2:33 AM

New Channel : Homeshop18

 

A new teleshopping channel going by the name of homeshop18 has been introduced to DishTv . This channel basically is full of advertisements of  products sold at unbelievable discounts (upto 60% according to them) with a free home delivery offer.Apart from credit card you also happen to have a cash on Delivery scheme whereby you pay the cash after the product has been delivered .

I am a big believer of “Nothing comes for free”  so i went about snooping around their site and checking out all their offers and products . They DO give products on good discounts , but some preliminary research over the internet reveals that the original MRP they advertise is often overly inflated and so the true discount is actually half of what they say it is . In my opinion some good bargaining could  give you the same price in an open market . Some of the electronics they sell also happens to be of questionable quality as they come from companies i have never heard of such as SigmaTel and Vox . Some of their product categories

such as lifestyle accessories also lacked variety . I am yet to order any of their goods so i dont really know of their promptness in shipping .

Online shopping in India has never really taken off because of one major hurdle i.e safe shipping of the product . If homeshop18 do provide guaranteed safe shipping of the product i am left with no doubt that they will become the heralders of  tele/online shopping in India . If not for the discount it would definitely be for the convenience of shopping from home.

 

12:33 PM

Dish TV and Microsoft sign a xbox 360 advertising deal

Dish TV Channel List


xbox-360-logo


When using some of the interactive services you might have seen the XBOX 360 Arcade logo and may have wondered like me if Dish TV was offering the XBOX live service . It seems like Microsoft has signed a advertising deal with Dish TV wherein , Dish TV will advertise the XBOX 360 console for a fee . Dish TV offers no services related in anyway to the XBOX 360 console itself .

To quote Salil kapoor,COO Dish TV “Marketers are constantly looking for innovative ways and channels to send marketing messages. Increasingly, as an outcome, customers are being bombarded with so much advertising messages it’s not surprising that these messages are blocked out. Dishtv with a critical mass of over 25 million viewers is filling the void as an innovative medium in the advertising market by providing greater flexibility and a highly targeted medium to reach customers within uncluttered advertising environment with measurable results”

Jaspreet Bindra, Regional Director, Entertainment and Devices Division, Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt. Ltd.; expressed his enthusiasm at this new alliance, saying, “We are delighted to partner with Dishtv .”

The Microsoft Xbox 360 Arcade advertising campaign on Dishtv will also have ad spots running on Dishtvs default landing interactive channel No1000. As per TAM Media research, the agency that measures television viewership, the channel share of Dishtv’s Interactive channel 1000 in certain weeks is higher than that of CNN-IBN, CNN, UTVi, NewsX, and a few niche channels.

3:53 PM

Dish TV Channel List

previous post – My Dish TV Experience



channels


These are the channels available for subscription to Dish TV Subscribers . Quiet a few channels were added after this list was made .

MOD / Active Channels
MOVIE ON DEMAND 1
MOVIE ON DEMAND 2
MOVIE ON DEMAND 3
MOVIE ON DEMAND 4
MOVIE ON DEMAND 5
MOVIE ON DEMAND 6
GAMES ACTIVE
ASTRO ACTIVE
Topper
ICICI Active
Bhakti Active
Hindi Entertainment
Zee TV
Zee Smile
Real
NDTV Imagine
Sony
SAB TV
Star Plus
Star One
Dishtv Recharge
Colors
Sahara One
9X
Star Utsar
DD National
DD India
Hindi Movie Channels
Zee Cinema
Zee Premier Cinema
Zee Action Cinema
Zee Classic Cinema
Set Max
UTV Movies
UTV Bindass Movies
Star Gold
Sahara Filmy
Music Channels
Zee Music
ETC
MTV
B4U Music
Channel V
9XM
Enter 10
VH1
English Movie Channels
Zee Studio
MGM
PIX
HBO
WB Movies
Star Movies
English entertainment
Zee Trendz
Fashion TV
E 24
NDTV Goodtimes
Zoom TV
Discovery Travel & Living
Zee Cafe
AXN
Star World
Children Channels
Cartoon Network
Pogo
Nickelodeon
Animax
Disney Channel
Toon Disney / Jetix
Hungama
Hindi News Channels
Zee News
Zee 24 Ghante Chhattisgarh
Aaj Tak
NDTV India
DD News
Samay Tv
India TV
Voice Of India
India News
Star News
Live India
DD Lok Sabha
DD Rajya Sabha
CNEB
News 24
Azad news
Zee Business
CNBC Awaaz
English News Channels
CNBC-TV18
NDTV Profit
NDTV 24x7
Times Now
CNN-IBN
News X
Focus Tv
CNN
BBC World
English Learning Channels
Discovery Channel
Animal Planet
National Geographic Channel
The History Channel / Nat Geo Adventure
Sports Channels
Zee Sports
Star Cricket
ESPN
Star Sports
DD Sports
Ten Sports
Play TV
International Channels
TV 5 Monde
DW TV
KBS World
NHK World
Religious Channels
Zee Jagran
Shakti TV
Aastha
SVBC
Shalom
TBN
Regional Channels
Zee Punjabi
ETC Punjabi
DD Punjabi
PTC Punjabi
Time TV
DD Kashir
ETV Rajasthan
ETV Uttar Pradesh
DD Bharati
Sahara MP
Hamar Tv
Mahua
ETV Urdu
DD Urdu
Zee Bangla
Aakaash Bangla
ETV Bangla
DD Bangla
24 Ghanta
Naxatra News
O TV
ETV Oriya
DD Oriya
News Live
DD North East
NE TV
Nepal 1
Marathi Channels
Zee Marathi
Zee Talkies
Zee 24 Taas
IBN Lokmat
ETV Marathi
Mi Marathi
DD Sahyadri
Gujarati Channels
Zee Gujarati
ETV Gujarati
DD Gujarati
Kannada Channels
Zee Kannada
ETV Kannada
DD Chandana
Udaya TV
Udaya Movies
Udaya Varthegalu
Udaya 2
TV9 Kannada
N Tv
Telugu Channels
Zee Telugu
ETV Telugu
Maa TV
DD Saptagiri
Gemini TV
ETV 2
Teja TV
Gemini Music
Gemini News
TV9 Telugu
TV5 Telegu
Tamil Channels
Jaya TV
Zee Tamil
Kalaignar TV
Raj TV
Raj Digital Plus
SS Music
DD Podhigai
Sun Music
Sun TV
KTV
Chutti TV
Sun News
Star Vijay
Isai Aruvi
Makkal Tv
Malayalam Channels
Asianet
Manorama News
Kiran TV
Surya TV
Asianet Plus
Asianet News
Amrita TV
DD Malayalam
Other Channels
Care World
DD Gyandarshan -1
DD Gyandarshan -2
Dish Interactive
Test 111
Test 112
Vyas Tv
MH1 Shraddha
Star Jalsha
PTC News
Zee Jagran
MH 1
PBC Tv
Total Tv
Test 402
Zee Smile
Test 410
India News

XBOX 360 advertising campaign

11:28 AM

The Dish TV Experience

continued from previous post ..

 

Dish Logo

 

I tracked down the main dealer in my city . Visiting their showroom I had a talk with them and I had all my doubts clarified . Satisfied with Dish Tv , I placed an order. I was told that a technician would arrive and setup the connection in my house within the next two days . Almost exactly 24 hours later I was surprised when the technician arrived promptly carrying a black bag with all the required equipment and a wireless headset ;) . He first setup the Dish Antenna and after checking for and receiving the best possible signal strength he proceeded to connect the DigiComp to my TV and went on to explain the various functions and services offered by Dish TV . After patiently explaining everything he proceeded to notify his superiors about the successful setup of my connection . Finally the same day I received a call from Dish Tv ‘s customer service department who enquired of my experiences with the intial setup .

If I were told to rate my initial setup experience with DishTv on a scale of 10 . I would give it a 9/10 . In my opinion the initial setup experience to a large extent depends on the local dealer ,so I would advise you to take the pains to locate a major dealer or even better the primary dealer of the particular service provider you plan to use . I find them to be more responsive and experienced when dealing with customers .

Having watched it for over 2 months I have found it to be very reliable . Uptime was nearly 99.9% and only once did it go down for about 20 minutes . I called up the CC and they told us that it was some maintenance work being carried out at their end that caused it to go down . They also happen to have some very new channels like The French TV5Monde and news channel Russia Today so it would be safe to assume that they are serious about adding new channels .The transmission does nt go down during light rains and I have been given a Arion AF-5010sci set top box .

The picture quality is excellent but there is a small problem of volume variations between the channels . The time taken to change from one channel to another is much quicker than some other operators .Dish Tv also provides many auxiliary services which I will blog about in my future posts .

My initial experience has been very positive , will this continue ? only time will tell ..

Dish TV Channel List

 

8:52 PM

TATA SKY OR DISH TV ?

continued from previous post ..

TATA Sky

Tata-Sky

I ll first list out the positives of TATA Sky .TATA Sky has built up a reputation of being one the best in the customer service department .Their Hardware too is good with users rarely reporting problems with the Digicomp firmware . They have a wide variety of channel offerings which are quiet balanced (with reference to the various regional and English channels).Recently they have also released a new Digicomp whereby old customers could now receive channels using mpeg-4 transmission through this new Digicomp . There are also quiet lot of options in terms of active services .Apart from an aggressive marketing campaign they have also set up significant presence/dealerships across the country . The only negative I found was that of TATA Sky’s cost which was just too high .I also found TATA Sky’s add-on channel grouping structure was not to my liking .

There is a lot of hype about TATA Sky’s quality . Its interesting to note that both TATA Sky and DishTv currently use mpeg-2 technology for compression ,so basically both are competing on a level field .I do believe that there can be little (if any) difference between TATA Sky and DishTv’s quality . In any case you are not likely to notice any difference in quality if you are using a crt TV .If there is a difference it will be visible only on an LCD TV . Having never seen a TATA Sky on an LCD TV I cannot really comment on that particular issue . Some people who have used both the service tell me that there is really no discernable difference (which is visible to the naked eye) in quality between the two .

DISH TV

Dish-TV

 

I decided finally to settle on Dish Tv ,the reasons for which I will list out now. First the positives .Dish TV being one of the first to introduce Digital Tv in India is immensely experienced and as such provides a Digicomp which is excellent (based on user experience) .There were very few problems reported with the digicomp and most could be solved by just resetting the box. Dish TV also has one of the largest channel offerings and they are ahead in the race to introduce new channels in India . Their add-on packages are structured very well and in a way that seeks to reduce cost . They have a wide variety of payment options (7 different methods if I am not mistaken) and are the only operators who accepted SBI debit cards as an online payment option (I obviously use this method) .Their presence was also extensive as I could easily spot one of their dealers near my locality . Finally when I went through actual customer testimonials of both TATA Sky and Dish Tv in various reputed DTH forums I found that the number of complaints received on both were surprisingly almost equal .

Subscribing to almost all possible channels in TATA Sky will cost almost Rs400 but in DishTv it will only cost Rs 300 on top of which Dish Tv provides more number of channels . This finally tilted the balance in Dish Tv’s favor for me .

The only disadvantage I could think of was that Dish Tv has not still moved on to the mpeg-4 bandwagon . The special child pack that they have which is available to buyers of a second connection of Dish Tv is one of the best among all operators in terms of channels available and pricing .

So after finally having decided on my service provider ,i tracked down the main dealer in my area and placed an order . Did it live up to its reputation ?

In my next post i will detail my actual experiences with Dish TV .

If you are a TATA Sky or a DishTv user ,do tell us if you have had a positive or negative experience with your respective provider .


Technorati Tags: ,,,,,,,,

4:58 PM

Comparison of various DTH operators in India

continued from previous post...

Reliance BigTV

reliance-big-tv-dth

While Reliance BigTv scored on quality as they used mpeg-4 technology for transmission of channels there were many complaints from BigTv users of problems in their settop box hardware and software . I also found their site at that time to be dysfunctional(many of the buttons/links in their site did not work!) .If they showed so little an interest in maintaining a good site (which after all is their online face) , how can their customer service be relied upon ? .There was also the problem of a non-transparent big-TV logo which was annoying Big TV viewers. In my opinion they were simply not professional enough compared to some of the other providers in spite of reliance being such a big company. Their presence too was not significant as they had too few dealers in my city .

SUN DTH

Sun

Sun DTH had some considerable positive reviews ,they too use mpeg-4 technology for transmission and their base pack was really cheap but all this was offset by the fact that their customer care was not up to the mark and their add-on packs were too costly there were almost no English channels in their base pack . One of my friend is using this service and he always complains of unresponsive customer service ,technician rarely turn up when called to fix the dish antenna .English channel availability is also an issue here ,though their South Indian regional channel bouquet is the best among all operators I hear.

But they do have a significant presence in South India as their southern regional channels offering is the best .

Airtel DigitalTV (ADTV)

Airtel-Digital-TV-New-Packages

ADTV generally received very favorable reviews .While their video and sound quality is good user said that there was not much difference between the mpeg-2 providers like TATA Sky and ADTV . But the two negatives that forced me to drop them is complaints about their customer service .Surprising because of the fact that Airtel has had a reputation for providing excellent customer service for their telephone and broadband services. I later heard that it was because they had decided to outsource their customer care services of their DTH service .The other major negative is that they charge heavily for just about every time they visit your house to fix a problem in their equipment ! .Being new their dealership presence is also quiet limited.

So finally i was left with the last 2 biggies in the list i.e Zee Dish TV ,the first to introduce DTH in India and TATA Sky who have acquired quiet a reputation in India .I ll review them in my forth coming posts .

Next post TATA Sky OR Dish TV

7:32 PM

Selecting a DTH service provider

Continued from previous post ..

 

Digit_Al

 

The following parameters were used by me to grade the various DTH operators .

Customer service

The time they take to respond to your calls and then follow it up with prompt actions .This covers things like quickly implementing the changes you require of your subscription channel packages as well as the time they take to fulfill your request for re-alignment of your satellite Dish by sending home a technician.

Quality

Set top box quality (Hardware and software) .Sound and video quality in channels and whether mpeg-2 or mpeg-4 Technology is used for compression (mpeg-4 allows for greater compression hence more channels can be provided by the service provider with possibly higher video quality).

Cost

Cost of the packages as well as the structure of the add-on channel packages offered.

Availability

Availability and introduction of new channels .Also takes into account the different segment of the populations the various DTH providers target.

Payment options and service availability

Available modes of payment and presence of dealers across the country . The number of dealers is important as it is convenient to have one located near your place and also because the dealer’s technicians will service your requests promptly if you are located near them. In the event of any problems you can always give them a quick visit.

In my next post i will be grading each DTH service provider i listed according to the above parameters .