When it comes to satellite TV companies, there are three major players in India right now namely Dish TV, Tata Sky and the new entrant Big TV. Here is a comparison of their features and functionality.
Channel availability
In terms of the number of channels available, Big TV and Dish TV seem to be doing better than Tata Sky. In comparison between Tata Sky and Big TV, Tata Sky failed to provide 31 channels such as Kairali, Firangi, Sahara National, Bindass Movies, Zee Premier, Music India and many others, just to name a few channels. In terms of regional channels, Big TV scores top points while Dish TV lags behind a close second.
Active services
Tata Sky has the largest number of Active Services compared to the other two companies Big TV and Dish TV. However, according to users, the Active Services are not worth all that investment and instead the company should focus on increasing regional channels at the same cost.
Classification of packages
One significant advantage that Dish TV has over the other two companies is that they have not started classifying packages like the other companies have. Tata Sky has been famous for classifying its various packages, which can be cumbersome to users at times when they want specific channels.
Signal quality
Tata Sky has the best signal quality, when compared with the other two companies. The STB interface provided by Tata Sky is also comparatively better than both Dish TV as well as Big TV.
Cost effectiveness
Dish TV seems to be having some of the best packages and cost effective rates currently. They have an annual subscription package costing just 3990, for which a user can get STB free of cost. They also seem to have included more music channels as well as movies in their packages. Special mention needs to be made about the Maxi package, which has many movie and music channels included. Hence, they are enjoying a good popularity with users. Overall, Dish TV offers good money’s worth compared to both Tata Sky and Big TV. One aspect that needs mention here is that Tata Sky has recently removed the cricket channels and made it an optional package. Hence, people who do not like cricket or sports based channels can now opt out of it.
Referral schemes
Tata Sky has a referral scheme going on currently, where a person who refers someone will get two months’ viewing of the channels free of cost while the person referred will get a month’s view of channels free.
Website usability
In terms of user-friendliness of websites, Tata Sky tops the list. Big TV has an interactive site but does not offer much information for the user to use. Dish TV has a comprehensive site but navigation is extremely difficult and categorization is not good. The payment section of the Dish TV website is very amateurish in design when compared to the others Big TV and Tata Sky.
Technology
In terms of technology, Big TV seems to fare better than the other companies do. It has MPEG4 technology, which means the video quality will be excellent.
Revert on your article,
Channel Availability,
Dishtv has maximum channels then any other platform. Dishtv has 206 channels, BIGTV 190 Ch and Tata sky only around 150.
Technology,
Just to update you about MPEG 4 is definitely superior technology then MPEG 2 but only for compression and with this a broadcaster can accomodate more channels in less space on transponders. their is no difference in picture and audio quality it remains same in both MPEG2 AND MPEG 4 .
it would be more better if u display the comparison chart….
Some points need to be cleared here.
Satellite reception comprises of process of
up beaming of TV signal to a satellite in the sky. The satellite transponder sends the signal back to earth, where it is picked up by a satellite dish, converted to a TV picture by a receiver, and displayed on a TV screen.
In case downlink (B/W satellite transponder and user dish) is interrupted due to not only rain, but radio interference, radars or any strong radio sources in the bandwidth range will affect the service.
Try to insist the service provider to broadcast with allowance of 5 dB fade margin.
This way rain wont affect the service.
Second technical aspect is regarding the priority service administration, standard packages, standard equipment with decent quality.
User guide should cover broader information.
Most important aspect is the grounding of Dish using copper rod or bar with proper specifications.
Service providers must make the dual port LNB available.
More in coming posts….. Pay attention.
Dishtv’s 206 channels may be because of adding the DD Direct+ channels. Otherwise DishTV have only upto 180 channels. With MPEG-2 technology Tatasky and DishTV have only a capacity upto 150 channels. If they are adding more channels than this, video and audio quality will be reduced for each channel. For average DVD quality video, each channel in MPEG-2 needs 3Mbps and a minimum 192kbps for audio. But for MPEG-4, same result is possible at 1.5 or even at 1Mbps. DishTV(MPEG-2) is using lower bitrates like 1Mbps for increasing channel capacity. We can see the video artifacts in all channels. Most of the TV broadcasters are telecasting their channels at 4Mbps or even upto 8Mbps. DTH people recompress it at lower data rates, results in poor video and audio. For more info: see http://www.satcodx3.com.
About Active services on Tata sky, almost all have been moved to add-on packages over a periods of time like most of the good channels. This makes the customer to pay extra amount to avail them now. This wasn’t the case initially when they started it. I guess they will loose the customer base if they continue with this. Though the quality of the signal is really good they are bit too greedy to draw more money at the cost of loosing the trust of customers.
Dish Tv doesn’t offer neo sports and neo cricket which I believe is a major hindrance particularly when you think of the number of home matches India has to play.
The MPEG vs MPEG2 debate is just a marketing ploy. It does not make too much of a difference in the quality of beamed channels. Also, a lot matters on the basic transmission of the channels to the broadcaster.
I use DISh TV and the quality of channels is not upto the mark, whatever technology they use. I have seen the Tata Sky DTH and the audio as well as video quality is far superior. Its no point having 200 channels with bad audi and video.
Big TV STB has a lot of problems. The box keeps hanging as you change channels. The second model has some sound and visual issues. The reliance dvr is far too expensive and not worth it.
Dish Tv was a pioneer of DTH in India and so should have been on a strong footing. However, monopoly breeds complacency and that is exactly what happened. Dish TV were too complacent till competitors came along and woke them up. However, downslide has not been reversed. Dish TV still needs to go far.
Something similar happened to reliance big tv, they were too overconfident at the time of the launch. They are banking more on the “Reliance” brand than the actual merits of the service.
if u have customer satisfation as a parameter than i think tata will come first followed by dish and then big. there pricing is a lil more compared to others but the quality is guaranteed.
dish was the first one and started off very well but at this point is lagging behind. although better than big, it is suffering coz of aggressive promotion and the brand name of big. quality wise tata is is better rt now, dish follows and big has a handful of things to deal with. although after launch of plus, plus is definitely far ahead coz of its features and quality.
dish rv is better than both tata sky and big tv.because there is no any channels for chhattisgarh in tata sky. big tv has only etv mp , but dish tv has zee 24 ghante chhattisgarh a very popular chanel in c.g.and it has sahara chhattisgarh. these two channels makes popular to dish tv.
big tv’s hardware quality is poor.
so i suggest dish tv is better for chhattisgarh viewers.
You are forgetting that tata have teamed up with sky and with their new addition of plus (and soon to be HD) it is a far superior service In comparison i would pick tata because many of the channels that they add are not good and only increase the number of channels on their service. The DVR is directly copied from sky UK and i doubt any other decoder will beat it for a long time.
Tata Sky don’t allow customers to remove a package through their website. You can only add them, but cannot remove. You will have to call the customer care, or they will keep charging you for it. All the popular channels have become part of packages, which makes it way too expensive as compare to Dish and Big TV.
with minimum package and maximum facility which TV is suitsble pls guide
Leave a Reply