“As a result of a meeting with Star at NAB, I recently made a three day visit to Mumbai, which is one of the host cities to the IPL Cricket matches that I’ve been following so closely. By happy co-incidence, there seemed to be a match between the Mumbai Indians and the Chennai Super Kings in the middle of my visit…

As well as a anticipating a productive meeting with Star, I planned to visit seven clients including Sony, Network 18, Prime Focus Technology, Viacom and The Times Group and so it was that I landed in 38 degrees heat, just as the mango season started.

There’s a huge amount of talented manpower in India and there’s a vibrant democracy, so there is not much call for automation. However, such is the complexity and volume of the vast demand for audio and video, the value of the Emotion software engine quickly became apparent. The key benefit is the reduction of errors that inevitably come when many people are involved in the repetitive work of processing audio and the sheer volume of each job being finished, monitored, approved and then reported.

India is changing so quickly and with it, the growth rate of broadcasting. Whilst I was able to sample some of this – particularly the cricket – from the cool comfort of my hotel room, I wasn’t able to take advantage of the live match as it was being played in Chennai, not Mumbai! I also missed out on the fruits of the season until my last night when, instead of curry, I went to an Italian restaurant. There I was offered a mango gelato to follow my pizza and thus ended a short and pleasant trip to a country that once again, gave me more smiles than despair.”