Monday, May 5, 2003		Feature

Video jukebox for music lovers
Chitrabhanu R.K.

If you like watching music while listening to it, a new video jukebox that is making an appearance at several hip-eating joints in the Indian capital will make life more fun. The walls of outlets like Eatopia, Caf`E9 Coffee Day and Superstore in Delhi are donned with huge plasma-screens and funky touch-screen pads that one can dabble with to get a wide range of digital music. These eating joints already report a queue of youngsters lining up to experiment with the video-machine.

"We conceptualised and developed this software over the last two years with the aim of creating an interactive medium for entertainment," Sameer Kachru, marketing and sales director of Delhi-based I3, which stands for Innovative Interactive Infotainment that holds the copyright over this software, told IANS.

Kachru claimed the machine was "the first of its kind in the world." Named Jukebox 2.0, the video jukebox has a Windows operating system with a storehouse of music spread over 900 hard disks, each with a capacity of 120 GB. "We have over 5,000 DVD tracks to play with, ranging from Indipop, Hindi golden greats dating back to the 1940s, ghazals, pop and rock to underground, rap, techno and unreleased Hindi film tracks," Kachru said.

This invention has predictably been an expensive affair. "The whole system cost us some Rs.1.4 million that is equally shared between these outlets and I3," Kachru said.

"We approached music channels, record labels and copyright agencies like Indian Performing Rights Society," he added. I3 had to pay an upfront cost of Rs. 50,000 and a royalty of Rs.3 for every song played.

The prime attraction of the software is its visual experience. "We have videos of every song, except unreleased Hindi songs," Kachru said.