Games on the television

A FEW days back, while browsing through the channels on my TV, I saw my Tata Sky DTH was offering Active Games. I was tempted to try out Ninja Mahajong, especially since the games were free till August 31. Soon, I was browsing through the rules of Ninja Mahajong, which looked similar to any other Mahajong game, except for the tiles which had Ninja warriors on them.

A few minutes later, the game started making sense. But there were issues. To start with, the Ninja warriors were not very clear and I had to really concentrate to make out the difference between the tiles. I checked it out on a couple of other TVs and found that the tiles were not great when it came to design, and the whole charade of Ninja’s fighting with each other every time you selected the right combination was a bit of an overkill.I tried the cricket game next. But I don’t understand much of the game and am not really interested in it. There was this guy throwing balls at me, and I was not able to hit even one of them. But my nephew managed pretty well.

The next game we tried out was the Kombat Fighter. It took me a couple of minutes to get the hang of it and get going. The only reason I could play this game was because I can type without looking at the keyboard, and most of us can use the TV remote without looking at it. But this game was not as much fun, you need to focus on the numbers that scroll on top of the screen, and press them. It must be fun for someone younger, but the game, from my point of view, was very average.

So, why am I writing this review. For one, this is a great way of getting some games on your TV, though only time will tell how much Tata Sky will charge for them. However, I would have loved more basic games, such as Pacman or maybe even car racing, rather than having games that slow me down. If I really want fast games, I will buy a dedicated gaming machine.

Overall, I found the whole experience slow, because of two reasons – the games have to download and take about five minutes to start up; the TV remote control is not really a controller for a game.

But things could get interesting as Tata Sky has plans to launch new games each week. Still, all this depends on whether the services are free. Once Tata Sky decides to charge, we will really need to see if it’s all the worth it.
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The Above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday September 05, 2010

Is It time to Switch to HD?

Suddenly everyone is going HD. Sun TV was the first to take the plunge, though with limited availability and just a handful of channels, but now all satellite TV providers seem to have joined the bandwagon. Some weeks back, when asked why that hadn’t launched HD services, guys at Airtel had told me that by the time of the World Cup finals everyone would have switched over. And this is coming true with Dish TV, TataSky and Airtel all announcing the availability of their HD DTH boxes.

What is HD video?
I know this is a basic question and most of you will have your own set of answers. Well, technically High Definition video is any video system of higher resolution than standard definition. HD video is any image between 1280x720 pixels (also called 720p, or HD Ready) and 1920x1080 pixels (1080p, HD). Remember, the higher the pixels, the better the definition. So it is essential that your TV supports 1080 pixels for it to show real HD quality.

So what do the various HD services offer?


TataSky: The service offers 1080i, 16:9 aspect ratio and 5.1 Surround Sound. The box costs Rs 2,599 and has an installation fee of Rs 1,000 which is waived off for now, plus there are additional charges of Rs 30 per month to get the channels in HD. If you are an existing TataSky customer, you will get the High Definition Channels — ESPN, Star Sports, Discovery HD World, National Geographic — free for the first 12 months.


Airtel Digital TV HD: The service has 1080i and 16:9 aspect ratio. But going one up on TataSky, the Airtel box offers 7.1 Dolby Digital Plus Surround Sound, if you have a home theater capable of reproducing the signal. The box is priced at Rs 2,940, but only offers ESPN and Star Sports in High Definition. Other channels are expected to be added soon. You must also remember that though the channels are in HD, not all broadcasts are hi-definition – as of now the Wimbeldon and the FIFA World Cup are in hi-definition.


DishTruHD: Rs 2,990 plus installation charges of Rs 200 + taxes. Customers are required to buy a Platinum pack with the HD Box which will put you back by Rs 325 per month, whether you like it or not. You will also have to pay for an HD Pack of Rs 100 per month, taking your monthly bill to Rs 425 + taxes, making it the costliest service in the market. The service is 1080i with 16:9 Aspect Ratio, but there is no clarity on the sound output of the box. Though Zee has two of its own channels — Zee Cinema HD and Zee TV HD — in addition to what the others are offering, not all content on these channels are in HD.


Big TV HD: Big TV is the only one offering an HD DVR box right now at Rs 7,490. The box offers 1080i, 16:9 aspect ratio, and 200 hours of standard definition storage on its 160 GB built-in hard disk. Only National Geographic HD is available on the HD Box for now.


Sun Direct HD: The first one off the block has announced a new package where you get the box with two-month subscription for Rs 2,940. They have SunTV and Colours in HD along with what others are offering. The Box offers 1080i, 16:9 aspect pictures, and 5.1 Stereo Sound.

The scenario is confusing with all the players jumping in to cash in on the football craze with not much additional content. The market is just evolving and it would be better to wait a few weeks to see how the players mature. Also wait for the HD recorders from the other players before upgrading. Things should look up as more channels start making and beaming content in HD. Till then, hold your guns.

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The above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday 10th July 2010

One car, many screens - Review Dish TV Mobile TV

With traffic jams getting longer by the day, we are slowly getting to a point where commuters in the metros spend up to three hours every day getting to office and back. As you tend to leave home early and return late, most of us end up missing news and other television programmes.

A DVR can record your favorite soap operas so that you can catch up when you finally reach home, but then you can also have a television in the car. While this is not an advisable option if you are planning to watch TV and drive, it makes more sense if you have an SUV or MUV with a chauffeur driving you about.
And now with Dish TV launching its Personal TV, everyone in the vehicle has the option of watching the channel of their choice.



However, priced at Rs 2,45,000 for the startup edition, this is not exactly cheap. The latest version uses a new antenna from Ray Sat and has four screens with individual DTH boxes that help you stream different channels on each screen.
To give you privacy, all TV sets are coupled with wired headphones which can be upgraded to a wireless model at an additional cost. The basic screens come from NECVOX and you can choose a better screen or larger screen if you want.

A single wire downlinks from the RaySat dish antenna to a dish controller in the back of your car which is powered by the car battery — but be careful, for if you run this system with the engine shut, the battery will drain in about an hour. The trunk will also hold the four receivers and Dish TV claims the wiring is done professionally by their trained dealers — but the wiring in the demo car didn’t seem all that professional. Each TV also comes with its individual remote control, just make sure you point it at the right screen.

Sadly, Dish TV hasn’t been able to do a really professional job. They use the same Zenega DTH set top box they use for home which means you will need to change the card after a few months and that won’t be all that easy. They are also not clear how the service will be outside the big cities. As of now, everything looks like a ‘jugaad’, especially the additional infra-red receivers that jut out from under the screens.

The single TV version costs you roughly Rs 1,90,000, while the four-screen variants start at Rs 2,45,000. The annual subscription of about Rs 10,000 is included in the first payment. Since television channels are broadcast on a DTH system using horizontal and vertical polarisation, not all channels are available at one go. You can get up to 162 channels if you put a single TV system in your car, but for multiple TVs, you will get only 81 “popular channels”.
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The above review appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday May 30, 2010

A DTH War for the Record

Last month, Airtel launched their Personal Video Recorder (PVR) box with mobile-based recording and some other unique features. Soon, their competitor Tata Sky followed suit with both Internet and mobile recording signaling a new phase in DTH services. So if you are planning to reap the benefits, read on:

Hardware
The TataSky Digicom, with its circular layout for the record, forward, play, rewind and pause buttons, reminded me of an DVD Player. On the back, the box has standard connectors for your TV as well as Ethernet and USB ports. The Tata Sky+ box gives you 90 hours of recording, but I could not check out their new 130 hours claim. The curvy remote makes it easy to record programmes.

The Airtel digital recorder's plain black box is brilliant to look at with its glowing red light. The buttons are on the top making the front panel plain, but it still has all manual setting. But there are no indicators on the box to show if you are actually recording. But the box has a 576p HDMI out, two USB ports for future uses and an Ethernet port. This box is not HD ready, so if Airtel comes up with HD transmissions, the box will have to be swapped for a new box. It gives 100 hours of recording on the box. The remote has a standard brick interface with old VCR-like buttons, all very functional though.

Interface
The TataSky interface used to be fast and functional, but it has become slower with the new version. Still, TataSky's blue and red colours are far more soothing on the eye than the red and black of Airtel. However, Airtel allows you to list 20 favourite channels in five different sections and search for recorded programmes by time and genre. Since both use NDS as their software provider, it won't be long before they catch up with each other. A channel switch is faster on the Tata Sky+ box compared to Airtel where you can feel a lag. However, the Tata Sky+ ad for ring tones or content on the screen can be annoying.

Features
Along with Internet recording, the new TataSky+ offers TVoD where popular programmes are pre-recorded for you to watch at your convenience, but without eating up your hard disk space. Currently, the feature is free.

Problems
If you have more than one Tata Sky+ box, you can't choose which box should record the programme. If you enable the programme from your mobile phone, the primary box in your account starts recording, while through Internet all boxes will start recording. The mobile applications of both companies are very similar and let you programme the channel you want. Both the customer care centres seemed a bit clueless about Internet and mobile recording.

MPEG4 vs MPEG2
Airtel claims to have MPEG4 on their transmission and on their boxes. Tata Sky+ hardware, on the other hand, supports MPEG4, but the transmission is in MPEG2. But thankfully, an average person cannot make out the difference between the two technologies.

Both Tata Sky+ and Airtel have rushed to the market to add features, but are still very basic in their approach as far as interface, usability and features go. For now, I will choose Tata Sky+ over Airtel, just because I can record programmes from anywhere through the Internet.

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The above review appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday May 09, 2010

Net TV - The Better Way (Review Airtel IPTV)

We have all seen the evolution from Doordarshan to cable TV, and finally the cable guy making way for DTH and CAS. Though picture, sound and content, too, improved over the years, there were still a few things missing, like the control over what you watch and when, to being able to record programmes, or watch something you missed.

All this changed with Tata Sky+, which allowed users to pause, rewind and even record live TV. Around the same time Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), also entered India. Though it gives the impression that you would have to sit and wait for TV to stream in, Internet TV just means TV signals will come in through the broadband wires.

IPTV has some advantages over DTH. Since the TV comes to your house over cables, rain can't affect the transmission. The service is more interactive and you can use the TV to order a pizza or do a video conference. Since the service is unicast—the signals streaming into your house will differ from what your neighbour gets ”every time you pay to watch a movie you have the option of watching from the beginning and not where the movie is playing at that point of time, like in DTH.

IPTV is not exactly new to India. MTNL has been providing the service for sometime, but I wanted to stay as far away from iControl after hearing about its slipshod manner customer service. The market has, meanwhile, been evolving with more players coming in. The latest entrant is Airtel, which has finally exorcised its fears, and started its service in New Delhi and nearby areas. Airtel, being a major player in the telecom space, also gives you the Triple Play option of having phone, broadband and television from one service provider with a single bill.

Airtel has some great features. It offers seven-day playback on 30 popular channels, including CNBC TV 18, HBO and Colors. Other features include a set-top-box with two USB ports, so that you can use it to connect a webcam for video conferencing, or maybe store programmes on an external hard disk. You can buy a movie for Rs 25 and watch it within 24 hours. I found the picture and sound quality wonderful and, at times, felt the reception was better than DTH.

However, IPTV has some inherent problems. The box that sits beside your TV is actually a modem, relaying your remote commands back to the server for action. This whole process takes a few seconds, and makes everything appear slow.

There are some Airtel-specific problems too. There is an Electronic Programme Guide, but you can't use it to jump to a channel and have to surf from one channel to another. There is no way to put an on-screen reminder so that you can watch a specific programme. The unit does not have RF output, so if your AV ports are full and you want to hook this box using RF, you can't. The box also does not support HDMI. The interface, all black and red with white text, is ugly and a little hard to read. The prompts are nice, but the user interface requires improvement. Services like radio, interactive television and movies on demand are still not active.

So, I suggest it is better to wait a while and see how the market evolves before taking the IPTV plunge.

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The Above Article appeared in the Indian Express on Sunday, June 21, 2009

TRAI Amends Quality Of Service Rules For DTH

At the time of issue of these regulations, only two DTH operators apart from Doordarshan were providing DTH services in the country. Since then, three new DTH operators have started commercial operations and the number of DTH subscribers has also risen to about 11 million,” Trai said in a statement laying out the need for the amendments.

1) DTH firms cannot charge the subscriber for visits or repairs for equipment under guarentee.
2) The channel composition of a subscription package can’t be changed for six months (if the validity of a prepaid plan is longer, that will apply).
3) During this period, the the DTH operator must pull a channel, subscription charges should proportionately be reduced, or another channel in the same genre and language must replace it.
4) While the DTH operator can choose the channel that will replace the unavailable channel, the subscriber can choose whether to accept the new package or to pay the lower price.
5) DTH operators must entertain requests to suspend subscriber accounts for a period of 1-3 months.

Source: Content Sutra

TRAI Release | Full Amendment

The plus factor

Don’t miss another soap, just get DTH with pause and record
I have come to realise that there is nothing decent on TV on your off day and there is nothing good when you are back home in the evening. But there are some wonderful programmes when you are about to leave for office, or when it is too late for you to stay up. For years I have been toying with the idea of a personal video recorder at home. But this idea had its problems—one, I can only record what I am watching; two, if I am already watching, why would I want to record it. So when Tata Sky Plus was launched, I got myself a unit. Here’s what happened.

For starters, everything had to be installed once again—the old cable ripped out, two new cables put in its place, the old dish replaced with a new one. The silver Tata Sky box and grey remote gone, I had a new black box with shiny LEDs, the same card, and a new black remote in my hands. In place of the earlier 60-cm dish, Tata Sky now uses a 65-cm one, as well as a SHARP LNP to increase your reception quality, especially when it is raining. You need two wires since there are two tuners built into the box—one each for recording and viewing.

Like any geek, my first impulse was to look behind the box. There was an S-Video Out, a Component Out, a modem, an Ethernet port and even a USB port, though the last three are not of much use now.

The unit comes with a 160GB hard disk, good enough to record about 45 hours of programming. I had the 160GB used up in the first week itself—you then have the option of overwriting the oldest viewed recordings. You can upgrade the hard disk on your own, but it’s better to just get rid of viewed programmes. I also liked the feature that protects your recordings using a PIN. The recordings also include programme info and duration. You can set the recording to start 2 to 5 minutes before the programme and end after a similar gap, just in case programmes start a bit early. However, you can’t record radio or interactive channels.

The scheduler is nice, but despite the company’s claims, listings are available only for some channels, and that too for a maximum of 24 hours. I have also not been able to use the series link function that allows you to plan and record an entire series automatically. You can switch to live TV from recording with just a click, though at times the unit goes blank for a couple of minutes after this.

The new Menu is slower than that of the old Tata Sky, since programmes are being recorded as you watch to enable pause, rewind and resume. The rewind option is limited to the point where you started watching the channel. Though pause is a wonderful feature, it ends up making the whole unit slow. But the best feature is the power to skip through the advertisements in a recorded programme—I finished a 30-minute serial slot in about half the time, that is how much content there actually is.

New users will have to pay Rs 8,999 for the Plus, but it’s still a great buy.

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The Above article appeared in the Indian Express, on the 23rd of November 2008

Thailand’s Shin Satellite to start offering Internet services in India

Satellite Internet makes a lot of sense, though India is wiring up, and Broadband is becoming a reality for most of us across the Country, but still there are areas where broadband connectivity is not possible, the only alternative has been Satellite based Internet. Indian Players have included Bharti, Hughes, Shyam and an International Player based out of Singapore called Speedcast has wrapped up and ran off, the problem is, that all these links need an uplink from a regular ISDN / static IP line for the link to work, now if you had ISDN, why would you want to setup a Satellite link.

A great feasibility is to use your DTH Reciever coupled with a GSM Modem for the uplink to do an Internet Downlink, but I think the day before DD / Tata or Zee offer this is long away.

This news inHT Mint Live, brings a hope of relief for all those living in far of places and looking at hooking onto the Internet on high speed.

GS

Tata Sky - Claims 7 Channels Launched, Launches only 4

2 Days Back, on Tata Sky, you had that same silly yellow postal envelope popup, to tell you "TATA SKY LAUNCHES 7TH CHANNEL WITHIN A MONTH", now I wonder what do they mean by 7th.. Check the details and it talks about only 3, BBC Entertainment, BBC Ceebees, and India TV, though the release of AIR Jallandhar Radio Station (Because they discontinued ETC Punjabi) & Akash Bangla, was never flashed, but this makes a total of 5, and not 7. Does someone at Tata need to learn counting again, or is the 5 a new 7 ?

Ohter Interesting Reads this week: Govt - TDSAT differ on DTH Pricing
List of New Channels allow to downlink to India

GS

Should TRAI have a Larger Role in CAS / DTH Operators

A great discussion on India Broadband Forum, if TRAI should play a regulator to see that all DTH Operators, and CAS providers carry all signals, that means all brodacasters to compulsarily give signals to CAS and DTH operators, and Customer to choose, would love to see what comes out of it.

G

Tata Sky Users, should you buy a Dish TV

A few days, back, when Tata took off some of the Zee stable channels, and Tata' service still not stabalising, a lot of people have come upto me and asked me a question, should we switch, or maybe get this box too. I thought the whole concept of going DTH / CAS was to bring your cable bill down, in my case it has taken it up, since the same content is not avialable (well 80% is same) but the balance 20% (Dish has the zee channels, has MGM, B4U Music, Total TV, India TV and Tata Sky has BBC Entertainment....and nothing), my bill is now going up to 300 for Tata, and 300 for Zee, so a total of 600, and when MTNL IPTV does finnaly launch or I mean is available where I Live, I will be down a 1000 bucks, for the same thing that I was getting for 200 a month.

Anyway, a good news for all you Tata Sky customers, TDSAT has announced that it is working on resolving the Pricing formula for DTH users, and also Issued a notice to Tata Sky, to start beaming down India TV and Total TV. Thanks ET, and good work people filing PIL's..

GS

DTH: Subscribers demand right to choose pay channels

When DTH actually became a reality, and CAS took a beating, a lot of people called in on my show on Radio Mirchi, and asked me on why they can't choose a single channel, or a set of channels that they want only to pay for on DTH, which is what they could do with CAS, After all they should all be comparable services.

Till a few weeks back TATA Sky did not offer any other subscription plan, while Dish had some plans, but under pressure started sellling only one Plan. Now both of them have some plans, but you still can't choose. The news that Subscribers will go through a PIL to get this, was expected, and May 7th's Hindu reports

Coming out against the packages of pay channels thrust by the DTH (direct-to-home) service providers on the viewers, the subscribers have demanded they should have right to choose the pay channels they want to see.

Why is Airtel Blocking Joost

If you are a Joost user, you must have felt this too, and I see this happen to a lot of Joost Users, Airtel is blocking Joost servers, you are not able to sign in, to watch Joost. Is airtel nearing it's release of the IPTV, or is it only to save on International bandwdith. If you don't know what Joost is, head on to Joost.com

GS

Tata Sky - Releases Ad about New Packages, and 5 New Channels !!!

Refer to my posting, Today Tata Sky released the Advertisments for the multiple price packages that they have. The Ad also mentions 5 New Channels, 2 I spoke about yesterday, wonder what the other 3 are, and when will they announce it.

BTW TATA ji, the first icecream (Starter) is pretty Sour.. and it's 160 a month.. :(

G

Tata Sky - New Packages - 2 New Channels

Tata has done it, finally, they woke up and realised they need to offer multiple packages, as the price of Rs. 300 flat was a little turn off for some people. Now they have three packages other than the flat 300 bucks a month pacakge, and details are available here.

Packages are called, Starter @ 160 / Family @ 250 / Western @ 250 / SuperSaver @ 300

Also today, Tata Sky announced two new channels, 205, BBC Entertainment, a Hillarious channel with a lot of Brit comedy on it, and 6xx, CEEBies. BBC entertainment is available between 6PM to 6AM, and Ceebies, the Preschool kids channel, between 6AM to 6PM.

I dont' recall the Channel number for Ceebies, but will update tomorrow.

Something which is amazing is, BBC's website is not updated about today's launch of BBC Entertainment in India, also Lyngsat is not showing this as a Channel.

A recent few other channels added included MH1 Shradha, and Aakash Bangla. With Tata Loosing Some of Zee's Channels, they need to work hard to retain their customers.

G