Zone Reality Replacement

With Zone Reality due to cease Asia Pacific transmissions with effect from June 30 (see TV Radio Sri Lanka blog - Zone Reality to cease Asia Pacific transmissions). It is time for Dialog to replace the channel at no extra cost.

As of late all the new channels introduced have carried a charge of Rs 50/= but since Zone Reality is being taken off the new one must be provided FOC. Hopefully the Dialog TV management will act positively regarding this development and the replacement should be a quality English channel and not some Hindi/Tamil/Local Pay Television channel.

According to a report in todays "Daily Mirror" Dialog TV requires 400,000 to 500,000 subscribers in 3 to 4 years in order to break even (see Daily Mirror May 30th - Dialog TV aims high). This is actually not too difficult if the packages are actually customer centric and if the channels are of consistent quality.

To achieve this target the package/set plan rates will have to be reduced and the broadcast quality will have to increase greatly. With reductions in Set Plan/Package rates they may need to more subscribers to break even but they will be able to achieve the target, if no overhaul is carried out then Dialog will fail. Anyway the introduction of MPEG4 has been confirmed by the CEO which means that the roll out should take place sometime this year. Dialog is also planning to get into HDTV (see Daily News May 30th - Dialog TV to break even in four years).

Still issues like HBO channels pixelation continues, bandwidth to the religious channels has been reduced. Dialog is trying to increase quality by removing quality from other channels and have failed miserably in their attempt. Hopefully the CEO addresses these problems soon.

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

Australia Network problem solved

After a few weeks of problems with Australia Network it seems that Dialog TV have now corrected the problem and over the last few days there have been no interruptions so far.

It is great that the problem has been rectified since the subscribers can now enjoy their rugby without any interruptions.

However the sad part is that the HBO channels pixelation problem still persists and hopefully this is rectified soon.

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

Frequent Interruptions in Australia Network

Over the last few weeks there have been frequent interruptions on the Australia Network channel. This has resulted in several Dialog TV subscribers missing out on some rugby action and some entertaining programming. Most of us were under the impression that this will get sorted out once Dialog TV completes maintenance. But the problem still continued and this is only unique to Dialog TV and the other pay television operators such as LBN do not have any problem with Australia Network.

According to emails received by us from subscribers, it seems that when they inquire from Dialog TV about the nature of the problem and when it will be sorted, the reply from Dialog TV Customer Care (not the best in the world) is that they are having reception problems with Australia Network at their location and if this does not get sorted out then they will replace the channel. So whenever Dialog TV enginners cannot sort out technical problems with a channel, do they advice to replace the channel or is this the imagination of the Customer Care Agent? The inability to sort out a technical problem reflects badly on the engineering team and if they cannot sort out problems then the personnel should be replaced, hopefully Dr. Hans & the management at Telekom Malaysia take steps to get rid of all these incapable people either in Customer Care or Engineering.

Australia Network is the only channel that carries a majority of Rugby matches and some people have bought Dialog TV connections because they can watch some Rugby, if Dialog removes this channel then this will result in these people being deprived and will reflect badly on Dialog Telekom as a whole. Australia Network telecasts Tri Nations & Super 14's which is not available on any other channel in this region.

We hope steps are taken along with expertise from Australia Network so that the problem is rectified as soon as possible since the problem has been existing for so long that a solution is overdue. Let us remind Dialog TV once again that the solution is not removing the channel.

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

Maintenance Day 2 : Completed

From midnight last night till 5am this morning Dialog TV completed the second and final day of scheduled maintenance. There were no visible changes (from the subscribers point of view) after the first day of maintenance and it is highly unlikely that the second day will bring about some changes. The real reason for the maintenance is still being gathered but it seems it may have something to do with upgrading the system to supporting MPEG4 & HDTV in the future and also some changes which will result in the reduction of rain fade. But so far after Day 1 no reduction in rain fade has being experienced with Dialog TV loosing signal for upto 10 min in some areas due to rain last night. So hopefully if this maintenance had something to do with rain fade then we should see some improvement from today onwards since they have completed their maintenance plans.

We hope that the pixelation problem on the HBO channels has been sorted out. Some subscribers are reporting that from last night the Dialog TV logo is appearing on all channels in their new decoders but not on their older CBNsat decoders. We wonder whether others are experiencing the same thing.

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

Maintenance Day 1 : Completed

From midnight to 6am last night Dialog TV was off air for maintenance which has resulted in the first day of maintenance being completed. We are not sure whether there are any visible changes to the Dialog TV transmission. There may or may not be since we are unable to clarify the nature of the maintenance being carried. Some unconfirmed information suggests that the upgrade is to start HDTV & MPEG4 testing which is supposed to commence commercially in a couple of months. However we are unable to confirm this.

We also hoped that the problems such as the pixelation problem that plagued the HBO channels would be sorted. We hope that if not today it will sorted out during the second day of maintenance scheduled for midnight on the 14th till 5am on the 15th.

We hope any of our bloggers who have access to their Dialog TV connections will be able to scan their system and confirm whether there are any visible changes to the transmissions or is everything the same, just as it was before.

We also noticed that the Nat Geo programme guide is wrong and should be sorted out soon. There are some frequent interruptions on Australia Network which should be sorted out soon.

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

Revised Interruption Schedule

Dialog TV have issued a revised interruption schedule for maintenance purposes. The original schedule indicated an interruption on the 10th & 12th but the revision indicates a 12th & 14th interruption. According to the message conveyed via the mailing system on the decoder, the interruption will occur from midnight on the 12th till 6am on the 13th & also from midnight on the 14th till 5am on the 15th. The maintenance is said to be for a transmission upgrade so hopefully all pixelation problems are sorted out thereafter.

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

DTV Scheduled Transmission Interruption

According to information being received a message was send to all Dialog TV subscribers that reads as "DTV Services will be interrupted for schedules maintenance on the 10th and 12th midnight till 6am on 11 and 5am on 13th".

This information was conveyed to all subscribers via SMS (those who have registered for programme alerts).

We hope that all pixelation problems are sorted out thereafter.

Of programme guides & CiTi HiTz.....

On April 1st many Dialog TV subscribers informed Dialog TV customer care that they do not want to continue having CiTi HiTz in their lineup because they will charged for it but according to Dialog TV customer care they said that the channel will be available for a certain time period and will be deactivated by the end of April.

However according to information that we are receiving now it seems that many Dialog TV subscribers who requested for deactivation of CiTi HiTz are still continuing to receive the channel. We are not sure why this is so, since the Dialog TV bill for the month of May will contain the rebate for the SET Plan that was charged during the month of April for CiTi HiTz (only for subscribers who requested for Citi Hitz deactivation). Is this because Dialog TV have decided to give the channel free of charge for certain packages or has the trial period being extended until Citi Hitz increases the quality of their content and make themselves pay worthy.

In addition we are receiving information that subscribers have not got their programme guides yet for this month with some subscribers not receiving the April guide too.

Pixelation is continuing on HBO channels and no solution has been given after several months since we first highlighted this.

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