Monday, December 10, 2007

Jingalaala with "TataSky"

A Gift Called DTH - especially "TataSky"
Yes!!!! Our life has become Jingalaaaaalaaaaaa as we got the DTH yesterday (9-Dec-2007)

There were days which I have come across while my father and I used to twist the antenna for viewing DD (Tamil and kannada Language) in Ooty way back in 1990s while cable TV was still in its infancy - atleast in Ooty and the only channel that was famous was *STAR*. We neither knew about the direction nor the angle, but while we used to get the signal, I had to shout - Okay - Okay -stop adjusting its clear, this can still be adopted in Tata Sky too.

Wondering if you could install TataSky???? Oh yea, its quite easy and you can do it all by yourself.

Remember -

1. The antenna should be in Clear Line of Sight to the Satellite - INSAT 4A (148 degrees South East- 48 degree elevation)
2. Do not place under branches of Trees, buildings or other distractions.

The tech guy from Tatasky comes with a Meter to check the angle and direction, but you can do it with a high school geometry set for checking the angle and Direction too with the protractor (hope this is the one that has Degrees on it).

The antenna should be facing 148 degree South East (Direction), 48 Degree (elevation)Antenna angle.
60% if set,
is sufficient to receive the signals- but tuning will be done at 98% by the tech guy.
You can also use the conventional method to tune - one person at the Antenna's end and other at the TV - checking for signals and asking to stop the direction of the Antenna.

Care: -

Do not worry about the rain, sun - wind etc (can't help if its earth quake), our dish can withstand all these.
Switch/Plug off cable and Power connection in case of Thunder storms and Lightning to avoid God's signal attack to out TV sets and set top boxes so as to avoid DTH going DTB (Direct to Dustbin).

Tata Sky's Customer (me) Satisfaction
The Quality of Picture and Sound is simply GREAT and this is the actual TV viewing experience that one should have. I remembered the whole of my TV viewing experience and the quarrels with the Cable TV operators, and the never-to-forget begging around to rectify the signals to view my Favourite channels such as National geographic and Discovery.


Comparison with other DTH
Has unique selling system
No extra Cabling Charges
Good service
Widely available dealers and easy access to tech people.


What I liked: -
It comes with Digicomp (Set top box) and actually plugs in to the AV mode. So it means no problem even if your TV set has only 99 channels as we operate with the Digicomp's Remote.

None of the Channels are repeated like our cable operator does.

While Viewing a channel you can actually browse and check "Whats running" on other channels.

We can set reminders so that we never miss out our favs.

Channels are Organised - Cateorised according to Regional - News - etc.

What I disliked: -
The size of the remote......my goodness its like handling an AK-47 or atleast AK-56 I felt (I have handled one of these in NCC - ;-)

Future: -
Hope even in future the service remains the same and also the quality. As I am bothered about the number of users going up and the quality going down, just like our Cell phone operators do. Hope even the competition goes well among service providers so that the benefit comes to us (Viewers). There are a few DTH sets which has only one time payment and no monthly fee, but the Channels, except a few, are pathetic to watch. In Tamilnadu there came a DTH option where the User pays only Rupees 75/- Per Month and no extra cost for the Dish or Set top box, not sure of the quality and the channels in that. This might work well in Tamilnadu as the viewers are not glued to Hindi channels and all they expect is mainly Tamil (Language) channels and a few Knowledge Based educative channels I guess.

Disclaimer* - These are my personal views and no one is expected to read these and decide upon buying or not buying the DTH sets. This is neither in support to Tatasky nor criticising others.

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