Thread: Airtel DTH vs Tata sky.. war for ad claim?

Airtel dil titli advertizement say usung MPEG4 technology thye provide better picture quality. Tata sky has put a complaint tht its just a compression technology and has no effect on picture quality.

MPEG 4 technology is a compression format and does not affect or improve the quality of picture since, it is able to compress files therefore increasing the capacity of channel added in the transponder. Airtel Dth are not the only providers with MPEG 4 as the latest Tata Sky (black box) as well as Tata Sky+ are MPEG 4 enabled. It is very wrong and false to point out that other DTH have inferior picture quality. It cannot be proved that MPEG 2 or MPEG 4 enhances its video quality. In DTH, all providers range between MPEG 2 – MPEG 4 and this is directly related to service provider’s number of channels. This type of incorrect advertising misleads customers and violates the right of customer information. So the fact remains that MPEG 4 is a just compression standard and DVB-S2 is just a satellite transmission standard. They have not effect on picture quality.

Also I voted wrongly as I agree MPEG 4 does not give better picture quality.

Airtel had already lost the case and Advertising counsil (ASCI) found the adv was misleading.

And here we go again ... the war of words between MPEG4 and MPEG2.

For long a higher number version is always associated with better features. MPEG4 is better compression technology. But picture quality can only be increased by having more pixels. Neither MPEG2 nor MPEG4 can assure that.

So theoratically MPEG4 cannot deliver better PQ. But there are certain situations:

- compression technology allows selecting the sample rate for compression. Higher compression = poor quality
- DTH providers are constantly trying to add new channels. Each channel will demand extra bandwidth. To accommodate new channels in the same bandwidth, it will mean that they will compress more to squeeze in more content. This means that quality will suffer.
- Remember that there are (bootlegged) DVDs that cram in 4 to 8 movies in a single DVD? All these are also on MPEG2. The original single movie DVD is also MPEG2. But the quality of the 4-in-1 or 6-in-1 DVD will be intolerable simply because it has crammed in more, compressed more and sacrificed quality in the process.

I use Tata Sky, and also have viewed programmes on Airtel DTH, and I did not see any difference at all in the picture quality between the two. I would actually say that Tata Sky gives better performance than the Airtel MPEG 4 connection.

I have been using Tata Sky since three and a half years.I have a second multiroom connection too.The clarity is good.

It is just a marketing gimmick by Airtel,because MPEG4 is used to fit in as many channels as possible.