> Reliance DTH is here!

The long awaited Direct-to-Home service from Reliance ADAG is going to be launched on Tuesday, reports Afaqs. Reliance will be starting with a basic offering of about 200 channels. The price will be an aggressive Rs.200-250.

Reliance will be using the MPEG-4 technology for compression in their DTH platform. MPEG-4 is an advanced technology that allows upto 30% more channels on the same transponder. The established players of the market, Dish TV and Tata Sky use MPEG-2 technology. However, the choice of technology only affects the number of channels that can be delivered and not the audio-visual reception quality.

The older players, Dish TV and Sky TV has said that they have proved in front of TRAI that MPEG-4 does not offers superior audio-video quality. Well although that is true, I’m sure Reliance will market it heavily to prove its superiority over the existing platforms.

Although the customers should stay informed that the older MPEG-2 set-top boxes won’t be able to work with the new MPEG-4 reception. Dish TV had earlier said that upgrading everyone to the new MPEG-4 technology will include unnecessary expenditure for the DTH player.

Big TV will be the fourth entrant in the 7-million private DTH subscribers market following Dish TV's launch in 2003, Tata Sky (2006) and Sun Direct (2007). Doordarshan's DD Direct Plus is the fifth player (also launched in 2003) but is a free-to-air service.
"We will launch Big TV in Mumbai on August 19," a senior executive of Reliance ADAG told Business Standard. Big TV has been testing its service since last year and came close to launching the service a few times earlier this year, sources said.


Big TV will be launched with over 200 channels in the basic bouquet, the largest offering compared with Dish TV and Tata Sky," a company executive said.

Big TV will offer 25 movie channels, 8-10 special interactive offerings, gaming channels among others using the MPEG-4 compression technology (also offered by Sun Direct currently). Under MPEG-4, service providers can compress more channels per transponders (about 30 per cent more channels) compared to those with MPEG-2, which is used by Dish TV and Tata Sky.


Big TV will initially come out with three to four schemes on the set top boxes similar to offers from the rival DTH operators. The company is also likely to offer its monthly subscription fees at aggressive price points of around Rs 200-250.


Big TV is also likely to bundle offers like discounts on 26-inch LCD television sets along with its subscription. Big TV is expected to spend Rs 200 crore on marketing and promotions in the first year of its launch, which is nearly the same as the amount currently spent by the existing players, industry sources said.

Originally Posted by Ninja

I am sure ADAG has some catch when they claim it to be so cheap. They did it with the famous(or rather infamous Rs.500/- mobile phone). I know some people who still curse reliance for having bought that phone I will rather wait and watch for some more time. Till them i am "Santusth" with my local cable TV

Reliance ADA Group has launched its DTH/satellite TV venture BIG TV, with 202 channels including 50 subscription VOD channels. The company says it is targeting 40 percent of the market within a year of launch, a very ambitious target, but will use all its muscle to promote it, including broadband Internet, mobile phones, home video, film production and the Adlabs cinema chain

Reliance Big DTH would be tapping into the customer base of the ADA Group’s other companies to build its subscriber base in the business. This would comprise the 50-million customer base of Reliance Mobile, 5 million customers of Reliance Energy, the 4 million of Reliance ADA Group shareholders and the 2 million partners of the Reliance PCO channel.

Originally Posted by ApeX

if u are prepared to live without cnn and bbc, only 4k per annum is needed.
yup..the site is crappy and it doesn't even work with firefox.

i'm waiting for a few customer reviews b4 deciding on this one. i don't have any high expectations frm airtel or videocon.