Subscribers weary that TP4 may be used for luring them to higher packages

Even though there is a general feeling of excitement about the introduction of TP4 and the channels it is rumored to contain such as some Asian Fox Channels, DW TV, TV5, etc there is a certain sense of weariness accompanied with this. This is specially common among the older Rs 1400/= (exclusive of VAT) premium package subscribers who are rightfully of the opinion that they will be asked to pay the revised rate of Rs 1949/= (exclusive of VAT) in order to receive the new channels. This is because Dialog did not provide most of the new channels to the older subscribers during the introduction of TP3 and forced them to upgrade to the revised package rates which was actually a Rs 50/= difference. If Dialog did that for Rs 50/= then they may do it again for a difference which far exceeds Rs 50/=.

Subscribers who were in the revised premium packages were told that they will obtain all future channels but Dialog are to charge Rs 100/= or Rs 50/= for CiTi HiTz and it is quite possible that Dialog may come up with a SET Plan for the new channels or give new channels free for the Rs 1949/= premium package and force Rs 1400/= subscribers to move to the revised package. If this is done then it will be a bad move by Dialog since they cannot expect people to pay such a large sum of money for pay television. If Dialog TV wants to cover operational costs and break even then they should do so by increasing their subscriber base instead of increasing package costs which drives more people away from purchasing connections.

We hope that the Dialog TV management provides the new channels at no cost for the premium Rs 1400/= and Rs 1949/= subscribers and some new channels for the lower packages too. Subscriber sentiment should be taken very seriously and hopefully subscribers will not be disappointed this time round.

At the moment Dialog have activated around 16 channels on TP4 but only 10 are functional but they are scrambled for all subscribers until they are tested and launched officially. They should not cram up TP4 with channels since there are serious pixelation problems on the other transponders and we hope that channels are distributed better across transponders with more bandwidth allocated for the channels which will result in an improvement in quality.

Please keep us updated on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.

4th Transponder appearing on decoders

According to reports being received, the 4th transponder is now appearing on the decoders. Anyone who does a system rescan is able to see the new transponder. As per the information there are 16 channels allocated to the 4th transponder and they are named as CH1 to CH16. In addition the channels are all encrypted.

Channels may begin to appear over the weekend. One of the main concerns among subscribers is now much additionally do they have to pay for these channels. The last time when Dialog introduced the 3rd Transponder there were many practices that were questionable and hopefully this time around things will be handled more professionally.

Dialog should not take this opportunity to force the Rs 1600/= (the premium package before rates were increased) to upgrade to the new overly priced Rs 1949/= package (the present premium package). They should allocate these new channels free of charge to both the premium packages and they should also allocate some channels to the other lower priced packages without complicating things by asking them to subscribe to a puffed up and over priced SET Plan. If this is done then it will reflect badly on the image of Dialog TV.

Please keep us updated on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.

SLRC channels quality propped up?

According to information being received it seems that the quality of SLRC channels Rupavahini and Channel Eye/Nethra has been given a boost with the introduction of Dialog's DVB-T service and the service being subsequently used to connect the channel to the Dialog DTH earth station.

The quality of Rupavahini was good although not excellent but the Channel Eye/Nethra Channel was not at all good however according to information being received it seems that now both are on par with the international channels. We request confirmation from our fellow bloggers regarding this matter.

If this is true then it time for Dialog TV to use their DVB-T service to connect channels such as TNL, Swarnavahini, and Derana.

Please keep us updated with the latest information regarding Dialog TV.

Link : TV Radio Sri Lanka - More Information on Dialog DVB-T

Transponder 4 now activated

The much awaited 4th transponder is finally on air and on testing mode. At present the 4th transponder is broadcasting the same channels as the 3rd transponder and it is still not officially available for subscribers until the decoders are updated. The decoder update is expected in a week or maybe sooner.

There are some rumors that the 4th TP will be MPEG4 whereas the others will continue in MPEG2 however this seems highly unlikely since it is not practical to broadcast on both formats simultaneously. However we believe that there will not be a fifth transponder hereafter, instead the encoding format will be changed to MPEG4 on all transponders since it can accommodate a total of approximately 35 channels per transponder instead of the present 18. This will double the channels that can be broadcast from 72 (4 transponders x 18 channels per transponder) to 140 (4 transponders x 35 channels per transponder). Please note that the given values are approximate and the actuals may vary.

Among the new channels we hope that there will not be any Hindi Language channel. However there should be some Tamil Language channels to cater to the Tamil speaking population and Animax should be reintroduced.

There are complaints of pixelation on channels such as HBO during fast moving images and we hope that these are sorted out. Dialog should not make it a target to add 18 channels to the new transponder too and cramming it. Instead the number of channels can be kept at a minimum by introducing high quality English & Tamil channels and distributing the channels evenly across the transponders giving more bandwidth for each channel. Remember Quantity is not everything since Quality is a very important aspect for a DTH service.

Please keep us updated on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.

Hindu Channel "Shruthi" now on air & the 4th transponder

Commencing yesterday Dialog TV launched the Hindu Religious channel "Shruthi". Previously Dialog TV consisted of 3 religious channels namely "The Buddhist" (for Buddhists), "Peace TV" (for Muslims), "God TV" (for Christians). As per the information being received at the moment it seems that "Shruthi" is being operated by Onair (Pvt) Ltd which operates the "CitiHiTz" channel. However we are unable to confirm this. This makes "Shruthi" the 3rd Tamil Channel on Dialog TV.

In addition the 4th transponder is expected soon and according to some reports they suggest that it could be as early as next week and some others suggest next month. Some channels that are rumored to be expected on the fourth transponder are DW TV, TV5 and SS Music.

Please update us on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.

"Tamil Box Office" launched

Before we commence our first blog post for this year we take this opportunity once again to wish our valued bloggers, the management and staff of Dialog TV "A Happy & Prosperous 2008".

On the 1st of January Dialog TV launched the replacement for SRTV known as TBO (Tamil Box Office". This is a commercial free channel that broadcasts Tamil language movies in a format similar to movie channel HBO. As per the information that we are receiving this channel is of Singaporean origin. At present Dialog have already added the EPG for the channel but we are unable to locate a website related to this channel and if anyone of our bloggers find the "TBO" website please email us the address so that we can update this blog.

In other news the Cartoon Network EPG on Dialog TV is wrong since Dialog TV is displaying the Cartoon Network India schedule where as they are now telecasting Cartoon Network Asia. The BBC World EPG is wrong due to an error in calculating Sri Lanka Time. We hope that these are corrected in due course. There are rumors of a move from Nick India to Nick Asia by next week but we are unable to confirm this.

Dialog have decided to charge Rs 50/= after March 31st for the "CiTi HiTz" channel but "CiTi HiTz" was launched by removing "SET SAB" which replaced "Animax". "SET SAB" was available for the higher level packages at no additional cost so asking people who are in the higher level packages to pay an additional Rs 50/= for "CiTi HiTz" is not ethical. All packages that received "Animax" or "SET SAB" should receive "CiTi HiTz" at no additional cost. In addition the Set Plan that contained Star World consisted of SET SAB too for a total cost of Rs 100/=. We request our bloggers who are on Set Plans to inform us whether they continued to pay Rs 100/= even though SET SAB was off air or was the price of the Set Plan reduced due to the discontinuation of SET SAB? We hope that Dialog would be fair in their allocation of CiTi HiTz to the packages and make sure that the packages that received Animax or SET SAB would receive "CiTi HiTz" at no additional cost.

Please keep us updated on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.

Updated @ 1:47PM :

Tamil Box Office Web Address - http://www.tamilboxoffice.com/