances sport, say experts.

Though the HD content is relatively limited, it has fuelled the sales of TVs.

In the second quarter, large LCD panel sales jumped 23 percent to 117.9 million units, a new record, according to research firm DisplaySearch.

Shanghai Telecom's IPTV services, with two HD channels and replay functions, have attracted 510,000 users already, and the user base is expected to hit 800,000 by the end of this year.

In Shanghai there are three ways to access HD if you have an HD TV with definition of 720P (pixels) or 1080P.

You can subscribe to the Shanghai Media Group's cable-based service, which includes three HD channels and several standard definition (DVD quality) channels. The hotline number is 96877.

You can buy a HD TV set-top box to receive free wireless CCTV HD signals.

You can subscribe to Shanghai Telecom's IPTV (Internet protocal TV) service - but only certain parts of Shanghai can receive this HD signal. The hotline number is 10000.

Mobile TV

Mobile TV is good for viewing shorter events like swimming and sprinting or the replaying of highlights.

China Mobile launched its mobile TV program for 2G and 3G phones.

Source:Xinhuanet

China Digital TV and the Internet is the best investment

In the night of August 8 , started four hours of the Olympics opening ceremony, leaving the global audience of 4 billion is endless topic of conversation. According to the television ratings company AGB Nielsen Media survey data show that the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony of China set a record high ratings, according to data provided by the CSM, lit the Olympic cauldron moment, the Olympic Games opening ceremony of the national television ratings share climbed 90 Percent, to the opening night audience in the process of the highest points.

In the meantime, the Beijing Olympic Games is also the practice of using high-definition digital television technology to the world for broadcast commitments. According to the plan, the Olympic Games during the opening of the new CCTV HD channels in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Shenyang, Qinhuangdao, Guangzhou and other cities on arrival, so 2008 is also considered the first year of terrestrial digital television.

At the same time, Morgan Stanley recently released report shows that in the current market penetration at 10% -50% of the "China Digital TV and the Internet is in the best investment."

Pay channel advertising revenue will exceed

"China is a surplus in the channel, TV channel 3000, of which more than 130 channels of pay, but the content is scarce, so everyone is抢you, and you can have content to influence the media." Attempts have been made since Built cable channels light media CEO Wang Changtian, in an interview with this reporter said.

But at the current stage, in foreign countries has been confirmed that the "content is king" of the law in China seems not so obvious, according to Morgan Stanley's report, China's content producers in the digital pay-TV industry in the chain " Often from very few ": the typical form of income distribution network operators 50:40:10 - with 50 percent, with 40 percent of television programmes are integrated with 10 percent, compared to U.S. cable operators Usually 20-30 percent of income for the purchase of television programmes.

Morgan report, for example, "said Song, Beijing --- Beijing monopoly of cable operators, not only its basic subscription fees under the 70 sets of programming content to pay the cost, but also to content providers to receive" landing fees "."

Therefore, in this case, content producers would prefer to pave the way into high-quality content channels, earn advertising revenue. Statistics show that in 2006 China's TV advertising revenue pay-TV revenue is 90 times.

However, an analyst at Morgan Stanley in view, the current growth rate, this kind of "advertising revenue and subscription television," the imbalance is only temporary, pay-TV in 2006 with revenue growth of 60 percent. " In the next 3-4 years, the average income for each paid channel will be more than the average open channel of advertising revenue, we believe that when content producers will have enough money and power production of high-quality programs to please the pay-TV The audience. "

Digital TV will be the turning point profit

Digital

Show that China's nearly 30 million digital TV users, and is expected to China's digital cable subscribers to the end of 2008 China's TV households will reach 13 percent of the number of viewers in 2009 will exceed the number of Internet users - because of its foundation China's cable TV subscribers and more than twice the number of Internet users.

But at the same time the industry have pointed out that the high rate of duplication of content, allows users to experience the advantages of less than pay-TV, hampering the domestic pay-TV growth. Figures show that China's cable TV household expenditure (APRU) was only 2-3 percent of the United States, under such circumstances, the value of the content industry will be further highlighted.

At the same time, the profitability of digital TV model diversification, have voted in the securities analysts that the digital television may soon will celebrate its earnings inflection point. "The cable television network operators, enterprises, the overall two-way conversion and network transformation is complete, profit model will be a fundamental change, from a simple cable network operators into a comprehensive information service provider." After the whole transfer Era ", pay-TV business, VOD on-demand, digital TV value-added services, information access business, and so on of those operations, will enable cable operators rely on transforming good network, the network continued to make marginal benefit increase, the marginal cost reduction. "

CSM Media Research and General Manager Wang Lan-chu said that "We are pinning hopes on the charges, the traditional TV is not charging this was a problem too long« But even if the charges, income is also limited, imagine if, in the digital TV e-commerce platform can be achieved, perhaps far more than the current size of the profits. "

Digital TV:The Temptation of Olympic High-Definition Channel

In order to train during the Olympic Games group of potential users in Shanghai, SiTV, recently launched a broad interactive audience in Shanghai for "zero pay" the enjoyment of digital television broadcast of a clean plan, that all the initial set-top box users free program. Shanghai's Oriental Cable, which claims to send 200 million yuan of set-top boxes, and from July 1, for the allocation of set-top boxes, or have built-in digital TV reception of the Shanghai people, including the CCTV broadcast of a free, six sets of Standard definition digital TV sets and a digital high-definition television programs. In Beijing, the Olympic Games will be launched during the DAB 16 sets of audio broadcasts, six sets of video multimedia broadcasting, including the CCTV News Channel and the sports channel, Beijing TV, as well as three sets of data broadcasting, including securities, transportation, music and other public service information. Six sets of video programs will have four sets of programmes broadcast in full during the Olympic Games Central Television and Beijing Television's Olympic program. The current high-definition channels on CCTV in Beijing free.

In addition, the opening of the Olympic high-definition digital TV broadcasting channel is also a competition for market weight. Beijing, Shanghai has launched terrestrial digital high-definition television channel, Shenzhen, Guangzhou will also be the recent launch of terrestrial digital high-definition signal. During the Olympics, radio and television in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and other cities and six Olympic Games, Guangzhou, Shenzhen City have launched high-definition terrestrial television programmes, before the end of a 37 domestic cities will launch high-definition digital terrestrial channel.

Digital TV's main selling point for a clear image quality and the use of digital TV technology have multiplied the number of channels. In addition, digital signal transmission unlike analog signals as vulnerable to outside interference. As digital television by radio and direct operations, content rich resources. For the habit of watching television at home users, digital TV ratings to meet their needs, and have more members of the family is even more appropriate number of users.

ArcSoft And CCTV.com offer IPTV Olympics

ArcSoft, Inc. announced that ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre Net Edition has been chosen by CCTV.com as the online media player to bring the 2008 Beijing Olympics to viewers live on the Internet in China.

CCTV is easily the world’s largest TV network in terms of viewer numbers.

The market for the games in China on IPTV is huge; it is a nationwide obsession with massive amounts of national pride thrown into the mix.

An idea of how big the IPTV games audience could be comes from China Telecom, who say that 3,000 new customers are signing up each day for IPTV services, joining over half a million existing customers.

If that sounds reasonably impressive, those figures are for the City of Shanghai alone.

TotalMedia Theatre Net Edition offers OMA DRM 2.0 support; IP region identification and access protection and supports http streaming playback as well as HD resolution.

The broadcast will only be available for subscribers in China.

CCTV.com, China’s official internet/mobile platform broadcast institution of the 2008 Olympics, will be broadcasting the Olympic Games live online for viewers in China.

While allowing viewers to watch the games anytime they want on the Internet, this collaboration between CCTV.com and ArcSoft also ensures that the games broadcasted are protected, preventing them from being misused.

About CCTV.com
CCTV.com is the new media service platform of China Central Television (CCTV) and is the only organisation that can authorise others to air CCTV’s content online.

It holds a full network broadcasting licence in China, which includes web TV, mobile TV, and IPTV.

In Dec 2007, CCTV.com signed an agreement with the International Olympics Committee (IOC) on new media broadcasting rights, thus becoming the official internet and mobile phone broadcaster in China, Hong Kong and Macau for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

About ArcSoft
ArcSoft, Inc. is a software developer of multimedia technologies and applications across desktop and embedded platforms.

Working closely with major OEM manufacturers, ArcSoft offers a full line of imaging and video solutions that enhance the features, performance, and user experience of mobile phones, digital cameras, optical drives, personal computers, and consumer electronics devices.

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