iWorld
India in great position to create content using new tech: Streambox’s Bob Hildeman
KOLKATA: With the rise of premium content in India, content creators, studios, production houses are embracing new age technology. US based video technology company Streambox is eyeing this emerging need with its innovative solutions. While it has customers in the broadcast sector, Streambox is expanding to provide solutions for film and post-production, shared CEO and co-founder Bob Hildeman.
The company is excited about its prospects in India, which is probably the largest content creation market, in terms of volume if not revenue, mentioned Hildeman. The market is well-known for Bollywood film production, episodic commercial broadcast production that throw up many opportunities.
“We have been providing cloud services in India for many years on AWS but most of the users have been non-Indian firms. And we can hopefully change that with the growth of Indian companies using a cloud service. Recently, we have released a software product called Streambox Spectra. It is a virtual encoder that works with our cloud. It provides Indian customers pure software into end workflow. And I know that Indian customers, as well as customers around the globe, appreciate the software-based solutions, ” he said.
Until now, the North American market, especially the US, has been the main avenue of growth for the company. Many film studios, streaming platforms like Netflix are headquartered in the US. But even if we look at Netflix’s content offering, more Indian and Korean shows and films are dropping every day. Multilanguage content is driving that type of adaptation, he added. Hence, India is in a great position to continue to evolve and create content using newer technology, he noted.
Large post production companies in the US that work globally have been using Streambox for over ten years. They are strategic partners for the company as it develops ideas on how to make a better product to address the market needs, Hildeman explained further.
“One of their use cases was using a Streambox chroma 4k, encoder-decoder to provide remote car grading for homes to a producer in LA. From Toronto, Canada, to LA – that is a long distance, and it needs technology where we compress high quality 4k video with Dolby Vision to be able to stream that out at around 80-100 megabits which is available globally. So, we call our technology internet friendly. And that means anyone with you know robust internet connection, can use our product for delivering remote production services,” he detailed.
With the ongoing work from home trend, Streambox is being gradually adopted in other markets too. Other key markets include UK, Central Europe along with a growing customer base in Japan, Korea.
The company has just started out its journey in the Indian market. It has Sanjeev Kr Sinha as country sales manager for India & SEA, who is in talks with many premium customers.
“We see the Indian market as a primary market where we can utilise our software to essentially provide every Indian production company ways to use software-based solutions to do remote grading, remote production. With a cloud presence in India on AWS, it provides a very robust high-performance service that Indian companies could utilize immediately,” noted Hildeman.
Currently, Streambox is projecting a demand from US, Europe, UK based customer base that carries production work in India. “One of the opportunities can be we move ahead and set up an Indian operation for those customers as they expand and utilise India based production houses, and of course, the workforce and solution providers. And for them to work remotely, Streambox is a must have for them to do remote, high-quality video streaming from those locations, out to the UK, the US, North America, and so forth. So, I think the timing is critical that we step ahead and provide some direction to our customers outside India, as well as customers inside India,” he stated.
However, bringing hardware to India is no cake-walk. Hence, Hildeman advised that having Spectra, virtual encoding solution, and cloud-based workflow with software-based music players is the ideal type of software solution for Indian customers to start to deploy.
“We have travelled to India many times. We have customers in India, in the broadcast sector, and now we are expanding to provide solutions for film and post-production. I believe that the Indian market is very robust. There are highly talented creative, technical people for us to provide the tools so they could do their work better, faster and more efficiently. We are looking forward to the relationship that we build with our customer base,” he signed off.
iWorld
Tips Music CEO Hari Nair to step down
Girish Taurani and Sushant Dalmia to jointly steer the company as the hunt for a new chief begins
MUMBAI: A leadership shuffle is under way at Tips Music. Hari Nair, the company’s chief executive, will step down on April 30 as the music label begins the search for a successor.
The company said Girish Taurani, executive director, and Sushant Dalmia, chief financial officer, will jointly oversee operations during the transition while the board identifies a permanent replacement.
Nair joined Tips Music in 2023 and set about reshaping the veteran music label into a more digital, data-led enterprise. During his tenure, the company secured licensing and partnership deals with global platforms including Sony Music Publishing and TikTok, while renewing agreements with Warner Music Group.
Drawing on earlier experience in technology and entertainment, including a stint at ByteDance, Nair pushed the organisation towards a performance-driven culture. He built a brand partnerships division and introduced proprietary software systems aimed at strengthening digital distribution and data capabilities.
Kumar Taurani, chairman and managing director, credited Nair with embedding a data-led culture within the company and driving revenue growth in line with shareholder commitments.
In his resignation note, Nair said that after helping transition the label into a modern, digitally focused and process-driven organisation, the time had come to pursue his next leadership challenge.
The leadership change comes as the broader Tips Films group shows signs of financial stabilisation. In the third quarter of FY26 the company reported a net loss of Rs 2.86 crore, narrowing sharply from Rs 14.2 crore in the previous quarter. For the nine months ended December, losses stood at Rs 12.37 crore.
Yet revenue told a more volatile story. Income from operations slid to Rs 4 crore in Q3 FY26 from Rs 56 crore in the preceding quarter, taking total operating income to Rs 4.56 crore.
For a company built on a catalogue of more than 34,000 tracks and decades of Bollywood hits, the next chief will inherit both a digital engine and a volatile music market. The playlist may be familiar, but the next act at Tips Music is only just beginning.
