Big TV- Problems - Hidden Cost

saikat

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There was no access to HBO, zee movies etc since yesterday. Called up customer care and they said that apparently we have to pay to see these channels. For a yearly subscription of Rs. 300 you get 4 movie channels. I do not know which other channels are not available right now.

There is some time lag for the CAS to be updated, during which all channels are available!

If you are planning to take this service, do take a look at the additional charges for channels you would want to watch.

-Saikat.
 
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Like the prudent Indian wisdom, it always better to wait for things to settle down. Big and Airtel have only begun and are bound to have teething problems. Remember teething problems of RCom with DAPO beginning as a hot sell out and then people cribbing about hidden costs.

I am using Dish TV for last one year. No service problems, no channel problems. Only Neo sports is not available and I think that will always remain un-available due to BCCI - ICL rivalry. Dish is an established player so his backend operations have improved with time. BIG and Airtel are going to take time.
 
What happens if everyone waits for others to settle down? :D

Just wanted other's to make an informed decision.

Cheers!
 
another problem is star sports ,espn is a addon and has a subsription charge of Rs40 and u will need to take it for 6 months,so u will need to pay outright Rs240,this applies to neo channels which is a seperate addon.
 
Trai should look into the same as this is a malpractice, if u want to watch a test series which is happening only in October, still you got to pay for 6 months for that package , one should be able to pay and use the service for 1 month for whatever channels they desire
 
Ministry of I&B will look into this. As per last known Supreme Court directives, A La Carte subscription was supposed to be provided for CAS. There was no such directive for DTH. As of now, there is no regulatory body on lines of TRAI for cable or DTH. Dayanidhi Maran took full advantage of this situation by launching his own Sun Direct. As of now Govt thinks DTH is an elitist option, so we may not see a regulation in this sector for a looooong time to come.

So as of now, we are at mercy of DTH operators. Only bright side is, now there are 4 big players in arena and field should become competitive.
 
sadly, the law permits a compulsory 5 month subscription, for Cable TV & DTH :mad:

This was done on the insistance of ESPN & STAR Sports.

The TRAI is the Regulator for BOTH : The Telecomm Sector and the Broadcast sector.

For the telecom Sector, the TRAI reports to the Telecom Ministry.

For Broadcast... the Information & Broadacasting (I&B) ministry...
 
i believe trai did recommend that all channels should be priced at Rs5 each and the subscribes as to pay for what he watches,but from what i heard the DTH providers have challenged TRAI and the case is still pending in the court of law.
dth providers claim unlike for CAS and local cable operators the broadcasters dont give them(DTH) the same prices and packages.

i wouldnt mind subsribing for 6 months ,but at Rs40 for just 2 channels its like getting robbed,when people who have CAS can get it for Rs 10 for the 2channels.and quality difference is not that great for BIG tv to command a premium,worst of all there annoying BIG tv symbol in each and every channels makes it hard to see the scores in sports channels especially when u are watching some MOTORSPORTS like F1.:mad:
 
Ther Rs 5 Upper Price Limit is ONLY for the MANDATORY Cable TV CAS areas in Chennai, South Mumbai, Kolkatta & New Delhi. ( SELECT^ Areas in each of these cities ).

Keep in mind that there are more than 100 Pay channels ..., that would Imply a Cable TV rate of Rs 500 + 77 ( for Free To Air Channels, dictated by TRAI + Tax of over Rs 30 ) :mad:

Obviously, most pay TV channels have offered Channel Bouquets, priced WAY below Rs 5 per channel... except the Sports Channels like ESPN & Neo....

Keep in mind that the Sports channels break even ATLEAST with the Ad revenues alone... The advertisers, actually PAYS for your (eye) balls :D


Oops !

sadly, the law permits a compulsory 5 month subscription, for Cable TV & DTH
:mad:

That should have read :

sadly, the law permits a compulsory 6 (SIX) months subscription, for Cable TV & DTH

:eek:
 
Expect HD within the next 6 months...

The problem is that NO DTH or Cable TV provider ( except ICC in Pune ) offers HD TV boxes and transmission.

DTH providers have preferred to push PVRs on priority rather than HD..:(
 
If we can have SD/HD content through an IP connection, why do we still have pathetic broadband speeds? I don't think a 2 Mbps shared link will be enough to watch SD content ... where's the question of HD??

Cheers!
 
If we can have SD/HD content through an IP connection, why do we still have pathetic broadband speeds? I don't think a 2 Mbps shared link will be enough to watch SD content ... where's the question of HD??

Cheers!
I posted on another thread. but here it is again in different words..
1. Amongst others there following 2 parts that enable you to browse internet at home
a. The connectivity. Lets assume it is DSL.
b. The service - Internet service
In slightly technical terms on can say for above case that Internet service is being provided over DSL. It can also be provided over other connections like Cable, wireless etc.
DSL is a medium/ Internet is service over that medium.

2. Similarly IPTV is a service. Its a service that runs in parallel to the internet service. It is provided over DSL connection and not provided over internet service. It does not use ANY bandwidth of internet service and as such has no relation to internet service. Technically you can have only IPTV over DSL WITHOUT internet.
Another point to note is that IPTV is provided over LOCAL LOOP. The content (channels) is fed to a local DSLAM. Hence there are less number of variables as compared to world wide web (internet service).

In layman terms its like content being fed from your local telephone exchange. It needs to travel only the distance from your home and the exchange which is very well possible over a telephone line.

3. Now the capacity issues :
ADSL2 downstream speed can be upto 24 Mbps.
The speed you are talking about 2Mbps is of internet service. So remaining 22mbps is still available for other services.
This is used by IPTV. IPTV requires 3.5 Mbps for SDTV and 18-20 Mbps for HDTV using mpeg2 compression. source An introduction to IPTV: Page 1
Although there could be issues for HDTV, SDTV is very well possible.

Also note that in internet service the data is traveling from anywhere and everywhere. In case of IPTV its very much local.
 
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Expect HD within the next 6 months...

The problem is that NO DTH or Cable TV provider ( except ICC in Pune ) offers HD TV boxes and transmission.

DTH providers have preferred to push PVRs on priority rather than HD..:(

What is this ICC and how does one subscribe to this?
 
I posted on another thread. but here it is again in different words..
1. Amongst others there following 2 parts that enable you to browse internet at home
a. The connectivity. Lets assume it is DSL.
b. The service - Internet service
In slightly technical terms on can say for above case that Internet service is being provided over DSL. It can also be provided over other connections like Cable, wireless etc.
DSL is a medium/ Internet is service over that medium.

2. Similarly IPTV is a service. Its a service that runs in parallel to the internet service. It is provided over DSL connection and not provided over internet service. It does not use ANY bandwidth of internet service and as such has no relation to internet service. Technically you can have only IPTV over DSL WITHOUT internet.
Another point to note is that IPTV is provided over LOCAL LOOP. The content (channels) is fed to a local DSLAM. Hence there are less number of variables as compared to world wide web (internet service).

In layman terms its like content being fed from your local telephone exchange. It needs to travel only the distance from your home and the exchange which is very well possible over a telephone line.

3. Now the capacity issues :
ADSL2 downstream speed can be upto 24 Mbps.
The speed you are talking about 2Mbps is of internet service. So remaining 22mbps is still available for other services.
This is used by IPTV. IPTV requires 3.5 Mbps for SDTV and 18-20 Mbps for HDTV using mpeg2 compression. source An introduction to IPTV: Page 1
Although there could be issues for HDTV, SDTV is very well possible.

Also note that in internet service the data is traveling from anywhere and everywhere. In case of IPTV its very much local.

Excellent post. To add to this, lets take a simple broadcast networking example:
Assume IPTV broadcast starts in Mumbai. Suppose there are 1000 customers in Delhi, connected to Delhi local loop which is directly connected to Mumbai. The broadcast will not send 1000 data streams to Delhi. It will send just one stream to the Delhi local center where it will be copied 1000 times (remember, copy of digital data = no loss in quality) and sent to the 1000 customers.

Whereas, in case of internet, when 1000 customers in Delhi request video data from a server that is streaming from Mumbai, there will be 1000 data streams moving from Mumbai to Delhi.

Btw, I am not into Networking, so correct me if I am wrong.
 
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