The sky finally lands in India... Review on Tata Play

Well the skys finally landed in India...

With India being the worlds third largest TV viewing Nation.. I was starting to wonder when would people foray into digital.

With the India saga of the idiot box screenings in hands of the MSO's there were always issues about having declared and undeclared subscribers. Not to forget content regulations and the moral policing that has hit the industry hard. We are caught in the hands of people who want to justify their cause without wondering how many they have on their side. Unfortunately people have lost their voice and we have people like consider entertainment to be a taboo. If would prefer to tell them... #$%^ THIS... if u know what I mean.. Lastly we were always on the mercy of our adorable Local cable operators who would just wait for a change to jump at you.. switch off the cable at the death of the area goonda, politician or any grudge... Absolutely at their mercy... I still remember pleading with them to get their lines checked cause my favourite channels were completely disturbed with dots lines and what nots.. and the cable operator always telling me that my tube is old and I better dispose it and buy a new one... Last but not the least on event of a electricty outage at the LCO's office we used to bear it all.. On the top of it.. to add salt to the wounds.. the place I used to live earlier is just two blocks away from my current place... they charge me 100 bucks more even though its the same operator. Now its time for me to give it all back... atleast one guy less in their revenues....

Now we have a couple of channels who run the show which are ZEE, STAR and SONY who have a major number of the Channels.. Zee ventured out into the DTH arena as early as 2004 but unfortunately it did not carry the Star Boquet...hence there were not much of takers.. But still they have their own set of customers. But I was not interested. Now the TDSAT has ruled on sharing of these boquets.. But I guess it came in a bit late.. and TATA played on to this and launced their service.. With plenty of ad spend and the widespread blanking of all cable operators on channels like Star Movies, HBO etc.. due to the court order and the police action in response to a petition filed by a college professor, Pratibha Naithani, against adult content on TV (MADAM... I got the same two words for you...) Why cant you just switch off the TV or remove the channel off your SET...

more people spiralled into the DTH... And with TATA putting up the special offer of Rs. 200 for 4 months gave it more the leverage to buy. The SKY is a JV between TATA and SKY TV who has been leading interactive content in various countries. With a company like tata who enters and exits companies by getting them into indian market.. this seems to be a venture soon to be handled by SKY completely.

SKY has got a couple of tricks up their sleeve and their content seems far more pitched than that of Zee's DTH service.. not to forget that they are also building up on it..

I gave in finally to the sky offer after I lost all my favourite movie channels to the moral policing brigade... I thought maybe this would be a nice chance to switch...

Finally, after two days of decision making.. I called their pune office to book the unit.. It took them 72 working hours to deliver the unit.. But it came through... The unit with a remote and two recharge vouchers. I had to call up again to book for an installation. These guys were prompt with it. I got the call next day morning for the installation. As I have shifted to a new location I was having a problem with the builder as to no permissions for fixing the dish outside my utility space... Luckily the TATA guys provided me a fixture on my grill itself so no fancy holes no drilling except to pass the cable thru the aluminium window runners.... Now with the Dish Setup pointed to the southeast direction skyward.. we were ready to embrace the sky... After some minor tweaks and twists and switches... my idiot box finally jumped back to life with vibrant and bright colours that made me feel jealous the first moment. I was amazed to see DD itself in full color.. I had never seen such quality on cable in my whole life... now that I am missing the jitters and the flickers and the dots on my favourite shows... but I am enjoying the experience...

The sky currently has about 65 channels.. and one big son of a gun remote... with lots of buttons on it.. I would prefer browsing channels the old way by using the + and - butons.. but the content browser is one hell of a trick... It allows me to check whats up on other channels without moving away from the channel that I am viewing.. A recharge system that would put the local operators to shame.. buy ur recharges from any local paan beedi shops.. (lol..) they have mentioned grocery shops... and recharge on phone.. lastly.. a call centre to tend to your needs...where you can cry rant and explain your problem, which will be documented... and atleast you get nicey voices to listen too.. rather that.. kon boltoy.... kai pahijye...

The SKYbox that I have is a THOMSON which is smaller than an average vcd / dvd player and you can safely tuck it in a corner.. The remote works even without being pointed to it... The remote got plentifull of buttons so press as much as you can.... but I swear it would take a lot of time for me to get adjusted to the remotes. Cant figure out why then cant have a small neat remote... If you have an additional tv.. you need to get one more box and 100 bucks extra on your subscription.. Sky also plans to beam movies on demand @ 75 bucks without any commercial breaks... what to dooooo if I need to go to the loooo ..... its a steal price considering the rate of 150 - 250 bucks at the cinema.. not to forget the pop corn and the soda... @ 25 and 20 ... want more ???

More content were as my other fellow mouthshutters described... that would force you to read others reviews too... lol..

Last but not the least... looking forward to having something like a dvr which could record programs that u miss and play back later..... This is something good that Dishtv has...

Lastly something that I did not miss.. the cable beams about two - three seconds before the DTH... Wonder why ?

So guys... say bye bye to your local cable walla..... Call him and tell him.. butter up or else....

Hey.. moral whatever you call urselves... this things got parental control... so lock it up so that your kids dont learn what eventually they are going toooo learn.... ADIOS...