Yesterday 4 December 2001 the Asian TV Awards were handed out in Singapore. CNN International‘s Lian Pek was named Best Current Affairs Magazine Presenter. He presents ebizasia, CNN International‘s weekly half-hour technology show. The show focuses on the latest stories from the tech industry in Asia.

Runner up was Karan Thapar of United Television. In 1999 Thapar took home the best presenter award. Niret Alva who hosts Wheels on BBC World was highly commended. This is the third year running that she has been highly commended for her show.

The Best Light Entertainment Presenter or Performer went to Willie Mcintosh from the Mass Monitor Co. Ltd (Grammy Group) and Ken Chan of Asian Television Ltd. Channel [V]‘s popular VJ Asha Gill was highly commended as was MTV‘s whacky host Cyrus Broacha.

Indian expat Gurmit Singh won Best Performance by an Actor (Comedy) for Phua Chu Kang which airs on Singapore‘s Channel 5, MediaCorp TV.

That was it as far as Indian representation went, a comedown from last year which saw seven Indians on the honours list.

The ceremony was held at MediaCorp TV Theatre. Television Asia Magazine runs the awards. Twenty-three countries throughout the region are covered. This year there were over 1,100 entries and 27 trophies were handed out. Sponsors included Bloomberg Television, Sony and Maxell. Judges included senior manager programme evaluation and development Discovery Channel Asia Vikram Channa, deputy CEO (business head), regional and English channels Zee TV Madhavi Mutatkar, senior V-P editorial MTV Networks Asia David Flack, media syndication director Bloomberg Ltd James Ross, editorial director Television Asia Janine Stein and executive producer CNN International Todd Spencer.

Channel News Asia saw two of its presenters Glenda Chong and Melvin Yong walking off with The Best News Presenter award along with Catherine Yang of financial channel Bloomberg Television

The award for Best Actor in a Drama went to Raymond Bagatsing for Maalaala Mo Kaya: Wedding Ring which airs on Phillipines‘ Channel 2, ABS CBN Broadcasting Corp. On the same channel Janus del Prado who stars in Maalaala Mo Kaya: Pasa (Bruises) was the runner up.

Chen Han Wei the star of Love Me, Love Me Not which airs on Singapores‘ Channel 8 from MediaCorp TV was commended. Also recognised was Lim Kay Tong for Growing Up which airs on the country‘s Channel 5 Best Performance by an Actress (Comedy) went to Tan Kheng Hua for Phua Chu Kang which airs on Singapore‘s Channel 5. Her costar Neo Swee Lin bagged the runner up spot. Irene Ang was commended for her performance on the show. The same channel‘s show Under One Roof was commended for the performance of Vernetta Lopez.

Ivy Lee gave the best dramatic performance by an Actress in Angel‘s Dream. The programme airs on Singapore‘s Channel 8. Amy Cheng was highly commended for Channel 5‘s Growing Up.

MediaVault, a live IP Stream encryption system, has just entered the market.
Launched by SpeedCast, which provides satellite based content delivery services throughout Asia and the Middle East, MediaVault ensures that streaming media content that Internet service providers and content providers deliver to customers is provided with the necessary safeguards.

The product uses the latest 128 bit key length advanced encryption system (AES). This way MediaVault protects both live
multicast and unicast, as well as on-demand unicast streams against unauthroised access, according to a company press release. MediaVault currently supports the Microsoft Windows Media platform.

Another advantage that MediaVault lays claim to is that it can be integrated into any streaming platform. This eliminates the hassle of having to modify the encoder, server. It also does away with the requirement for software on the client PC. There is also no need to figure out how to reconfigure the entire infrastructure. The company claims to have received an encouraging response from broadcasters, government agencies and educational institutions.

MediaVault operators have the choice of either hardware or software based client access tokens which allow the system to easily integrate into existing streaming systems.