Canadian engineer brings Ukraine to the world via the web (02/29/04)

Canadian engineer brings Ukraine to the world via the web

by Christopher Guly
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

OTTAWA - Working in the United States as a radio-frequency engineer for the cellular-phone company Nextel Communications, in the late 1990s, Vasyl Kapeniak searched high and low for a way to watch televised games of Ukraine's national soccer team from his home in Detroit.

Much to his surprise, he couldn't find a single satellite-television provider that offered such coverage - and Mr. Kapeniak vowed he would one day correct that deficiency.

He kept that promise.

In mid-December of last year, the 33-year-old, Ternopil-born electro-mechanical engineering graduate from the Technological University of Kyiv launched his own TV channel of sorts over the web. Called UkrainaTV Premium (www.ukrainatv.com), it will soon provide coverage of live events from Ukraine, including concerts and his beloved soccer, on a pay-per-view basis.

Already, anyone with Internet access can visit the site any time of day and watch Ukrainian-language music videos, commercials, short films and documentaries (including "Scarred by History," which tells the story of his late grandmother, Maria Sywanyk-Kapeniak, who spent 25 years in the Soviet gulag), comedy spots, talk shows and daily news programs all from Ukraine.

Though it's a paid service, UkrainaTV offers a one-week free trial before charging subscribers $7.77 (U.S.) a month to tune into the 24/7 video channel.

As a no-fee bonus, the package includes Top 10 "Vazhka Dilianka" (Hard Zone), a weekly Ukrainian-language radio program featuring popular music, entertainment news and interviews, and "FDR Mix," a daily music program featuring Ukrainian songs from a Kyiv-based radio studio.

Eventually, Mr. Kapeniak, who is now based in Markham, Ontario, just north of Toronto, plans to create separate video channels each for movies, news and music. He is also in the process of developing an online radio service that would deliver music and news/current events from Ukraine 24 hours a day over the Internet.

At the moment, though, he's focused on attracting eyeballs to UkrainaTV, which he says is unparalleled in terms of content and technological capability and leaves what little competition there is out there in the dust of cyberspace.

For instance, Ukraine's 1+1 TV channel delivers limited video over the web. And while Montreal-based JumpTV.com plans to soon add Ukraine's InterTV to its list of live online international TV channels, it streams the video signal live from its server at a rate as high as 256 kilobits-per-second.

UkrainaTV relies on different technology to transmit images and audio over the Internet. Through a partnership with New York-based Wavexpress Inc.'s TVTonic broadband media distribution service, UkrainaTV sends programming directly to a computer's hard drive.

Once a subscriber clicks on the activation icon at the site, it automatically downloads Wavexpress's WX Client software that stores, manages and plays a program's media files. The video and audio are then stored as cache in a subscriber's desktop or laptop computer for viewing at any time.

However, in order to receive the files, one requires a high-speed (broadband) cable or DSL (digital subscriber line) connection.

"You can also watch UkrainaTV on your TV," Mr. Kapeniak explained. "All you need is a couple of cables to connect your PC's video and audio cards directly to your television."

He added that subscribers with older computers that don't have video cards can purchase an external scan converter for under $100 (U.S.) to transform the PC's output into a compatible format for TV.

In terms of programming also UkrainaTV is unique.

Rather than relying on a single source to obtain content, Mr. Kapeniak is digitizing tapes from independent filmmakers and acquiring video from several Ukrainian TV broadcasters, including Channel 5 (Kanal 5), which provides rare domestic coverage of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine reform movement.

Though Mr. Kapeniak's prime intent is to bring Ukraine to the diaspora over the web, he says he recognizes that Ukrainian citizens and residents are starved for news and information that is not filtered through a government lens.

"I was in Ukraine in early December and some of the things I saw on television there were disgusting - it's like it used to be under the Soviet Union," he commented.

"They were calling Yushchenko a Nazi and spreading dirt about him and Nasha Ukraina on this channel partially owned by Medvedchuk," he continued

Last year, Mykola Tomenko, chairperson of Ukraine's parliamentary Committee for Feedom of Speech and Information, accused Viktor Medvedchuk, President Leonid Kuchma's chief of staff, and National Deputies Viktor Pinchuk and Hryhorii Surkis of controlling six Ukrainian TV channels (1+1 among them) in violation of Ukrainian legislation.

By law, an individual or legal entity may not be a founder or co-founder of television and radio companies broadcasting on more than two TV channels or in excess of three radio frequencies.

A preliminary report by the Verkhovna Rada's anti-monopoly committee found no wrongdoing on the part of the three men.

To determine whether UkrainaTV is filling a void on Ukraine's TV landscape or providing an online novelty for Ukrainian web surfers would require Mr. Kapeniak asking subscribers why they are visiting his site.

For him, it's more important that they come. And they are.

Attracting web visitors

Every day, UkrainaTV is attracting about 200 unique visitors and some 2,000 clicks. That means one person on average is clicking on the site 10 times on a daily basis.

And they leave comments in the customer-review section, particularly about the music video offerings where it's clear Ukrainian superstar pop-rock group Okean Elzy has a loyal following back home.

"OE is the No. 1 ambassador for the Ukrainian language right now," wrote Mr. Kapeniak. "Even my 'Russian speaking friends' love them, so 'Mnohaya Lita' Okean Elzy!"

Mr. Kapeniak said he's gratified by the glowing comments, penned in English, Ukrainian, Polish and Russian, which he receives from Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans visiting UkrainaTV.

"What gives me even more inspiration is that the site has received visitors from as far away as Saudi Arabia and Taiwan," he added.

"It makes me feel good, especially when I get homesick for Ukraine."

Actually, Mr. Kapeniak hasn't lived there since 1992, when he graduated from university and left Ukraine for the U.S. as an exchange student to learn about Western-style business at the University of Madison in Wisconsin.

Mr. Kapeniak decided to stay on this side of the Atlantic and work in the cellular-phone industry. He spent three years as a systems engineer at Motorola Inc. in Illinois and another three years in Detroit with Nextel and then VoiceStream Wireless, now known as T-Mobile USA Inc.

In 1999, Mr. Kapeniak, a Ukrainian Catholic, graduated with a master of business administration (MBA) degree jointly awarded by the Catholic post-secondary institutions, Loyola University Chicago and the University of Detroit Mercy.

While spending 2000 and 2001 rolling out broadband Internet networks in Belgium and the Czech Republic for Broadnet, he applied for landed immigrant status in Canada and arrived here in 2002, when he joined the management team of Canada's largest satellite-TV provider, Bell ExpressVu.

But within a year, it closed the technology unit responsible for delivering satellite TV to townhouses and apartment buildings, and Mr. Kapeniak and about 14 of his colleagues were out of work.

So, with some savings stashed away, he decided to pursue an idea that had been percolating in his head for four years - not to mention the desire of bringing Ukrainian soccer to North American viewers - and created UkrainaTV last year.

Married since 1997 to Lithuanian-born Rasa, with whom he has two young sons, Mr. Kapeniak runs the business out of his home and now gets more time to hang out with his boys: 6-year-old Lucas and 4-year-old Julius. They are now regular viewers of dad's video channel.

Preserving the culture

"Since they're growing up in Canada, I want them to preserve the language and culture of their ancestral homeland," Mr. Kapeniak explained.

After all, UkrainaTV's slogan is "Ukraina tam, de my!" ("Ukraine is wherever we are).

As Mr. Kapeniak proudly boasts: "Our slogan has a double meaning: You can be Ukrainian and get Ukrainian multimedia content wherever you are."

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