Dish TV launches 30 channels on HD format

prankey · Feb 23, 2011

venkatcr said:
There is lot of confusion here in terms of incorrect usage of terminologies.

SD, HD, etc., are resolution terminologies used for display of a digital image. This is usually decided by the number of pixels on the screen and whether the image is being displayed as interleaved or in progressive mode.

NTSC, PAL/SECAM have actually nothing to do with digital images and thus nothing to do with SD or with HD. NTSC, PAL/SECAM are methodologies to transmit and receive TV images. This is a completely post-production exercise and has nothing to do with the original image quality.

If you go back to the film days, the film reel is the equivalent of an analogue system. So using terminologies such as SD/HD in film reel is not valid. Each frame in a film reel (or what is called film stock) is a photographic snap, and the resolution is measured by grains in the film.

Though the early days consisted of films that did not have enough grains per square inch, companies such as Eastman Kodak, Fuji and others started delivering film stock with extremely dense grains. The film stock of today, is, you will be surprised to learn, the equivalent to 7000P. Since most plastic deteriorates, most of the film stock is being converted to digital frames and stored as single snaps though scanning. Again you will be surprised to learn that the lowliest of the snaps, when properly converted and cleaned, is the equivalent of 2000P.

Digital films have yet a long way to go.

Cheers

I completely agree with you. I was referring to SD as equivalent of NTSC/PAL, thanks for clearing it for everyone. In old ages analog resolution was referred to as horizontal number of lines like 200 to 600 lines (max I saw in analog sources or a CRT TV). I am still unsure of the analog masters (other than films) which was used to broadcast. I still feel it was less than 720p (uncompressed).

prankey · Feb 23, 2011

indiglo said:
Dish TV Is probably the worst DTH service in india!..they should be banned from beaming this jugaad Hd & instead focus in improving their SD channels,which needs drastic improvement in quality...their SD channels even fail to mattch my local cablewallah's digital STB service!....i am an accidental Dish tv HD Subscriber for atleast 45 days which i got with my samsung LCD TV!...now both of them showing how bad they can get & dupe indian consumers for granted!!!....m grossed up with both of them!

Yes, instead of improving SD utilizing h.264 and available bandwidth, they are doing this dirty trick of converting to HD and extracting more money from the subscribers. Extremely dirty I must say.

Plus, I just find them to be FLOATING IN AIR looking at their website INVENTING terms like "are you #HDed yet?", "GEC". What the heck they meant by # here??? I wonder what were they DREAMING while developing these Ads. Looking at the "cricketer" in the Ad and his expression, it looks like he had the REAL SHOCK of his life BLOWING the Ad after haven't eaten for days.. absolutely crazy and down-market I must say.

garfield · Feb 23, 2011

prankey said:
I completely agree with you. I was referring to SD as equivalent of NTSC/PAL, thanks for clearing it for everyone. In old ages analog resolution was referred to as horizontal number of lines like 200 to 600 lines (max I saw in analog sources or a CRT TV). I am still unsure of the analog masters (other than films) which was used to broadcast. I still feel it was less than 720p (uncompressed).

The lines refer to the Horizontal row of pixels. 720p means 720 lines, p means Progressive ie the 720 lines are transmit together every 30th of a second. (depending whether it is NTSC or PAL)

venkatcr · Feb 23, 2011

garfield said:
The lines refer to the Horizontal row of pixels. 720p means 720 lines, p means Progressive ie the 720 lines are transmit together every 30th of a second. (depending whether it is NTSC or PAL)

Let me clarify this again.

The concept of lines comes from the old TV called a CRT. In a CRT, there is an electronic gun at the back that shoots a beam of electrons at the phosphorescent screen. This beam essentially (to make it simple to understand) travels in a thin line across the screen starting from the left to the right. As the beam travels across the screen, it brightens particular parts of the screen in shades of grey. As these parts are brightened across the screen, you get an image. In a colour TV, a three gun system is used for shooting a combination of RGB to form a colour image.

The lines, thus, represents the number of lines a gun shoots across the screen. Again it has nothing to do with pixels. Pixels is a digital concept and did not exist in the CRT days. Some people confuse pixels as the number of points across a CRT line. That is incorrect. Essentially the line is drawn so fast that there are no concept of pixels there.

In the interleaved mode, the gun shoots first in an odd sequence of lines - 1, 3, 5, 7... and so on. It then goes back to the top of the screens and shoots in an even sequence of lines - 2, 4, 6, 8...and so on. The combination forms a screen image.

In progressive mode, the lines are shot sequentially - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.

In an digital TV, there is no concept of interleaved or progressive. Similar to a photographic film, a digital TV can display a full screen image as a single frame. In other words, all pixels across the screen can be triggered at the same instant to form an image. Unfortunately, all players and TV transmission are yet are bogged with the interleaved and progressive scanning methodologies. Thus digital TVs also carry the old technology and trigger the pixels line by line.

In reality, you need between 12 to 14 snaps or frames to create motion which is closer to the way the eye works. But for some reason more to do the limitations of mechanical engineering, cameras and projectors adopted 24 frames per second as the standard. Movies using a standard photographic camera are all shot at 24 FPS. Unfortunately, when TVs came in, companies realised they could not transmit or receive 24 FPS. So NTSC adopted 29.97 (usually referred to as 30 FPS) as the standard frame rate, while PAL adopted 25 FPS as their standard. These limitations continue till today.

Cheers

kamalaravi · Feb 23, 2011

thanks for the info about dolby prologic giving a surround effect.i thought
that dishtv had the capability of broadcasting in 5.1.i heard surroun sound now and then in movies now channel and sometimes in discovery channel.now
not able to view moviesnow as it does not come in channel 91

prankey · Feb 23, 2011

kamalaravi said:
thanks for the info about dolby prologic giving a surround effect.i thought
that dishtv had the capability of broadcasting in 5.1.i heard surroun sound now and then in movies now channel and sometimes in discovery channel.now
not able to view moviesnow as it does not come in channel 91

Dude, you seems to be confused between "surround" sound effect and DD5.1.

Movies Now is available in Channel 426 not 91 (older HD channels were of inferior quality and should get decommissioned shortly).

borg · Feb 25, 2011

sanjay0864 said:
Yep, absolutely not worth it. Although TataSky has their own set of issues and they don't even have 'Movies Now' yet, I think they are probably the safest bet for those going in for HD DTH right now. Dish TV as a company are severely technically challenged and thus I seriously doubt they will ever get things technically right. In fact their markleting strategy targets the lower, more mainstream segment of the market. This market segment generally does not care much about DD5.1 audio etc or for that matter even True HD. This segment generally only cares about price and being able to claim that they have something. Quality and actual functionality are least of theri concerns. Thus, I seriously doubt that Dish TV will ever strive to be good, let alone best at anything.

Sanjay

I see here
http://www.hifivision.com/digital-c...y-launches-tata-sky-hd-just-rs-3999-a-38.html
that Dish is having better PQ than TS, since you have both i would like to know your opinion

narendramdesai · Feb 27, 2011

Its all junk guys. They are all upscaled channels except for NGC,Discovery. Guess what? Minimum package for HD is Rs.325/- for platinum + Rs.125/- Statrter HD pack meaning Rs.450/- for upscaled channels. Next, you cannot discontinue HD package, meaning you cannot watch SD channels on HD box. Next. you are here paying twice for 30 SD channels while subscribing for 30HD(upscaled). So beware of FakeHD(TruHD)

narendramdesai · Feb 27, 2011

You CANNOT discontinue HD package & watch only SD Platinum pack by paying Rs.325/ on HD box

prankey · Feb 27, 2011

And I love Movies Now, so if I continue, I will end up paying another Rs.100 for Add-on HD pack which includes Movies Now.

So Rs.325 (for Platinum) + 125 (for mandatory HD pack including Nat Geo HD and Discovery HD with about 13 duplicate SD>HD upscaled channels which includes 4 regional channels!) + 100 (for Movies Now HD + another 14 duplicate upscaled channels) = Rs. 550 Per Month. Also, I may end up paying another Rs.150 for HD cricket pack.

However, it looks like Dish TV is currently most "capable" broadcaster with maximum bandwidth and number of channels including about 35+ HD channels capacity readily available. Also the Dish HD STB does excellent upscaling of SD channels to 1080i which TS+HD is TERRIBLY FAILING currently. Also, TS seems to be currently broadcasting SD channels at terribly low bitrate making their PQ and SQ to be usually much below par than Dish TV.

This has really put me into a complete fix on which service to continue as I can't compromise on quality of content even if I have to compromise on service quality and cost (Dish HD seems to have become most expensive in many ways).

prankey · Feb 28, 2011

Watching True Lies. Audio Distortion still exist which I didn't encounter yesterday

Not sure when will these people pass the original DD5.1 or fix the channel mixing and volume

PIX HD is even worse - continuously distorting (clipping) on bass (low frequencies).

I have terribly got SICK of this PHRRRR PHRRRR (distortion), seriously. WHY DO THEY NEED MORE THAN FEW OURS TO ACT on such SILLY complaints of Audio VOLUME???? How can they put to air such channels without even setting the the Audio Volume right??? Why can't they set it right atleast after we complain??? Seems only GOD will have an answer...

Ric · Feb 28, 2011

Why does not Dish TV include NEO Sports in their offerings. We are left high and dry when there is a cricket series going on in Neo Sports.

prankey · Mar 1, 2011

Ric said:
Why does not Dish TV include NEO Sports in their offerings. We are left high and dry when there is a cricket series going on in Neo Sports.

If you are talking of HD, yes they didn't broadcast them till date. However they do have Neo Sports and Neo Cricket as an add-on pack.

Ric · Mar 1, 2011

Oh !! Thats good. Thanks Prankey

Carzzz12 · Mar 1, 2011

False marketing stunt - making common people fool

These are all FAKE offers from Dish TV, I too got free Dish HD Box free with my Samsung LED TV. They made me pay 750 Rupees just for the activation and installation.

Here is the catch.. All the so called HD Channels are Upscaled Channels. I agree to the comment posted before in this thread. Madhuri Looks liks Tun Tun... even on a so called HD Channel !!!

Only channels which are True HD are -

1) Movies NOW
2) Discovery HD World
3) Nat Geo HD
4) Star Cricket HD
5) DD HD - Always Blank Screen.

All the other channels are UPSCALED channels which they call HD. Rediculous, wonder Shahrukh knows about this, this proper Fraud from DISH TV.

I think this is why there are no advertisements on TV about 30 channels being HD and Blah Blah.

Another thing how people like me will get stuck with Dish TV now.

HD Starter Pack - 125 Rupees.
This includes Discovery HD World and NatGeo HD. Along with few other upscaled Channels.

HD A La Carte Pack - 100 Rupees
This includes MOVIES NOW. along with few other Blah blah upscaled channels.

World Cup HD Pack - 150 Rupees
This included STAR CRICKET- which means world cup in HD. Watching World cup on this is great experience as there are NO ADVERTISEMENTS and its a amazing experience to watch cricket on this.

so in the end you pay ->>> 125+100+150+325 (Normal Platinum pack) = 700 Rupees PER MONTH

Agree with another comment, you need iron balls to pay 450 for 4 HD Channels of your choice. All channels of your choice are in different packs. They are making customers fools.

CRAP FROM DISH TV.

indiglo said:
Dish TV Is probably the worst DTH service in india!..they should be banned from beaming this jugaad Hd & instead focus in improving their SD channels,which needs drastic improvement in quality...their SD channels even fail to mattch my local cablewallah's digital STB service!....i am an accidental Dish tv HD Subscriber for atleast 45 days which i got with my samsung LCD TV!...now both of them showing how bad they can get & dupe indian consumers for granted!!!....m grossed up with both of them!

sanjay0864 · Mar 2, 2011