Were you the one impressed by High-definition ads telecasted during IPL? Aamir Khan in Tata Sky+ HD ad saying that he can record and watch 625 hours of High Definition Cricket and other stuff on TV and Shahrukh on the other hand claiming that Dish TV offers highest number (30) of HD TV Channels in India. Amid all this HD fuzz I thought of going a bit deeper (not Higher) into this HD thing:
So who’s offering HD services in India-
- Tata Sky+ HD: With 625 hours of High Def recording, T20 Cricket match in real high def, 1080i resolution, 7.1 digital dolby, record from Mobile and Internet facility, Series link feature (record the complete series of a program skipping the repeats).
- Dish TruHD: Claims to have 35 HD Channels (with HD reproduced content and not recorded in True HD), other features are similar although it doesn’t seem to have recorder facility enabled with TruHD feature, please let me know if it’s there as its not mentioned anywhere.
- Videocon D2H 3D HD DVR: Videocon looks to offer almost anything and everything over their DTH HD, with 4 HD Channels and a Magic show recorded for 3D viewing. They have 5x digital surround sound and digital recording feature.
- Reliance Digital TV: Records 200 hours of program, all other features look similar but as expected doesn’t give any details about number of channels/content available in HD.
- Airtel Digital TV HD: Offers similar features to other HD recorders but without recording support. (Note: there website was down at the time of writing this post).
- Sun Direct also offers HD.
Who provides real HD content and who plans to offer?
Real HD or true HD means the content which is recorded as well as broadcasted in High definition i.e. picture resolution of 1080×1920, with 2.07million+ pixels offering 5 times more detail than SD.
Channels available on HD- [Source]
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- TataSky
National Geographic HD, Discovery HD and Star Plus HD along with Cricket World Cup in HD - Reliance
National Geographic HD along with Cricket World Cup in HD - Airtel Digital TV HD
National Geographic HD along with Cricket World Cup in HD - Sun Direct HD
Tamil HD movies, Tamil HD songs, Telgu HD movies, Telgu HD Songs, Movies Now HD, Discovery HD, National Geographic HD and DD HD - Videon d2h HD
Discovery HD, NGC HD, Movies Now HD, Travel XP, HD Active Music and HD d2h Movies
- TataSky
Last week Star TV launched Asli HD and claims to be the only network which offers Asli HD content that is shot in HD, recorded and edited in HD and mixed for 5.1 Dolby surround sound. To enjoy the Asli HD experience, viewers will need a HD television set and subscribe to Star’s Asli HD channels on DTH platforms such as Tata Sky+ HD (only).
Star Plus, Star Movies, Star Gold, Star World and Nat Geo will now be available in Asli HD.
But I believe the total number of HD subscribers (people having HD enables STB and TVs) would not be more than 2-4 lakhs at this point in time, quoting a generous number (no official numbers are out yet).
It’s still a challenge for content providers to spend huge money in recording and broadcasting true HD content, and also limited number of HD enabled TV sets may backfire the pay-to-watch strategy of broadcasters and DTH operators.
Are you HD’ed yet? If yes, please share your experience..
Though I dont have HD connection, yesterday I came across an article which says the number of subscribers for HD are 75,000.
Here is the link to the article :
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/marketing/article1707246.ece?homepage=true
The Channels know that sparce ads here and there are OK but during some fav programmes (like CWCup or IPL) they try to make too much money at the expence of people’s patience.
If you read the article you can see how disperate they are to get ads into HD channels also.
Hi Altaf,
Thanks for the link. Although I liked the news and number of HD subscribers but their is a major mistake where they quoted 1.5 Million C&S subscribers in India :), it’s more than a 100 million! May be a typo..
Hey Rabi,
Me too…I have Tata Sky and I am very satisfied with picture quality. The best part is that HD Channels do not have Ads…it is pure pleasure…
Dish TV claims to have 30 full HD Channels…I really want to know if that is true ? Also, if someone would be kind enough to tell me how much does Dishtv charge for all these channels !
Dish tv claims 35 hd channels but actually their are very few hd channels,other are upscaled hd channels and further from techonlogy part they are far behind tata sky,reliannce and airtel and costing is also a factor.so it is advisable to go for tata sky as they are having seperate team for hd boxes,dish does not have,so,never buy dish and also tell millions of other people who wants to buy dish.
I have TataSky HD and I am getting the following in HD today:
National Geographic, Discovery, Star Plus, Star World, Start Movies, Star Gold, Set Max HD (IPL), Showcase HD (one pay per view movie in HD every day).
So around 8 channels in HD as I write this. A lot of Start Plus programs are not recorded in HD though. So the programming is still suspect. But I saw Billu Barber on one of the Start channels in HD.