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The Maharashtra government is putting up a commercial teleport and satellite uplinking earth station to uplink TV channels in Film City, the heart of Mumbai filmdom.
The first-of-its-kind teleport, to be set up with an estimated cost of Rs 500 million, will come up within the next two years, according to Film City chairman, Govind Swaroop. The proposed teleport will offer a broad range of telecommunication and broadcast transmission solutions with connectivity via satellite and fibre optics throughout India and the rest of the world with C band and KU band transmission.
Says Swaroop: "The teleport will be a unique facility that can work for the IT as well as the entertainment industries." Broadcasters will not need to approach uplinking stations in Hong Kong or Malaysia if they can get a more cost effective option right in their backyard, he pointed out.
The corporation is also planning to put up high quality video post production facilities, at an estimated cost of Rs 100 to Rs 200 million in the next few years, Swaroop said. The corporation may look at collaborations for these two ventures in the coming days, he said.
The state government-owned Maharashtra Film, Stage and Cultural Development Corporation has now initiated the preliminary exercise of conducting feasibility reports and project planning and layout studies for the mega project. The Corporation currently has 15 state-of-the-art accoustically treated studios and a variety of picturesque locations in Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari, more popularly known as Film City.
It already has a sophisticated film processing laboratory and telecine facilities in Film City. A film institute is proposed to be put up in collaboration with filmmaker Subhash Ghai‘s Mukta Arts.
