India Broadband Forum

Preeti_20

As you all know Sun Direct DTH is a DTH service (direct to home), and it’s a service which used MPEG-4 technology, which means you get better quality picture and as a surprise to many it may be but Sun Direct DTH is actually the first DTH service provider to provide the MPEG-4 technology.
Sun Direct DTH is a service which is mainly and popularly used by people in the South of India as they provide a wide range of South Indian channels, and its head quarters are in South India too, Chennai to be precise.
What some people may not know is that Sun Direct was actually registered in February 2005 but due to some problems the launch of it got delayed till December 2007, and today it’s the 4th largest DT provider in India.

Sun Direct’s main plus point is that they are cheap and they provide their Dish and set top box for free, whereas other DTH companies charge for their Dish and set top box, and because of this great plus point from Sun Direct they achieved 1 million customers in just 200 days alone!

Packs start from Rs400 and you can also add on, according to your needs!

just4kix

OK. Here goes again ...

As a person who has purchased many Blu-Ray discs in the last three weeks, I can assure you that MPEG4 has no quality advantage. Half my blu-ray discs are MPEG2 and they have the same clarity, quality and throughput in terms of video and sound.

MPEG4 is a compression technology that enables better "squeezing" techniques of the picture. This is done by high bit-rates and results into smaller size of the video and yet maintaining the same quality. There is no difference between MPEG2 and MPEG4 in this respect. But the equivalent size in MPEG2 will be much higher.

Now it is possible to reduce size in MPEG2 by using higher compression ratio and sacrificing the quality. This is often done by many content providers. This gives the impression that MPEG2 is inferior to MPEG4.

Since MPEG4 allows size reduction without sacrificing quality, it allows content providers to provide more (quality) for less (bandwidth).

And it is true that Sun DTH is the first to provide DTH services in MPEG4 format.

This depends. When you start adding popular aka paid channels, the package becomes just as costly. When it comes to all popular channels being included in the the package, DishTV becomes the cheapest and its video/audio quality (MPEG2) is not at all inferior.

STB is a one-time cost and while it is nice if it came free, people should look at long term subscription costs. The STBs are not inter-operable on other DTH providers and hence once you subscribe to any one provider, you are more or less locked to that provider, thus creating a sort of monopoly.

In the west, STB and CPE are provided free along with installation. The caveat is a minimum one year contract.

The CPE cost is always built into the pricing model and somehow recovered. So this aspect should always be remembered.

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This does not mean that I am downgrading Sun DTH. What I am saying that they are as good or bad as the rest. Each person should decide what is best for him/her.

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Preeti_20

Yeh I understand your point J4K, was just providing info!

I have also realized that there is no picture quality different in MPEG 2 and MPEG4, so personally i don't know what the hype is about!11

just4kix

Not admonishing you Preeti. Far from it.

But if the kind of info is put on the (SUN) website, then we should invoke RTI and ask them to explain and justify the claim. If they say that their content is better in quality than others, then that is a different matter.

But they won't because then the other DTH providers will take them to court for slander. They will have a tough time. And they know it.

So people are being fooled by such premises.

It is our duty to educate people as much as possible.

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Having said that, it is my opinion that all DTH providers will move to MPEG4 some time or other. DishTV and TS will be mostly hit in this move because they will have to provide new STBs to subscribers. If they charge for the same, people will complain and turn away. If they offer them free or subsidized upgrades, they will dig a hole on the balance sheet.

Preeti_20

Yeh I know J4K, just making sure though> I do post things on the forum but its not necessary that its my opinion I like writing reviews and info on a lot of things, which in the past have got mistaken for my views!

Back to the MPEG4 technology, well its just a thing for its name, and like you said other DTH providers will slowly move to this, and im sure with time when people do get the MPEG4 technology if they change their DTH provider they will see that there is no difference. I mean you don't want to see someone mole on tv do you do you?

just4kix

Believe me. When you go to True HD, you will be able to see the pores on the mole.

neo001

Well As rightly said by Just4kix About Mpeg2 and mpeg4 that Mpeg 4 is just a compression technique and their is no difference in Picture and Audio quality in Mpeg2 and Mpeg 4.

Further Their is nothing Special in providing free Dishtv and STB, as they are already charging Rs.1250 for installation and Activation where as Dishtv is just charging Rs.200 for the same.

So the initial cost is same for consumer and package wise Dishtv is best and most economical.