Digital Studio Magazine - March 2018

In this issue

The advent of international streaming entities like Netflix and Amazon has added a punch to the emergent OTT landscape 
in the country, which already had the presence of players like Hotstar, VOOT, SonyLiv, etc. These giants have realised that to capture a captive market like India, they need to stop selling their existing content, or even repackage it. Global companies, especially, are letting their English features take a backseat and are concentrating on Indian content instead.
While the demand for localised content is on the rise, what 
is interesting is how this is presented to the Indian audience. The storylines are upbeat, the action edge-of-the-seat and the imagery is what one would expect from a feature film. Just take a look at the multi-lingual Breathe, an Amazon Prime Original. Its narrative has a universal flair with a gritty, realistic visual appeal, the performances are realistic and the same can
 be applied to locations, production setup, background music and sound design. You can read how director Mayank Sharma, and cinematographer, S Bharathwaj, went about putting this web series together, in our cover story.
In another development, last month, Belden announced its decision to buy SAM and merge it with Grass Valley. However, the news did not come as a surprise. Both companies have a long history of acquisitions. What the industry is keen to know, though, is how the two companies will merge their operations and product lines, and what this means for their solution partners and customers. This is precisely what we reveal in our ‘Analysis’ column.
Moving on to camera support systems, given the plethora 
of options therein, we present the latest developments in the key product domains—tripods, lenses, lighting, etc., in our ‘Technology’ section. We also discover how preparedness with layered security systems and protocols is one of the best ways for broadcasters to protect their valuable media assets in the ‘Broadcasting’ column.