Feb 20, 2005 10:38 AM
38243 Views
(Updated May 18, 2007 08:38 PM)
DTH refers to receiving video and audio on your TV directly from the satellite without involving a cable-TV operator. For this, ideally you need to have a parabolic Dish (fitted with an LNB) that faces the satellite from which you want to receive the signals, and a suitable TV-top DTH receiver. Most DTH transmissions are digital, which means that very little interference occurs in the signal, and the video and audio are capable of being of near-CD quality. Digital also means that the broadcaster can use a standard compression technology such as MPEG-2 to put several times the normal number of channels into the transmission from the satellite.
Each DTH receiver can cater to a single TV only.The DTH signals one receives may be free to air (FTA), or scrambled in one of the several encryptation systems available. If your signal is scrambled, you need a CAM (Conditional Access Module) and a subscription card (which is similar to SIM card of a mobile phone) to unscramble and watch the transmissions. The card is valid for a limited period, and requires to be inserted in a slot on the CAM. Obviously you have to pay for the card. Your receiver may even have a built in CAM with a slot, but in all likelihood it may not work with all types of encryptation.
Some of the older encryptation formats have been ''cracked'' by enthusiastic people all around the world. It is possible in their case to enter certain ''keys'' (which are available all over internet) through your remote-control into the DTH receiver, and bingo, you can taste the forbidden fruit without paying for it (which is illegal). However, modern encryptation systems such as Irdeto have so far been impossible to crack. So, the method followed by hackers in this case is to ''clone'' the original subscription card (which is piracy).
Then there is this option of C-band and Ku-band (pronounced as 'Kay-u') in DTH. Both analog and digital transmissions are available in C as well as Ku bands. C-band dishes are minimum 6-feet in diameter, and need to be as big as 12 feet in case of weak signals. On the other hand, Ku-band dishes are minimum 60 centimeters in diameter, and maximum 1.8 meters. So you can see where the convenience lies, and equipment costs too go down in case of a smaller dish. If you put a Ku-band dish on your roof-top, even your neighbour may not know that you have this DTH thing in your house, and thus it is very discrete. But major disadvantage with a Ku-band dish is that it suffers from 'rain-outages'. When it rains heavily, your Ku-band transmission shall be disrupted briefly (for those in Assam, Meghalaya, Kerala, Western Ghats, Andaman & Nicobar islands, and Lakshadweep).
It is seen that one generally shifts to DTH platform because of the following reasons: (1) One lives in a remote area where cable-TV services are unavailable, for example a forest, an Indian army station, (2) One's cable-TV services are run by mafia types, and he / she has to deal with their rough talk, bullying, and ever increasing monthly tariffs, (3) The service quality provided by one's cable-TV operator is very poor, and there is no redressal, (4) There are very frequent power-outages in your town, and when you have power supply, your cable TV operator does not have it, and vice-versa, (5) One is desperate to watch XXX channels such as BlueKiss TV available on DTH platform (mind you, this is illegal, and you alone are responsible for the consequences of your actions under Indian law).
All said and done, DTH in India is still an expensive proposition compared to the regular cable-TV at the time of writing this review.In many countries including India, DTH is mandated by law to operate under strict governmental control. You may recall that Rupert Murdoch wanted to bring DTH to India way back in 1997. But the lack of a regulatory legislation, fear of control of media by foreign agencies, and also apprehensions about the transmission of indecent content, stalled the entry of DTH into India for more than seven years. Even today, DTH receivers sold in India are doctored in such a way that you can not re-tune them to see channels other than those intended for you by the parent DTH-company (which has to get an approval from Government of India for the channels it shows).
Dish TV offers a few packages at the moment. The number of channels and their permutation and combination are different in each package. The package cost includes the equipment cost too.
In case of Dish-TV India, I found the following deficiencies in the equipment / the service.
Their customer-care numbers usually do not work, atleast in Bangalore. If and when they work, the replies are evasive at best, and abrasive at worst. You will not get any response from their online customer-care system either.
The pit-fall of the typical Indian mindset is that it calculates worth of a cable-TV/DTH service by dividing the monthly payment with the number of channels telecast. It is expected that a cable-TV service provider gives 80-100 channels for Rs.250/- per month, even when many of these channels may be irrelevant. Dish TV too has walked into this trap of inflating channel number at the cost of quality and focus in programming, which becomes irritating to a discerning DTH subscriber. Otherwise, why should a Chinese channel, couple of French Channels, 5-6 Punjabi channels, and 5-6 Bengali channels figure in the Telugu Regional Welcome Package of Dish TV?
Even as Dish TV claims 'DVD picture quality,' it is not really so. Pixelization ("tiling" / "blocking") is clearly visible in many of the channels. Picture quality of some channels like HBO and CNN-IBN is worse than others.
The receiver takes some time to switch from one channel to another.
The unscrambling is not perfect. Sometimes the receiver shows ''no access'' even to a subscribed channel.
When you try to re-tune the receiver to set right such problems, the receiver sometimes does not store some channels.
Sometimes the receiver just ''hangs'' like a desk-top P.C. You have to switch off the whole thing and restart, in the middle of, say, an exciting cricket match.
When power goes and comes back, the receiver does not remember the channel you were watching. Instead it goes to ''Dish Interactive,'' a totally non-interactive loop telecast by Dish TV.
Dish TV has entered into some kind of collaborative arrangement with Star TV & Sony TV in 2006, and started conditionally broadcasting some of their channels. However, you have to pay extra for watching the Star and Sony channels, and the process of this "upgradation" itself is a ridiculous affair, thanks to the "not sure about anything" Dish TV customer care!
Recently, in an attempt that seems to mimic the rival TATA-SKY DTH, the Zee Dish TV has introduced "active-view," wherein you can simultaneously track more than one channel in genres such as News, Sports etc., involving a major software upgrade. However, all these upgrades do not seem to have improved the picture quality.
