Best HD STH service

baijuxavior

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Kerala
Hi!
Which is the best hd dth service available now (price wise as well as picture quality)? While dishtv hd claims 30+ hd channels, one need to shred Rs. 450/- pm to watch the basic hd channels and another 100 for additional packages. Sun hd does not seem to be reliable. And in the forum somebody said bad about tatasky. Now how is airtel hd? which channels are available in their package? No info in the website. So please give a comparison of the various hd dth services available with respect to their picture quality, price, channel count etc.
 
I have personal experiences with TataSky's HD using a TataSky+ HD DVR and Dish TruHD using the Zenega STB.

Now I had got the Dish TruHD to watch FIFA WC 2010. And the STB was so bad that I decided not to renew the services after the initial 2 month period. The PQ on HD channels was very good. I found that the Zenega Box's upscaler did not give me a 4:3 pillarbox mode for the SD channels and also the upscaler output looked bad. Since I already had a TataSky SD box with me at that time, I used the TataSky Box to watch the SD channels.

When TataSky launched the HD DVR for 4k, I got one and now I am using TataSky for both HD and SD channels. In terms of PQ, the TataSky's HD channels show significantly more compression artifacts than what I remember seeing on the Dish TruHD. To me this hints to major lack of quality. But other than that, I am still very satisfied with the TataSky HD connection for multiple reasons:

a. The STB is stable and works as expected. I have had to do cold restarts of the box a few times in the past 2 weeks since I have got it, but in general the interface, etc are nice. There is one issue with the STB, it does not output Dolby Digital via HDMI, but one needs to use optical or coax outputs. Since my AVR had unused coax inputs and i had rca cables lying around, for me this was a one time headache during set up. But for some systems, this can be a major headache, so be aware of this. This only applies to the TataSky+ DVR. The regular TS HD STB can transmit Dolby Digital over HDMI.

The Zenega STB that came with the Dish TruHD service was buggy as hell and would frequently lock up. It would frequently require cold restarts and strange things would start to happen.

b. I already had a multi TV Tata Sky SD connection with the Mega Pack. I do not need to pay extra to watch the HD channels. So this is also a cheaper option for me.

c. The difference in PQ is there for the HD channels when compared to Dish TruHD. But the difference is not so big as to be a major issue for me.

You may also want to check this thread where there have been extensive discussions on the PQ diffrerences between Dish TruHD & TataSky (+) HD.

-- no1lives4ever
 
Best HD DTH?, well there is no such thing

I am holding on to big tv hd dvr because of the good PQ in SD/HD but the lack of hd content(only NG hd and i concerts HD.cricket wc in hd there but it is event based)and lack of dolby 5.1 is making me think about switching, Airtel now looks a good(?) option

TS decided they wont sell HD box here in kerala and now i see alot of complaints about PQ which is the most important factor for me, and DISH is selling upscaled as HD and without dolby 5.1, and sun hd is also not an option(they were charging 13k for cwc in hd,are we that crazy?)
 
TS decided they wont sell HD box here in kerala

When I contacted a tatasky dealer he told me that hd stb will be available on 16 march and he doesn't know about packages. However he gave me a brochure. So may be it has been launched in Kerala by now.
 
i have used Tata sky for 2.5yrs. switched over to ADTV HD since last 10mths. I am thinking of going back to Tata. Airtel is way behind in terms of services.

Read my post in Aitel Sat migration for details
 
When I contacted a tatasky dealer he told me that hd stb will be available on 16 march and he doesn't know about packages. However he gave me a brochure. So may be it has been launched in Kerala by now.

checkout Tata's website. They are offering all channels for 5000 bucks on annual subscription.
 
i have used Tata sky for 2.5yrs. switched over to ADTV HD since last 10mths. I am thinking of going back to Tata. Airtel is way behind in terms of services.

Read my post in Aitel Sat migration for details

yes, you are right about the cc, that is the reason i didnt go for it at the first time
 
I have been using Tata Sky for 4+ years now and personally I have been very satisfied with Tata Sky's service and product quality.

I have had only positive experiences with Tata Sky. And I can not say this about many service providers. Airtel is another brand that has provided me with excellent service for my DSL broadband link and reasonably good service for my mobile phone connection. But it seems like their DTH service is not up to the mark in terms of customer care.

-- no1lives4ever
 
I have been using Tata Sky for 4+ years now and personally I have been very satisfied with Tata Sky's service and product quality.

I have had only positive experiences with Tata Sky. And I can not say this about many service providers. Airtel is another brand that has provided me with excellent service for my DSL broadband link and reasonably good service for my mobile phone connection. But it seems like their DTH service is not up to the mark in terms of customer care.

-- no1lives4ever

yeah dude...

the worst part is the training they provide to their cc execs. yesterday i had a call lasting for 40mins. i was put on hold for more than half the time and still they could not proivde any good answer. spoke to two diff guys... one of them supposed to be their grp ldr. they totally ill informed regarding the new sat migration. not only that, the guy had the guts of telling me that had i purchased a new connection, i would be getting new channels straight away. since i was an existing customer, it would take two days for them. this after their engineer set my connection to new sat SES-7!!!

Contrarary to that, i had a few issues during Tata use. called up cc and they guided me on phone and resolved the issue. can't compare this to airtel cc ppl who can't even find correct info from their data.

i used to get a signal strength of 95 and sig quality 80 in Tata. in airtel (after 3 diff sets of setups) the best i get is sig strength of 60 and quality of 40. this too was achieved by a guy who used to work for TataSky previously! this says a lot abt the training airtel provides to their tech ppl.
 
Sun direct has more number of south indian regional channels (including regional Movie HD,Music HD) while Tatasky has more number of hindi channels ( including Star plus HD,Star World HD,Star Gold HD),english channels.
 
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