TV18 Signs Multi-Year Lease Agreement

TV18 Broadcast Ltd has signed a multi-year lease agreement for over 100 units of LiveU's LU600 HEVC solution.

The units are already stationed in various locations in over 20 Indian states to support TV18’s entire network of channels, including CNBC-TV18, CNBC Awaaz, CNBC Bazaar, CNN-News18, News18 India, New18 UP/Uttarakhand, New18 Bihar/Jharkhand, News18 Bangla, News18 Odia, News18 MP/Chhattisgarh, News18 Rajasthan, News18 Punjab/Haryana/HP, News18 Gujarati, News18 Assam/NE, News18 Kannada, News18 Tamilnadu, News18 Kerala, News18 Urdu and News18 Lokmat.

The TV18 group chose the reliability and stability of LiveU's IP bonding technology to stay ahead in its newsgathering operations, upgrading their entire fleet of portable backpack solutions to HEVC. The deal was overseen by LiveU's local partner, Lamhas, which provides 24/7 service and support throughout India.

Mr S Venkatraman, VP of Teleport and Newsgathering of TV18 said: "We operate the biggest news network in the country and have robust newsgathering systems. We have been using LiveU units for field newsgathering for the last six years. Exploring and identifying innovative solutions for capturing and transmission live video feeds have always been our focus. With HEVC being the industry standard for video compression, the transition from H.264 to H.265 was a logical step, coupled with the reliability offered by LiveU’s hardware-based encoding, even in low bandwidth regions. Having the latest technology at our disposal will give us an edge in the newsgathering process as well benefit us in the long run. We deployed LU600 units in the recently concluded General Election coverage in India and were satisfied with the field performance."

Mr Rajesh Sharma, VP of Technology and News Operations of TV18, added: "Support from partners and service providers is very critical to us while we manage highly intensive news operations. The size of our network, and our 24/7 newsgathering operations across the country, calls for a very proactive support system. We are satisfied with the relations and responses from M/S Lamhas and LiveU. We look forward to a long-term cooperation and business association with LiveU."