Couple of days back I saw the news about extending Conditional Access System to more cities. As of now Chennai is the only city affected because of this. Few years before I was watching an F1 race in Kaattur, a village which is 3 km from Lalgudi Taluk in Trichy District. But I didn't get the same in Chennai. That too in Kaattur, the monthly cable fee is Rs. 75 approximately. If you want to watch the same in Chennai you need to buy a Set top box and the charges will come around Rs400 p.m.
For a developed or developing economy, information distribution is very essential. It may be through any mediums like phones, internet, television, radio etc. When you make these services dearer, its gonna make an impact on the development directly or indirectly.
For the profit of few individuals or institutions, government should not restrict or make the service costlier. All the channels should be available for everyone. Need to provide more privileges to channels which are broadcosting for free of cost. Channels can make money through various sources, but not from viewers who give their valuable time. But still anything come for free will be used in an inapropriate way like how mobile companies suffered when they give free sms and free night calls. So cost is must, but should not be a problem. Think about a family with a house hold income of Rs. 10000 p.m, is it worth to pay 5% of the income to cable TV?
Lets come back to the conditional access system. Conditional Access System is a useful way for televisions. We can use it in a different way. Set top Box is nothing but a kind of CPU. It currently used to convert the picture to digital quality. But what are the other things are possible with Set top Box?
1. Sub Title support in many languages.
2. Interactive Services like movie on demand, weather forecasting for different city, directory for essential services etc.
3. Useful to keep track the statistics of how many viewers watching a particular channel at a time which is important for ratings of channels.
4. Can implement a time based charges for channels. For example if you watch ESPN for 7 hours, you will be charged Rs 7. If you watch CNN for 5 hours , you will be charged Rs. 2.50. Some channels you can watch free. Some of the newly released movie, we can pay through credit card and watch. (Rates are example, if we calculate in the same way, we'll end up paying Rs 1000 p.m)
5. Record and watch programs if we are not able to watch it in a regular time.
6. I guess if we introduce some more features to Set top box, we may able to watch VOIP based channels which are upcoming.
So with our technological advantage, we need to think about a win-win situation for both people and media.
For a developed or developing economy, information distribution is very essential. It may be through any mediums like phones, internet, television, radio etc. When you make these services dearer, its gonna make an impact on the development directly or indirectly.
For the profit of few individuals or institutions, government should not restrict or make the service costlier. All the channels should be available for everyone. Need to provide more privileges to channels which are broadcosting for free of cost. Channels can make money through various sources, but not from viewers who give their valuable time. But still anything come for free will be used in an inapropriate way like how mobile companies suffered when they give free sms and free night calls. So cost is must, but should not be a problem. Think about a family with a house hold income of Rs. 10000 p.m, is it worth to pay 5% of the income to cable TV?
Lets come back to the conditional access system. Conditional Access System is a useful way for televisions. We can use it in a different way. Set top Box is nothing but a kind of CPU. It currently used to convert the picture to digital quality. But what are the other things are possible with Set top Box?
1. Sub Title support in many languages.
2. Interactive Services like movie on demand, weather forecasting for different city, directory for essential services etc.
3. Useful to keep track the statistics of how many viewers watching a particular channel at a time which is important for ratings of channels.
4. Can implement a time based charges for channels. For example if you watch ESPN for 7 hours, you will be charged Rs 7. If you watch CNN for 5 hours , you will be charged Rs. 2.50. Some channels you can watch free. Some of the newly released movie, we can pay through credit card and watch. (Rates are example, if we calculate in the same way, we'll end up paying Rs 1000 p.m)
5. Record and watch programs if we are not able to watch it in a regular time.
6. I guess if we introduce some more features to Set top box, we may able to watch VOIP based channels which are upcoming.
So with our technological advantage, we need to think about a win-win situation for both people and media.
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