SUN DIRECT (SUN DTH) REVIEW. Review on Sun Direct

I was using asianet cable tv service(analog) since 2000 for a monthly charge of 140 rupees if paid in advance for one year, normal rate being 150 rupees per month.you will get all malayalam channels and few good pay channels like discovery, animal planet, national geography etc.The most important down side of analog cable is the channel numbers 50 plus will be having grains and will aggravate when you reach 70. Another problem with cable is particular to our region , we live almost at the dead end of their cable distribution network.After my home cable goes to 10 more houses and the line stops there.

The signal comes from central station which is 20 km away. Asianet cable comes through electricity posts which are near the road through out , large portion travels near heavy traffic roads, making cable cuts so common due to accidents involving electric posts, felling of trees on cables, cable cut by rival groups of cable operators etc are quite common here.Any cable cut on this 20km cable line affect us being at the end of service.Even though they have good repair service with vehicles they tend to concentrate on the city neglecting the suburbs. If any cable cut happens in evening or night they say cannot work at night especially when the electric post toppled or broke then first the electricity board need to replace the post and then they comes to repair. which might take even 24 hours.

Few months ago they introduced digital cable here.The first problem of clarity seems solved .It is having 200 channels for a price of 200 per month if paid yearly.It’s bit over priced and the second problem still there.Our yearly subscription of cable ended on feb, 2008.so we opted for the sun direct with it’s indroductory offer of 1999 rupees per year with 75 channels (now 100, with setmax)plus digital delivery so clear at any number.And the problem of cable cut permanently solved .I booked the sun direct on one evening by buying a scratch card of 1999 rupees from a local shop which had the sun direct advt.The installation team came on the next day evening with a small tv to fix the dish , installation took roughly 2 hours with a signal strength of 94 out of 100.

They wrote down the numers on set top box and called a number from land line and conveyed it along with subscriber add. to the call center and the scrambled channels instantly unlocked.There are all Malayalam channels plus all dd dth channels and few radio channels too.I took the Malayalam basic package.Even though it is not having much pay channels it do have abc, dw, kbc ect .but only dd sports for sports.The compression tech. is mpeg 4 and the channels are all clear.During heavy rain there is some disturbance but not for too long.You can log on to their website and see the subscription details in it. The rate at which the service is provided (RS.75) is the cheapest one can get or if else one have to take dd dth which will be plain dd only channels.15 meter wire is the free length permitted our installation took 25 meter so had to pay 120 rupees for 10meter extra cable.

Now even if there is no power one can watch tv buy inverter with out bothering about the cable.In the rs.1999 rs 900 is for one year subscription and other for installation and activation etc.All cpe has a sticker on it stating it is the property of sun direct and not yours.The dish faces roughly east , there are few tall trees here so when there is a heavy wind these trees swing to the line of sight of the dish and a slight picture freezing can be seen, but not a big problem anyway.This is because unlike c band which give grains in these situations like low signal strength , ku band gives picture freeze as a reaction. Another advantage of dth is that there is no fear of lightning strike, or over voltage especially when your cable comes through electricity lines like in my case.(some times these lines holds 11kv=11000volts) These lines  if broken and fell on your cable can cause danger to life and property like tv etc. Especially in rainy seasons one can read such news in local news paper.There is no epg (electronic program guide)and pip (picture in picture)available in sun direct as of now.

Santo o Kundukulam