Airtel HD or Airtel HD DVR

[Prashant_Jindal]

Hi,

I am currently having Airtel DTH but planning to shift to Airtel HD DVR. Please let me know if it is worth to shift to HD DVR. Should I just move to Airtel HD connection or its HD DVR?

Airtel does not have too many HD channels compared to Tata Sky or Sun. I am hoping they would get more HD channels sooner. Airtel has also announced they will also deliver HD like channels (most probably upscaled ones). Would those channels be better than SD content?

Please provide your views.

 

[prankey]

DVR certainly helps.. Once you have it, you may never watch TV programs live and would prefer scheduling them and watching at leisure... On top of that, the cost difference is WELL JUSTIFIED and infact more value for money as it would essentially have 2 connections (2 tuners) at the cost of one (including subscription)...

 

[jravich]

Airtel announced yesterday that they are upscaling all SD channels to HD (about 250) similar to Reliance..

 

[Prashant_Jindal]

So I think I should go for HD DVR. If not HD channels, atleast I can get SD channel upscaled to HD and also recording feature which will certainly help.
I hope Airtel add Star HD package soon as Tata Sky already have it.

 

[suyash.lunawat]

Airtel announced yesterday that they are upscaling all SD channels to HD (about 250) similar to Reliance..

hey buddy!! do they mean every indian channel.......and will that be of the best quality..................tata sky is best?????i am confused

 

[Prashant_Jindal]

Even I am confused. Lot of people on the forum says Tata Sky HD is way better than Airtel HD. I have always been an Airtel customer (Mobile, Broadband and Digital TV) and never faced any issues till date so planning to buy Airtel HD DVR.
But after reading the posts, I have got confused whether to go for Airtel HD DVR or Tata Sky+ HD.

 

[prankey]

TS+HD is currently the best bet due to highest number of HD channels. However, SD channels are just opposite in quality as they are heavily compressed in MPEG2... Airtel might be better, however I have read Airtel does Dynamic Range Compression more aggressively on SD channels (you could check this by connecting a headphones to your TV and listening to SD channels and see if the background and foreground sound are unnaturally of similar volume levels... This essentially kills the sound quality as everything sound similar... like if someone screams, the voice will actually get reduced instead of high volume! And the background music will have variable volume based on the foreground voices.. I never noticed this effect currently on Dish HD on any of the SD channels (there might be some channels on Dish HD as well with DRC).. However in TS+HD almost all the SD channels and those like MAX HD and Discovery HD have this effect as they try to convert 2.0 stereo sound to 5.1 on the fly and hence have roaming surround sound with variable volume levels..

Similarly video of all SD channels are heavily compressed in TS where complex scenes get washed out which did not happen on Dish HD either... Same thing happens even on Nat Geo HD and Discovery HD... Only Star HD channels on TS are spared of this heavy compression used to save TP space as those channels get directly relayed from Star's TPs...

 

[jravich]

hey buddy!! do they mean every indian channel.......and will that be of the best quality..................tata sky is best?????i am confused

Pl. see this news item.

Airtel to upscale all channels to HD - NDTVGadgets.com

 

[balu_tigers]

last week i got ordered for airtel HD DVR. BUT i got SD DVR with HDMI output it supports only 576p as it clearly mentioned in manual. I called customer care and waited for 1 hour,and they said no HD DVR available rite now.
Poor quality SD picture.

Tatasky rite away............

 

[prankey]

Pl. see this news item.

Airtel to upscale all channels to HD - NDTVGadgets.com

This is all RUBBISH! All HD STBs from ALL vendors do upscaling to 1080i BY DEFAULT and they are marketing it now only to counter Dish FraudHD's upscale scam. Nothing will change otherwise.

 

[askii2]

All HD STBs from ALL vendors do upscaling to 1080i BY DEFAULT and they are marketing it now only to counter Dish FraudHD's upscale scam.

That's what is good about the "All New India". Market competition will create counter measures for scams. They are doing an ok job, as long as they don't charge customers for upscaling like DishTV does.

 

[Prashant_Jindal]

last week i got ordered for airtel HD DVR. BUT i got SD DVR with HDMI output it supports only 576p as it clearly mentioned in manual. I called customer care and waited for 1 hour,and they said no HD DVR available rite now.
Poor quality SD picture.

Tatasky rite away............

hmm. But Airtel website clearly mentions it is HD DVR 1080i signal and can record both SD and HD content. I think you have got the older DVR which was SD only. Latest one has come with HD capabilities.

 

[Prashant_Jindal]

If anyone has Airtel HD DVR, could you please share your viewpoints here.

How is the PQ and Audio for SD channels on it? Is it better than normal SD box or worse? As almost all channels are SD right now, it will make sense to move to HD DVR only if SD channels quality is better or at par with normal SD box. Please help me out here. This is very important.

How is the PQ and Audio for HD Channels? Does anyone has idea when Airtel is going to add more real HD channels especially Star plus and Star Movies.

 

[kaptan]

Please I recommend you to not go for Airtel HD Service. Visit here to know ther bad service.http://www.hifivision.com/digital-cable-dth/19114-airtel-knows-how-earn-customers-money.html