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Chennai caught in QJam
 Chennai has been hit by a music Revolution. First it was the FM radio stations, with 24-hour broadcast of songs. Now, it has been further rocked by the Qjam explosion.
Qjam is a 'networked, smart, hard disc-based Juke Box' that puts out songs at popular jaunts in the city -- bars, pubs, restaurants, bowling alleys and other leisure centres, hotel/airport lounges, book/music stores and cyber cafes. It's not just Chennai that is rocking to the music emanating from these boxes.
As many as 105 units of Qjam have been put up at prominent places in 18 cities of India, beginning with Bangalore. This is a new concept in mass and personal entertainment and an exciting advertising medium for focused, local advertising. It has been designed and developed by Real Image Media Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Qjam is a touch-screen digital jukebox with an attractive, easy-to-use interface and offers a vast bank of, continually updated, always current and customized music. It is meant for use in public places where audio entertainment is a necessary ambience, says Viju Thomas, Chief Executive Officer, Real Image. Songs can be played on payment of Rs five per song.
Unmatchable dynamism
This hard-disk based jukebox has a database of hundreds of high quality digital tracks. This database need not be static, and can offer a repeat user a fresh experience every time. One of QJam’s key strengths is that every jukebox is hooked up to a central server at Real Image, which can upload the latest songs and keep the content current and updated.
This networked feature gives QJam an unmatchable dynamism. Changes to the jukebox content can be made almost overnight and even every day if needed. Changes can be made to individual jukeboxes or the entire lot. This makes customizability a snap.
Incredible variety
 QJam offers a wide variety of music to suit every mood and taste - pop, dance, rock, jazz, world music, Indi-pop and Tamil film hits, to name a few. The content can be customized to the needs of the establishment where it is installed.
Sheer intelligence
Viju Thomas points out that QJam has a smart "'learning” feature. From past song selections at an outlet, it picks up a pattern of popular usage. And at times when there are no customer requests and the box is on auto-play, it will select songs that it has “learned” are popular in that outlet.
Unusual Virtual DJ
QJam is programmed for continuous, automatic play and requests are charged for. Users can select a song in many ways - by genre, title, artiste and chartbusters. The system queues selected songs for playback and offers the user an option to dedicate a song with special messages. The dedications are announced before the selected song by an automated disc jockey, which anchors song play.
Advertising Platform
QJam not only plays music and personal dedications, it carries commercial messages and provides exciting advertising and promotion opportunities. If needed, it can take shoes into restaurants or jeans into bowling alleys without being inappropriate, says Viju Thomas.
And how does it do that?
The jukebox represents a marketable ‘real estate’ from a branding/advertising perspective. It has been designed to allow sponsors to use the customizable external shell of the jukebox unit and let advertisers brand the graphically rich user interface screens.
The QJam shell, when branded, works almost like a “customizable hoarding” and is likely to attract and have a greater “recall value”, given its location in food and leisure outlets, youth styling and interactive features, Thomas added.
 The advertiser can reinforce the commercial message through branding the user interface screens and running voice advertisements over the QJam network. When it comes to launching promos/contests and conducting polls, QJam offers an “instant medium” providing reliable feedback through its networked feature, which no other medium can match.
With its voice advertisements programmed by the central server, QJam has the unique capability to communicate to select establishments at select times, depending on the advertiser’s target audience, as opposed to a generic distribution through broadcast.
Play statistics and user statistics can be easily downloaded from the jukeboxes through the server.
Benefits for QJammed establishments
105 QJam units have been deployed and networked across Bangalore, Hyderabad, Calcutta, Pune, Mangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Chandigarh. The number is growing everyday and is expected to reach a network size of over a thousand, soon. For the establishments that house QJam, it is a powerful customer retention tool and the outlets readily appreciate QJam as a source of rich and ever-updated music.
"Our network is growing at the rate of 10 per cent every month and in six months, we hope to touch 200 units. We hope to consolidate our gains in 20 centres in India", Thomas said.
"We are also looking at the export market in a big way. We are already in Doha and Qatar and we will be in the UAE by November-end. We will soon have 10 units in the Middle East", Thomas added.
On the tie-ups with the music industry and individual companies, Thomas said the company had an agreement with IMI (Indian Music Industry), to which royalty is paid every time a song from an Indian film is used. It had also entered into agreements with global companies like Universal, Warner, Crescendo, Sony and Virgin, to download songs to be played within India.
Real Image would also reach separate agreements with the international companies for Qjam units to operate in other areas like the Middle East. Real Image was also looking at the prospect of entering the South East Asian market, Thomas said.
Real Image Media Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is a company with a clear focus on film, video, audio and entertainment technology, he added. The promoters of the company have long-standing and rich experience in these fields and have been at the forefront of many technology revolutions in India. The company’s international exposure through its strategic alliances has helped it hone its core competencies and look at several unique opportunities in markets worldwide.
“If you have the passion, we have the technology!” Thomas says.
 The company, established in 1986, is headquartered in Chennai. It has branch offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The top management of the company has over 160 man-years of experience in the business and technology of film, video, audio and advertising.
"Real Image has brought internationally renowned technologies that free the imagination. Technologies that make it possible to pursue that perfect idea, to experiment and to discover a whole new range of exciting possibilities. Avid, Digidesign, DTS, Orad and Digital Cinema – technologies that move picture and sound", points out Thomas.
"Real Image is highly regarded in the film, video and audio industries in India for having heralded two significant revolutions in India – Digital Non-Linear Editing (Avid) and Digital Surround Sound for cinema (DTS)", Thomas said.
Real Image has also made a considerable impact in the broadcast industry with Orad Virtual Sets from the stable of Orad Hi-tec Systems, Israel. Orad specializes in the development and manufacture of video and real-time image processing technologies for the TV broadcast and post-production markets.
Software Division - QJam Music Solution
The Software Division is engaged in the development of creative solutions for the global entertainment market in the areas of film, video and audio.
QCinema is a revolutionary and path-breaking Digital/ Electronic Cinema format which Real Image Media Technologies plans to introduce world-wide, starting with India.
R Rangaraj
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