Thread: Tata Sky+

Tata Sky unveils PVR technology with the launch of Tata Sky Plus

Tata Sky aims to give a ‘Plus-size’ TV viewing experience with the launch of its personal video recorder technology, called Tata Sky+. Priced at Rs 8,999 for the digicomp, with an additional Rs 1,000 as installation charges, the cost too comes in ‘Plus’ proportions. Tata Sky+ service would be rolled out in a phased manner and supported by a 360 degree campaign, which will be unveiled before Diwali. The ads would feature brand ambassador Aamir Khan.

Tata Sky has invested over Rs 2,000 crore on this project and is eyeing eight million connections in India by 2012.

Announcing the launch of Tata Sky+ at a press meet in Mumbai on October 14, Vikram Kaushik, MD and CEO, Tata Sky Ltd, said, “This technology will not only help our subscribers to time-shift their TV viewing with the record and playback features, but also give them the convenience to enjoy uninterrupted TV with the pause and rewind live TV features.”

As for the technicalities of the PVR advantage, Tata Sky+ has MPEG4 technology and an in-built personal video recorder that enables the viewer to record up to 45 hours of live TV, play back a recorded programme and pause and rewind live TV. These features are not available on the normal Tata Sky service.

The hard disk capacity of the Tata Sky+ digicomp is 160 GB. The Tata Sky+ subscriber can have access to over 160 channels, which are offered as part of the Base packages or Add-On packages. For existing Tata Sky subscribers, a special introductory offer for Tata Sky+ will be announced soon.

Cost:

DigiComp (hardware):
Rs 8,999 (inclusive of all taxes)

Standard INstallation (Standard installation with 20 mtr cable length.) + installation warranty + activation charges:
Rs 1,000 (inclusive of all taxes)

TataSky+ Usage fees:
Rs 50 per month (inclusive of all taxes)

Monthyly Subscription:
Packages starting from
Rs 99 per month
(inclusive of all taxes)

Website: TataSky Plus

I have already read this in 14-10-2008, The Times of India and they told it would cost about Rs.10000/-. But as per your statement its Rs.8500/- is welcomed. But Tatasky cannot increase their number of channels more than they are giving at present. Because they don't have enough transponders. If they want introduced any new channel they must stop one channel and replace new one.

Once six months back about Tatasky had stopped DD Sapthagiri(Telugu) and DD Podhigai(Tamil). I asked about the lost channels through e-mail. They replied as above and till date the DD Sapthagiri could not able to shown by them. In spite of introducing FTA's they are very keen to introduce only pay channels by stopping one FTA channel and earn more money.

hey guys i am from lahore pakistan. i was just thinking of getting the tata sky plus.

how much does the setup box costs in indian rupees and can we easily make the monthly payment through credit card. secondly i need a little clarification regarding the difference in tata sky and tata sky plus. is it only the recording and rewind feature difference or is there some thing more to it?

Hi salmanlse,
It would be illegal for you to install tata sky in Pakistan.

More over all credit card payments or bank transfers from pakistan to India are monitored (without exception) So dont put yourself in thick soup.

You might have seen others there in Lahore using tata sky but as far as I know they do not use credit card to recharge they normally get a few Rs1000 vouchers and charge then at one go so they dont have to worry about recharging for a year or so.

I am not sure if tata sky plus is even launched commercially... If some one is selling you a sky plus box there in Lahore thats not from India its a box which sky sells in UK.

the plus thing is nothing but a box with an inbuilt hard drive which can record your programmes in real time and gives you the ability of rewinding anything you are viewing and/or record a programme when you are not home.

I am not too sure about the mpeg4 thing although not many people have noticed any considerable improvement in performance... I have tata sky at home and will stick to the good old box

hey thanks for the reply actually yes i know its illlegal to install tata in pakistan but lots of people r using it here and they normally get these chraged from the shop they purchase there equipment.

actually i am not sure if the box he is offering me is from india or not but he is selling me for 5500 indian rupees with two months free service. just checked from the dealer and he says u can charge easily from your credit card. my friend is using dish tv and he makes the payment from his paki credit card and he hasnt had any problem i am not sure if tata would create problems for paki card but lets see i am gonna go tom to the dealer and shall see how it works and them am gonna decide whether to buy it or not.

tc

tata sky box is not worth more then Rs1500 as far as I know may be a little bit more.

Rs5500 thats such a rip off.

Good product from Tata Sky but a bit too costly for that, i don't think its worth it. And like any other product the price will gradually go down!

Are there no other DTH service providers in Pakistan itself?

with rewind feature i guess u wont get the box for 1500. after all it has a 160gb hard drive

and regarding the dth service in pak no there is no dth service for pak only the illegal indian dth services r available

I really dont understand why cant Indian companies not do business in Pakistan and viceversa... there are no language barrier no long distances to travel... both countries will prosper if free trade is allowed.

Sorry about being a bit off topic here but Ive seen maruti cars in Pakistan in news videos some times... what do they sell it as? do they call them suzuki minus the maruti bit? I am sure I cant mistake a maruti van ever Ive seen thousands of them here in Delhi and what I see in news videos some times are maruti 800s and maruti vans 100% or do they have a plan in Pakistan produing then?

And is Nano going to be exported to Pakistan as well? I am sure Pakistan is a huge market for nano if they allow it there.

i think with the TATA SKY + they will shift to advanced technology i.e. mpeg 4
so they provide hd signal in the future

They do use mpeg 4 for TS+ ..

As far as the hardware and software are concerned, tata has done its homework well and provided the best amongst the rest for sure.

Originally Posted by vikrant333

i think with the TATA SKY + they will shift to advanced technology i.e. mpeg 4
so they provide hd signal in the future

Once and for all let me clear the misrepresentation of MPEG4 and MPEG2.

• MPEG4 will not provide better video, clarity, sound, etc.
• MPEG2 can give the same video quality as MPEG4. The main difference is the size.
• For example if a 30 min video in MPEG2 (640x480 pixels @ approximate VBR of 5 Mbits/s) may result in a file size of 1 GB.
• In MPEG4, the same video can be delivered at the same quality but at less than half the bit rate. So the size will be lesser than 500 MB.
• Because MPEG4 uses better compression techniques, the users can get more throughput from the same pipe.

So stop getting fooled, fooling yourself and others that MPEG4 will yield better quality. Only HD (1280x720) or Full-HD (1920x1080 pixels) can give you better quality.

High Definition uses the following bit rates:

15 Mbit/s: HDTV quality
36 Mbit/s: HD DVD quality
54 Mbit/s: Blu-ray Disc quality

It is here that MPEG4 can produce remarkable difference. MPEG4 will be able to compress the file size or bandwidth to less than half than MPEG2. Hence using MPEG4 more channels can be squeezed thru the same bandwidth pipe.

guys, I have finalised my DTH now and will soon be placing an order. I thought itll be great if we share our experiences and doubts. .. it will help me and many like me here.. ok, has anybody bought it online here? and anyone into their games?

well i dont have tata sky plus or neither have i actually tried their services, but my friend has tata sky plus, and she thinks is one of the best things, because of her busy lifestyle she can still manage to watch all her favourite programmes, and when there is two films coming on at the same time, well she simply records one!

I have tata sky plus. You can record two channels at same time while watching third. You can even pause a channel in between. So you can watch almost 3 programs at the same time! I think you will enjoy it.

I have been using TataSky for the past 20 months. I must say that I have not faced a single issue till now. The customer care service is the best. I wish all our ISP's also had such kind of CC service.

Originally Posted by Mirzarocx

I have tata sky plus. You can record two channels at same time while watching third. You can even pause a channel in between. So you can watch almost 3 programs at the same time! I think you will enjoy it.

i didn't know about that, i thought you can only record one, but two that's quite good!

If m not wrong, watching 3 programs at a time means that u can record two, but then u have to be watching a per recorded program. thats how u will end up recording two and watching the third program. definitely not a bad deal but wanted to clear the ambiguity here.

how much data can we record without deleted any of them?? is there any option of transfering the recorded data to pen drives ?? any means to transfer it to a pc? i also heard that there are some issues with tata sky+ for wide screen tvs?

the TS+ device stores the videos in its internal 160 GB hard disk, which translates up to 45 hours of video recording.There is an indicator that shows the amount of space available. also u can protect cartain recorded item from gettin deleted in case the disk gets full and one cannot transfer data to pen drive or any other device. Although that wld've been cool but it is not logical due to some legal issues.

Originally Posted by Mirzarocx

I have tata sky plus. You can record two channels at same time while watching third. You can even pause a channel in between. So you can watch almost 3 programs at the same time! I think you will enjoy it.

Yes, just to clarify the whole situation, you can record two programs at the same time as well as watch a third recorded program. Earlier even i thought that you could record one program but now its clarified that you can record 2 programs at the same time.

Originally Posted by robin_75

the TS+ device stores the videos in its internal 160 GB hard disk, which translates up to 45 hours of video recording.There is an indicator that shows the amount of space available. also u can protect cartain recorded item from gettin deleted in case the disk gets full and one cannot transfer data to pen drive or any other device. Although that wld've been cool but it is not logical due to some legal issues.

thanks for the info.. and any idea about the widescreen problem i talked about?

Originally Posted by saurav_kataruka

how much data can we record without deleted any of them?? is there any option of transfering the recorded data to pen drives ?? any means to transfer it to a pc? i also heard that there are some issues with tata sky+ for wide screen tvs?

As far as I know, you cannot take a video out of TS+ box. They have deliverately prevented such an option because they wish to protect the content.

You can trasfer it to a PC in a long drawn way:

a) Have a Video Capture Card installed on PC - the TV tuner card can do the same job
b) Connect via Composite (Yellow-White-Red) cable
c) Start the Video Capture software such as WinDV
d) Start play on TS+ and hit record on Video Capture software
e) Picture will be captured in Windows RAW AVI format (not to be confused with DViX/XVid AVI) - 5 minutes video = 1 GB file. So have that much space ready on your disk.
f) Using softwares (paid or freeware) you can convert the Windows AVI to any format you like - MPEG1 (VideoCD), MPEG2 (DVD), MPEG4, etc.

TS+ and Widescreen TVs: Yes. There is a problem but this is not a TS+ problem. The problem is because source video is in 4:3 (normal TV) format. If you watch 4:3 video on widescreen (16:9) format, the picture is stretched to fit the screen and all objects will appear as fat. However, most Widescreen TVs have multiple format options:

a) 16:9 - Native widescreen. If source video is 16:9 WS then picture is displayed without distortion
b) 4:3 - Available for viewing 4:3 source as is. Black bars appears on Left and Right side
c) Zoom: Meant for 4:3 source. The picture is zoomed to fit the 16:9 screen. Picture on all edges is cropped and center is zoomed to fit the screen. No distortion appears. Recommended method but there is some loss of source.
d) Just: Again meant for 4:3 source. The picture is fit to the 16:9 screen in such a way that the center part of the video is not distorted at all but pictures on all four edges is distorted.

I too tried to find out about using the TV tuner card,this is wat i found but not sure about it.. neway will share it with you guys..
One shld connect Tata Sky's Video Out on the Composite In (Yellow) of the TV-Tuner Card, now change the source in the Software to composite Video. Dont scan for channels, as S-video sends a pre-decoded signals and most of the tv-tuner doesn't
scan for channels when its a composite video input. change the audio cable. One will need a new audio cable that has the same pins at the tata sky end (Red, White for right, left) and a 3.5mm jack at the computer end and plug it in the audio in (blue colour) port of the sound card.

And about the widescreen tv, "Recommended method but there is some loss of source." Can u plz elaborate on that...