News Broadcasting
Kodak keen to bring digital cinema to E. Asia
MUMBAI: Joshua Chan is a man with a mission. The business & Asean marketing manager – entertainment imaging of Kodak Singapore is keen to bring digital cinema to east Asia.
And he does not let the fact that he is facing an uphill task bog him down. Like Moses on the mountain top after he received the 10 commandments, Joshua, the digital cinema evangelist sermonizes, “There are close to 110,000 screens globally. There’s tremendous potential to convert them to digital as only 100 of them have taken that path.”
Chan points out that 70 per cent of the digital converts are in the US, 25 per cent in Europe and just five per cent of them in Japan. “The rest of Asia does not have any. In fact, we have seen that a lot of the screens are not permanently digital, the digital projector is rented, and then converted to the normal screen after the show.”
The major hurdle, he believes is price. “The normal film projector costs $3,000, the digital projector costs $150,000,” he points out. “Who is going to bear the cost, the producer, the distributor or the exhibitor is an issue?”
Additionally, there is also the fear of piracy amongst Hollywood studios. “Questions about the safety of encoding and decoding technology are asked which are possibly slowing down the spread. The studios believed that DVD technology safe,” he reveals.
Chan will be speaking at the Asian Film Market Conference in Singapore in early December to try and educate attendees about the pros and cons of digital cinema and “to cut out the hype” in his words.
Despite all these rumblers, digital cinema will become a reality, he says. “At Kodak we have been the pioneers of filmed entertainment for over 100 years,” he adds. “We are working hand in hand with industry with various partners like JVC and IBM on a cinema operating software and others on digital mastering. We will soon be announcing a Kodak Digital Projector with the highest clarity. It’s an evolutionary process. Give digital cinema five to 10 years and you will see it reaching increasing neighbourhoods.”
News Broadcasting
Times Network to air JVC Exit Poll across 5 regions on April 29
Four-hour broadcast spans states and Puducherry with data-led analysis
MUMBAI: Times Network is set to roll out what it calls one of its most expansive election programming efforts yet, culminating in the JVC Exit Poll on 29 April, with a multi-hour broadcast spanning key poll-bound regions.
The exit poll will air across Times Now and Times Now Navbharat, beginning at 5pm and 4pm respectively. Co-powered by Vedanta and Jindal Stainless, the programming aims to combine on-ground reportage with data-driven projections across West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry.
The network has deployed over 50 journalists across these regions, gathering voter sentiment and local insights in the run-up to polling. The effort builds on its ongoing election formats such as Election Yatra and Election Premier League, which have tracked campaign narratives and community-level issues.
In parallel, Times Now Navbharat has focused on constituency-level reporting in West Bengal through its Jan Gan ka Mann series, capturing voter opinions across diverse segments.
The coverage has also featured interviews with prominent political leaders. Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Congress leaders Ramesh Chennithala and V D Satheesan have appeared on the network’s election specials. From Tamil Nadu, voices including deputy chief minister Udhayanidhi Stalin, DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran, BJP leader K Annamalai and NTK’s Seeman have also featured in discussions.
On the day of the exit poll, the network’s primetime anchors, including Navika Kumar, Zakka Jacob and Sumit Awasthi, will lead the coverage. They will be joined by a panel of political analysts, psephologists and senior journalists offering real-time insights and interpretation of trends.
The programming will integrate grassroots reportage with analytics from the JVC Exit Poll, aiming to give viewers an early sense of electoral outcomes ahead of the official results on 4 May.
With its combined English and Hindi broadcast reach, Times Network is positioning this effort as a comprehensive look at voter sentiment, blending field reporting, data and debate to decode what could lie ahead when the final mandate is revealed.
