Tata Sky launches Tata Sky+ HD at just Rs. 3999/

[sanro]

After seeing various posts of the forum members, I got attracted by the Tata Sky offer of Rs.3,999 for the PVR box and Rs.5,301 for one year subscription to the Mega Package. On 14th Feb. I contacted their customer service and paid Rs.9,300 on line thru my credit card. The marketing executive Mr. Ashwin assured me that the set top box will be installed within 48 hours. That's when my troubles began.

When nothing happened even after 48 hours I contacted the customer service again 4 days in a row. Each time I was put on hold for 30 to 45 minutes. Finally on Feb. 18th I learnt from one of their franchisees/dealers that Tata Sky was short of set top boxes. If I was willing to pay a premium, then they would divert one box to me which was meant for another customer. I promptly called their customer service centre and gave them a piece of my mind. I didnt expect this type of a behaviour from a Tata company. I told them that if I have to pay a premium, then to cancel the order. Within one hour their representative came and installed the dish and the set top box. There was no mention of a premium to be paid.

Then the next problem started. I kept getting SMSs that I have to pay Rs.1,302 or my service would be halted. Finally on 21st Feb. I contacted their customer service and lodged a complaint. I gave them my customer ID and the order confirmation that their sales executive had given me on Feb.14th. They had no clue about my order and said that they will get back to me. I wanted the telephone no. and address of their grievance officer so that I could lodge a formal complaint. I was adviced that I should send an e-mail to [email protected]. I promptly sent off a complaint.

Meanwhile another executive - Mr. Stephen called to say that there was a mix up at their end and he would sort out the problem in 48 hours. I told him that was Ok but not to send anymore SMSs saying that I have to pay Rs.1,302. All this to no avail. Promptly on 22nd Feb. they disconnected my service.

I don't think the Tata Sky people are organized to take care of the customer complaints. They routinely listen to the complaints and do what they think is right. To give an example, I get an SMS at 9:37 PM on 21st Feb. saying that they will respond to my query by 5:45 PM on 21stFeb.

I don't know if any other forum member had to go thru such tribulations. But I would like them to be careful when dealing with executives of Tata Sky.

Thanks

P.N. Reddy

I agree. Tata sky call center service is a absolute crap. They dont even know about technology they are trying to sell, customer expectations, followups etc..all they do is listen and then do nothing. In my case , one of their rep read status of my request saying that someone from tatasky spoke to customer and informed him that the boxes are not available . It was kind of shocking because there was not even a single call from tata after I placed an order. It took 8 days for them to install device.
Sadly, there is no sense of duty and accountibility in most of the service sectors in India. All they care about is collecting orders and money by making false promises etc.

tata sky call center sucks #fail

 

[cmpugay]

Today I received a letter from Tatasky by post, stating that based on my usage, they have made me a platinum member and offered HD+ Settop Box for Rs. 3,999/- which is their regular selling price.

I wonder when Tatasky says Platinum Member, don't they have courtesy to offer special pricing instead of offering their retail price at which anyone can but directly via Customer Service Number.

 

[dkaile]

Got 2nd TataSky+ HD installed without issues

Sent from my Samsung EPIC 4G using Tapatalk

 

[prankey]

Not sure about the sound quality, but TataSky PQ is absolute perfect. I have seen Dish TV and Airtel HD broadcast as well and TataSky PQ is better by pretty fair margin. Also the SQ is not crap is just that its not in proper 5.1 for Cricket HD, which is understandable, as that is live audio and live audio must be having enough technical challenges (if not impossible) to be broad-casted in real 5.1. Once turned to stereo, its better perceived...... ..... Plus Discover HD does have proper 5.1 DD audio.

I had booked the connection on Feb 10th, TWICE, both the time the execs promised to return a call after few minutes of getting the CC OTP generated (which happened instantaneously). Till date, no calls. I kept trying the Hyderabad Numbers they called from, no go. Booked AGAIN TWICE till 19th then thought if calling the customer care and escalate the matter. Finally on 19th they took the payment (after on call for 1 hour) and promised an installation by 20th afternoon. However, again, no update till 21st. I called at 2:30PM on 21st and asked for an explanation and escalation to get the installation done in a couple of hour. I was promised a call back from the Manager by 3:30PM. Again, no call.

Late night yesterday I wrote to Nodal Officer, Karnataka to get the installation done first thing today. Again, no revert! I called nodal officer at 4:15PM today, spoke with Savitri, she promised to return a call in 30 mins. Still, nothing. Now when I am calling them again, no response from the Nodal officer's number.

I thought Dish TV is worse, however my experience with TS is NO WAY BETTER than Dish TV. I still have Dish HD and waiting for these guys to refund my payments including the subscription cost as they could never resolve my issues (kept popping one after another right before activation - another topic).

If I somehow get the TS+ HD installed, I could evaluate them side by side with Dish HD to decide which one to keep as TS sales team had assured a refund if I am not satisfied with the connection.

^
dear, pq has nothing to do with optical cable; thats for sound output ONLY... hdmi is the best source for picture as well as sound quality though the tatasky+ cable is not of the highest standards but is sufficient seeing the box capabilities; going for a better hdmi cable wont give you any better picture quality on this box (I have personally tried)

HDMI caries digital data, as long as you get them maintaining integrity, there can be no difference in PQ or SQ. So, any cable will work irrespective if its quality (unless you hear jitters or see PQ corruption).

 

[sanjay0864]

Also the SQ is not crap is just that its not in proper 5.1 for Cricket HD, which is understandable, as that is live audio and live audio must be having enough technical challenges (if not impossible) to be broad-casted in real 5.1. Once turned to stereo, its better perceived...... ..... Plus Discover HD does have proper 5.1 DD audio.

I don't mean to be argumentative, but the audio on NGC HD is actually "crap". The sad part is that it TataSky has not been able to fix this issue in 'NINE' months, something that SunDirect HD has had right from day one. But what really makes all this worse, is that TataSky refuses to admit this as a problem, let alone adress the problem. But then it is so typical of TataSky to not admit to their problems, just as they lived in denial for almost 'six' months, regarding the 'chinese subtitles on NGC HD' issue, which was only finally resolved because National Geographic themselves took the initiative with TataSky to resolve the issue.

As for the 'Star Cricket HD' 5.1 audio issue, that too is not really acceptable considering that 'surround sound' live telecasts have been around since the late 1980's, that's over 20 years ago. I myself have watched numerous 'live' events with surround sound that have sounded excellent. Having said that, I would like to clarify that this issue is not something that TataSky is responsible for. This is entirely a failure on the part of the official broadcaster 'ESPN', in arranging proper 5.1 coverage at the stadiums. Since ESPN does not seemingly have the setup for 5.1 audio in the stadiums, we are at the mercy of the local sound engineer as to how he/she chooses to present the audio. For example the sound engineer responsible for the India-Bangladesh match chose to pan the audio from front to back while trying to keep the commentators voice in the center speaker. On the other hand in today's England-Netherlands match the sound engineer has simply chosen to mix the audio equally in all 'five' channels.

PS: I seem to have spoken to soon. Now the engineer is mixing the sound similiar to the India-Bangladesh match, ie. panning the sound from front to back to front. Damn, this is annoying.

 

[prankey]

Actually, you are better off setting your tv to 1080i regardless of the TV -res. Reason being that TS+HD box does a horrible job of de-interlacing the signal. Your TV does a better job. I Set mine to 720p and started noticing a lot of interlacing artifacts, esp with SD channels. So I reverted back to 1080i.

On a sidenote - Dish HD box does an EXCELLENT job of deinterlacing and up/down scaling channels. So it seems better in this regard than TS+HD

 

[prankey]

I don't mean to be argumentative, but the audio on NGC HD is actually "crap". The sad part is that it TataSky has not been able to fix this issue in 'NINE' months, something that SunDirect HD has had right from day one. But what really makes all this worse, is that TataSky refuses to admit this as a problem, let alone adress the problem. But then it is so typical of TataSky to not admit to their problems, just as they lived in denial for almost 'six' months, regarding the 'chinese subtitles on NGC HD' issue, which was only finally resolved because National Geographic themselves took the initiative with TataSky to resolve the issue.

As for the 'Star Cricket HD' 5.1 audio issue, that too is not really acceptable considering that 'surround sound' live telecasts have been around since the late 1980's, that's over 20 years ago. I myself have watched numerous 'live' events with surround sound that have sounded excellent. Having said that, I would like to clarify that this issue is not something that TataSky is responsible for. This is entirely a failure on the part of the official broadcaster 'ESPN', in arranging proper 5.1 coverage at the stadiums. Since ESPN does not seemingly have the setup for 5.1 audio in the stadiums, we are at the mercy of the local sound engineer as to how he/she chooses to present the audio. For example the sound engineer responsible for the India-Bangladesh match chose to pan the audio from front to back while trying to keep the commentators voice in the center speaker. On the other hand in today's England-Netherlands match the sound engineer has simply chosen to mix the audio equally in all 'five' channels.

PS: I seem to have spoken to soon. Now the engineer is mixing the sound similiar to the India-Bangladesh match, ie. panning the sound from front to back to front. Damn, this is annoying.

Sounds similar to the Inauguration Day when initially I found the Audio as more or less Mono before it turned full stereo in the 2nd half of the ceremony (on Dish HD).

 

[garfield]

PS: I seem to have spoken to soon. Now the engineer is mixing the sound similiar to the India-Bangladesh match, ie. panning the sound from front to back to front. Damn, this is annoying.

Sanjay

To avoid the irritation, you can just put it into multi channel stereo in the AVR. If it is not true 5.1 that is the best option.

G

 

[sanjay0864]

To avoid the irritation, you can just put it into multi channel stereo in the AVR. If it is not true 5.1 that is the best option.

Thanks! But if it is not proper 5.1 audio, then I actually prefer to turn off my AVR and just listen to the audio thru the TV.

 

[highdef]

how to remove active sports sign from ESPN HD?

 

[3300]

^ press green button works for me, or pause it for few sec then play

 

[alokbharti]

got my TS+ HD installed on 22nd Feb as promised during the booking on 19th..

It was 10 minutes job since I already have normal TS connection..
The TS executive brought one cable splitter.. connected two cables to STB..
Software download took 5 minutes.. and a short demo in next 5 minutes..

I added HD gold pack immediately via mytatasky.com..few minutes later I could watch all HD channels..

start cricket HD has excellent picture quality.. watched eng vs ned match yesterday.. recorded the HD feed for some time.. the recorded video is same quality..


I am happy with TS+ HD service/installation.. No issues faced..

SunHD box is almost unused now..
occasionally used for Movies Now channel..

 

[gadgetcrazy]

I ordered on 19th and am still waiting. Have called cc twice, but no response.

 

[santhosh]

Not sure if this has been discussed in this long thread. I always thought the Tata Sky unit was not transferrable but no, it is transferrable.

I booked my Tata Sky HD + today and checked with Customer Care about what to do with existing unit (Tata Sky +)? They suggested I either put it in another room or I can either sell or gift it to someone. I just need to tell the technician who does the install and tp perform some procedure called "neutralising" which would make the unit transferrable:yahoo:.

 

[prankey]

FINALLY got it installed tonight. Was promised installation by 3PM, however no call or update till 3:30PM. Again called Nodal office team, spoke with the person I spoke before. She promised that the installation engineer will call within an hour. Chasing them for another 90 mins, finally got the engineer at home.

Engineer had tough time installing the dish antenna and kept struggling to get signals for more than 2 hours! He badly scratched the LNB arm by rubbing it with the wall VIGOROUSLY several times. When I requested to replace the arm, he was first hesitant and then told that he will come with replacement arm by next day and was leaving without installation! I requested him to install the antenna temporarily today so we could get the activation done ASAP.

After more than an hour bending, scratching the antenna to my balcony railings and walls, changing 3 locations, he was absolutely clueless on what to do. Finally another engineer was called who fixed it within 5 mins!

Overall, both sales and installation support was quite unhelpful from TS. While I agree they are well equipped to do the installation and the tools and materials are quite high in quality than Dish TV, the installation engineer looked bit inexperienced to do the job with due diligent (I am still quite irritated looking at the way he was bending, scratching the antenna and LNB arm). There was another TS+ installation done right below my flat which could have been referred for the right placement and angle.

Nevertheless, after installation, HD pack is not yet activated and am promised that it will happen by tomorrow. Not sure why the delay. Not getting any sports channels either.

PQ of most of the SD channels are LOWER than Dish HD. Though I do not see any deinterlacing issue as reported earlier (working well at 720p like Dish HD). Sound quality on some of the English News and Entertainment channels is better than Dish HD, however I can safely conclude that the UPSCALED HD channels on Dish HD makes them to be best looking and sounding channels on DTH platform. Seems I may end up keeping Dish HD and TS+HD both (provided HD channels on TS+HD really add value to my experience).

Overall, if we discount inferior customer service of Dish HD, and the lack of PVR I am finding Dish HD to be a better (and might be costlier) option for better PQ and SQ. And am not very happy to note that as wanted to dump it due to unresolved issues till date

I love the dual recording feature of TS+HD though, however its not very exciting looking at the quality of channels.

TS should seriously need to improve their PQ and SQ on most of the channels especially after the launch of TS+HD which I find to be an excellent box otherwise. I may want to return TS+HD if I don't really see much value after watching the HD channels. Even the Star channels on TS+HD looks inferior to Dish HD. Already feeling quite crazy wanting to keep 2 DTH connections due to them being inferior to each other in many ways!!

 

[prankey]

One update which I did not see anywhere else on this forum - ONLY 350GB is used for DVR feature and rest 150GB is reserved for VOD! I am told there is no way to increase the DVR quota. DISAPPOINTED again. Earlier in TS+ I heard only 50%(80GB) of the HDD space was used for DVR now it doesn't seems very different for TS+HD either.

 

[mgdelhi]

Not sure if this has been discussed in this long thread. I always thought the Tata Sky unit was not transferrable but no, it is transferrable.

I booked my Tata Sky HD + today and checked with Customer Care about what to do with existing unit (Tata Sky +)? They suggested I either put it in another room or I can either sell or gift it to someone. I just need to tell the technician who does the install and tp perform some procedure called "neutralising" which would make the unit transferrable:yahoo:.

If this is the case, and if any HFV member wants to upgrade from Tata Sky HD to Tata Sky+ HD, can sell their HD Box to me after "neutralising" at a discounted price.

By the way, their website still mentions that it is not allowed:

"Can a subscriber transfer the ownership of the box to someone else?
Effective 30 December, 2010 the Transfer of Ownership facility has been withdrawn. In case of discontinuation of services on subscribers request, the subscriber will not be allowed to transfer the digicomp/connection to anybody else.
The subscribers account will stand cancelled. Remaining account balance, if any, shall stand forfeited."

DTH India - Tata Sky Faq's

 

[santhosh]

If this is the case, and if any HFV member wants to upgrade from Tata Sky HD to Tata Sky+ HD, can sell their HD Box to me after "neutralising" at a discounted price.

I will know shortly, when the technician comes for the installation. I have not entirely made up my mind, but will check with you first before I start a sale thread.

Ok, next question. Has anybody tried removing the hard disk from a TS + or TS HD + to copy its contents? If yes, any challenges encountered? I have to do this sooner than later....as I have a video of my son on TV and would like to have a copy of it (a local TV channel shot a video for a reality show at his playschool). One year warranty on my TS+ has expired, so no issues with that.

 

[AD14]

Hi
Finally managed to get TS HD+ installed after long arguments with CC.Most of them had no idea of what they were talking.the key was getting sending mail to COO- -Mr. Anand.Things really smoothen out after that .Within 3 hrs of the mail- the instatllion team was at place.Grand pack+HD pack also activated within 10 min.

picture quality by the way really goods good specially the discoveryhd one

 

[prankey]

Hi
Finally managed to get TS HD+ installed after long arguments with CC.Most of them had no idea of what they were talking.the key was getting sending mail to COO- -Mr. Anand.Things really smoothen out after that .Within 3 hrs of the mail- the instatllion team was at place.Grand pack+HD pack also activated within 10 min.

picture quality by the way really goods good specially the discoveryhd one

Sadly, Dish HD has far superior picture quality in their newer HD channels including sound. Even at 2.0, I get great 5.1 or 6.1 surround using Neo6:Cinema surround. Strongly feeling like returning the box as almost all the channels are better looking in Dish HD

2.0 sound on Nat Geo HD and Discovery HD sounds much richer than the 5.1 on TS+HD. Picture is razor sharp in Dish HD for true HD channels and upscaled ones also looks better on Dish HD with sometimes MUCH better sound. DAMN looks like I will have to bear with otherwise bad customer service of Dish HD and distorted sound on some of their HD channels (Movies Now, WB, PIX are the ones being distorted during high volume sounds especially bass effect).