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

[prankey]

I am observing random drop of audio in Nat Geo HD. Once it went silence for about 5 seconds. Receiver keeps receiving DD5.1 and there is no drop in picture so it looks to be a broadcast issue from TS. Same happens if I record the content (confirmed through rewinding).

Did anyone notice this issue?

 

[prankey]

Watching Star Cricket HD. Sound is great in 5.1, however picture is again much inferior than Dish HD. Seems TS do not wish to allocate bandwidth like in Dish HD to present less compromised picture and sound.

Again, sound quality is far superior on Dish HD confirming my assumption that these HD channels seems to also provide PCM Stereo or less compressed stereo bitstream which is greatly improving the sound quality on Dish HD. Sounds of Drums and Music is FAR more prominent on Dish HD than the soft rumbles in TS+HD in DD5.1. I prefer the stereo better quality sound on Dish.

Overall I find TS is using Video bandwidth of 50 to 75% of what Dish is allocating to its Hindi Channels. Some of the English channels are at par or superior on TS. Similarly Dish has excellent quality sound on Hindi channels and on some English channels (other than upscaled) sound is bit inferior to TS.

However on HD channels below is my finding:

TS use about 75% of the bandwidth than Dish for Video making Dish HD about 20 to 30% superior in PQ (Excellent details with hardly any blockiness). Audio bandwidth might be about 25% more on TS to accommodate DD5.1 sound, however as Dish uses 2.0 AAC, it sounds FAR superior and converted 5.1 effect is MUCH richer in quality and inferior in surround effect. This makes me prefer Dish HD to TS. However, as only TS has PVR function, might have to keep both

 

[haisaikat]

Watching Star Cricket HD. Sound is great in 5.1, however picture is again much inferior than Dish HD. Seems TS do not wish to allocate bandwidth like in Dish HD to present less compromised picture and sound.

Again, sound quality is far superior on Dish HD confirming my assumption that these HD channels seems to also provide PCM Stereo or less compressed stereo bitstream which is greatly improving the sound quality on Dish HD. Sounds of Drums and Music is FAR more prominent on Dish HD than the soft rumbles in TS+HD in DD5.1. I prefer the stereo better quality sound on Dish.

Overall I find TS is using Video bandwidth of 50 to 75% of what Dish is allocating to its Hindi Channels. Some of the English channels are at par or superior on TS. Similarly Dish has excellent quality sound on Hindi channels and on some English channels (other than upscaled) sound is bit inferior to TS.

However on HD channels below is my finding:

TS use about 75% of the bandwidth than Dish for Video making Dish HD about 20 to 30% superior in PQ (Excellent details with hardly any blockiness). Audio bandwidth might be about 25% more on TS to accommodate DD5.1 sound, however as Dish uses 2.0 AAC, it sounds FAR superior and converted 5.1 effect is MUCH richer in quality and inferior in surround effect. This makes me prefer Dish HD to TS. However, as only TS has PVR function, might have to keep both

Dish requires you to be on the Platinum Pack and tolerate loads of useless channels for you to be eligible for HD pack. How much are you paying monthly?

 

[sudhishkv]

Watching Star Cricket HD. Sound is great in 5.1, however picture is again much inferior than Dish HD. Seems TS do not wish to allocate bandwidth like in Dish HD to present less compromised picture and sound.

Again, sound quality is far superior on Dish HD confirming my assumption that these HD channels seems to also provide PCM Stereo or less compressed stereo bitstream which is greatly improving the sound quality on Dish HD. Sounds of Drums and Music is FAR more prominent on Dish HD than the soft rumbles in TS+HD in DD5.1. I prefer the stereo better quality sound on Dish.

Overall I find TS is using Video bandwidth of 50 to 75% of what Dish is allocating to its Hindi Channels. Some of the English channels are at par or superior on TS. Similarly Dish has excellent quality sound on Hindi channels and on some English channels (other than upscaled) sound is bit inferior to TS.

However on HD channels below is my finding:

TS use about 75% of the bandwidth than Dish for Video making Dish HD about 20 to 30% superior in PQ (Excellent details with hardly any blockiness). Audio bandwidth might be about 25% more on TS to accommodate DD5.1 sound, however as Dish uses 2.0 AAC, it sounds FAR superior and converted 5.1 effect is MUCH richer in quality and inferior in surround effect. This makes me prefer Dish HD to TS. However, as only TS has PVR function, might have to keep both

Do you work for DishTV???

 

[parora]

Hey Guys !!!

Just paid 3999 for TS HD PVR, now dont tell me it is NO GOOD !!!!

 

[dkaile]

^
dont worry mate; dont go by all the mumbo jumbo... people try to over-complicate things here... in simple terms... its very good and value for your money and will get better in the coming days with more hd channels...

 

[ravi_rn]

Yes , all worth the money for the recording functionality and watching cricket in HD with surround sound and without advertisements !!!

 

[prankey]

Dish requires you to be on the Platinum Pack and tolerate loads of useless channels for you to be eligible for HD pack. How much are you paying monthly?

I was paying Rs.425 (took the connection during diwali Rs.990 cash back offer - includes Rs.30 back pm for 12 months plus 2 ala carte for 5 months). As issues reported by me are not yet resolved by these below par tech support and services team of Dish HD, they have promised a credit of the number of days issues persist so its effectively free for me right now though have paid for 2 months while waiting for resolution. I have asked for full refund now as there is no ETA yet from them to resolve the issues and no proper ownership as the nodal officer is HIDING behind the services team.

 

[prankey]

Do you work for DishTV???

Haah, if I was, do you expect them to be so filthy with terrible customer service? Its just that I am terribly disappointed that while TS+HD is arguably the best DTH platform for us, TS has become CHEEKY by not giving us the minimum quality even in comparison with Dish HD. This is majorly due to them lacking bandwidth.

I asked the Nodal officer team today if TS is adding more transponders to improve quality (as Dish effectively have almost TWICE now), the answer was in negation and no plans to add more HD channels.

These are the reasons I am disappointed as to me quality is more important than real DD5.1 with lower PQ and SQ. I still wish to keep TS, but thinking to write to their COO of their plan to compete ATLEAST with Dish HD in terms of PQ and SQ.

Also, I feel that the up/down scaling on Dish HD box seems much better in Dish HD as it improves the "definition" of the content in comparison with TS+HD which BLURS the image through "anti-aliasing" reducing the details of the SD and HD contents (if not seen in native resolution).

On a side note - In Dish HD you have the option to change the refresh rate from 50Hz to 60Hz (though it introduce motion artifacts in Dish HD), that option is missing in TS+HD.

TS is not even relaying the Doordarshan Direct+ free channels in their original quality like in Dish TV (they are RE-compressing them) which I found very funny (though they have EPG on all the channels which Dish TV misses). Because of this 9XM (my favorite hindi music channel) is hit as Dish give almost HD quality in SD (as its just relaying from DD).

It might be that Big TV HD provides best picture and sound quality and worse service and probably worse DVR box. Utterly confusing on which service to keep. Sorry guys, I am HUNG between Dish HD and TS+HD AFTER I made up my mind to DUMP Dish HD and get TS+HD ONLY due to PQ and SQ issues.

I am only trying to compare TS+HD with Dish HD, and I know this is off topic on this thread. If members suggest I create a new thread or stop comparing, will do that. I have got the opportunity to do in-depth side by side comparison and may not appreciate such BLANK comments for my efforts.

 

[mittal_v2002]

I order the tata sky+ HD in jiffy yesterday, without thinking much about the VFM etc.. I placed my order at 9 PM yesterday night and just now I got a call from Tata Sky guy that he is coming to my home to install the STB. I have asked him to come in the evening after I reach home from office.

I may sound silly, but there are few things that I should have asked before I placed the order, but anyway.. would appreciate if you guys can help me with this.

I am currently staying at a rented apartment and the present connection is in the name of my landlord. There is no separate dish for my apartment as there is a common dish for the whole complex. I pay for this account and I have more that 1000 bucks of balance in this account at the moment. As I will be using the new HD STB on the same connection, so I believe the balance will be transferred.

The real question is, though I have ordered the new HD settop box, it is still linked to my landlord's name. How do I get this changed to my name so that in future if I move, I can take my STB with me and leave the current STB with my landlord.

Another question is about the Dish Antenna and Cable. I already have the connection at my present apartment and there is a common dish for the complex. so will tata sky be giving me a new dish to keep with me so that it can be installed when I move to a new apartment in future or will I have to buy that again from them later ? or do they provide it for free later ?



Cheers

 

[borg]

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

.

wow! dish having better quality than TS, this news for me.so far all the opinions were quite contrary to this

 

[prankey]

wow! dish having better quality than TS, this news for me.so far all the opinions were quite contrary to this

Yes and that is very much bothering me. I am trying to nail down the reason if it is the Channels overly compressed using optimization for deblocking rather than details as in Dish HD you see more pixellation than in Dish TV (in SD channels), but details are more perceived in Dish HD. I have currently set the HDMI output at 720p as it is giving best image (tested multiple times by pausing different type of live images) on both the STB.

I will try the composite and/or component outputs to see how they look in both the STB's.

TS+HD might have a bad scaler engineer (optimized for deblocking rather than proper up/down scaling for quality) because of which almost all the channels are looking "washed out" though blockiness or pixellation (though sound is another issue on several channels like Zee TV, Sony where Dish's upscaled ones are sounding far superior). Star Plus upscaled HD on TS looks MUCH inferior to Zee TV upscaled with similar washed out effect while Zee TV sometimes have a lot of aliasing (zagged diagonal lines).

Will update on my findings on TS+HD's scaler engine. It seems to be doing too much of antialiasing and noise filtering instead of noise shaping picture processing to upscale or downscale the picture from its native resolution. It might look better on a good Full HD TV at 1080i (especially the HD channels as it would eliminate any scaling from the STB)

 

[digitalv]

wow! dish having better quality than TS, this news for me.so far all the opinions were quite contrary to this

As a TS HD user, I concur that SD picture on TS is downright pathetic when compared to SD transmission by DishTV.

The best SD transmission I've seen so far is through my local cablewalas Digital STB (CAS) box but unfortunately he doesn't carry any HD channels.

 

[prankey]

As a TS HD user, I concur that SD picture on TS is downright pathetic when compared to SD transmission by DishTV.

The best SD transmission I've seen so far is through my local cablewalas Digital STB (CAS) box but unfortunately he doesn't carry any HD channels.

I COMPLETELY agree on that buddy, I have not seen any SD transmission on a DTH comparable to that of digital STBs by cable operators, however it seems Dish TV also has better quality on their HD channels (utilizing more bandwidth as it is currently AMPLE on Dish HD due to almost twice the number of transponders TS currently have).

 

[borg]

i knew TS sd was bad but thought dish was even worse, thanks for correcting me

 

[sanjayc]

Guys, from yday my Tata Sky+ HD (new HD PVR) is acting up quite a bit. Jumping channels have become slow, going to plan menu and displaying the recorded programs etc is taking way too much time. It takes close to a min to start watching a recorded program.

I was guessing it has something to do with the hard disk. Have restarted the box several times by turning off/on the power supply. But situation has gone from bad to worse.

Now all the recording has vanished and if trying to do new recording, it says "Tata Sky+ Settings not available" - Fed up, did a master reset from System Settings option - after reboot, it took me to the first time installation settings where now I am stuck at the Signal lock screen - both signal strength and quality is non-existent. Since I have a 2nd Tata Sky+ box connected to the same dish, I know it is not a dish/signal related problem.

Called up customer care - those buggers are saying to call back after couple of hours since some technical upgrade is underway.

I think my new stb is toast! Keeping fingers crossed.

 

[pnreddy]

This is a follow up after my 22nd Feb. posting (#332). This morning I received a call from Mr. Stephen of Tata Sky. He was apologetic about the disconnection of service and the matter has been sorted out at their end. This was a far cry from the reception I got from the call center executives. The service has been restored and they even offered 2 extra days of service for the lost time. I am quite happy with the way the whole thing has been sorted out.

Thanks

 

[prankey]

Nat Geo HD keeps dropping sound for fraction of a second quite often. Same issue with recording. When reported to support, they are claiming that I am the first person to complain about it and the IMPROPER 5.1 channel mixing on Nat Geo HD. She was insisting that she is unaware of such issue ever after I pointed that several people have complained about it in the last 9 month and that TS is ADAMANT in not sorting the issue.

She said the same thing when I talked of the extremely compressed channels and that Dish HD is far better with much better scaling. She wants the installation engineer to visit to check the settings I agreed. Hope they do realize that they have to keep up with the competition especially in terms of SD channels quality if not quantity.

 

[prankey]

^^ Try going to service menu by going to "organizer" >> System Settings >> type "01" quickly. This will bring you to hidden service menu.

Try "Format Disk" (your Hard Disk might have become bad as it was hanging). If that works,

"SELECT" Satellite Settings >> Set LNB Type as "Universal", LO Freq 09 750 GHz, High Freq 10 600 GHz >> "SELECT" for next screen >> Select Entry Point as 2nd Transponder "IN4A-14"..

You could try "Master Reset" again (seems you have tried before) if above 2 steps doesn't help. If your Hard Disk is corrupt permanently, it will need a replacement.

Hope this helps.

 

[sanjayc]

^ Did a master reset and on restarting the stb, it went into First Time Installation Settings mode & showed up all the screens as you have mentioned above. All the value as pointed by you came up as default. On pressing Select at the IN4A-14, the "Signal Lock" screen comes up showing the Signal Strength and Signla quality - both at 0 level, i.e., no blue fluctuating bars is displayed...Also, in this screen no other option avlbl except for "Back-Previous Screen" - kept it like this whole night - no luck.

I guess this is stuck becos of trying to download the latest software version but as it has been noted earlier here, you need a splitter to get the download. Have placed a complaint...let's see if the engineer turns up.

Any idea if the stb needs replacement, how much time it takes for Tata Sky to replace the box?