Tuesday, July 31, 2012

ESPN HD replaces Ten HD

ESPN HD has officially replaced Ten HD as a full time channel on the HD pack. It is still unclear whether AXN HD & Ten HD will continue to share one channel, however it's its highly likely that it will be shared whenever a cricket match is telecast or some other important "live" sporting event is telecast.

As of late ESPN HD has been very popularly requested to be incorporated as a permanent channel on this blog & it's great to note that Dialog have made an attempt to satisfy subscriber requests. However this has come at the cost of dissatisfying Ten HD fans.

As far as we are concerned Dialog cannot continue with this present trend of replacing and time sharing  channels because one of these days subscribers may begin to replace their Dialog TV connection. So in light of present trends Dialog should immediately invest in some transponder space or urgently speed up the MPEG2 to MPEG4 conversion, so that more HD & SD channels can be added to the Dialog TV lineup. It's quite surprising that Dialog TV have carried out some real short term planning when it comes to their HD channel lineup & future expansion plans.

Please continue updating us on the latest regarding Dialog TV as the days progress.

52 comments:

Unknown said...

I am Only watching AXN HD for Wipeout. Indian feed sucks. Hope they change it to HBO HD.

Unknown said...

ESPN HD is perfect. Don't need another sports channel(TEN HD).

Anonymous said...

This is the most amazing news I heard from Dialog...

Thank You every one who commented on this topic..

Dialog TV way to GO...

Dr.Muditha Liyanagama said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dr.Muditha Liyanagama said...

Star movies HD has some sound track issue.sometimes it plays only background sound track.No dialogs at all.anybody have same problem?what to do?is it a transmission issue?

Dr.Muditha Liyanagama said...

sound issue occurred for movies only.adds have no issue with sound

Unknown said...

Shit Sound Issues with Star Movies HD & NatGeo HD. Fix this..atinu 12

Anonymous said...

Espn HD FULL time is great news. I think important live event should be telecast on AXN like now.
(Sri Lankan Cricket, Uefa Champions League)
Because Axn will keep repeating same programs.

Unknown said...

CHANGE "STAR MOVIES HD" TO "HBO HD". What you say to this ?????? & Please Change Indian Feed. hate Indian crap..

Anonymous said...

Machan I think hbo india feed is bad too even worser than star movies.

leyland said...

On the topic of the Olympics, if you have a broadband connection, you can watch the any event of the Olympics live on Youtube. Upto 12 live streams are available with full replays of any event from the Opening ceremony also available. Picture quality options are available from a low 240p upto 1080p full hd. This apparently has been made available by the IOC to certain parts of Asia which include Sri Lanka. Youtube URL is http://www.youtube.com/user/olympic

Anonymous said...

YA That's why I want to keep on going with espn hd. just for the Olympic it s waste of money..
ESPN HD full time is a must for me to get hd pack...

Priyantha De Silva said...

ESPN going to stay. see the programme guide of this month.

Anonymous said...

what do u think about wht will happen when the t20 world cup begins.if they replace ESPN hd to star cricket hd or just like now time share with either axn or ngc only when the live action are there.
I hope they go with later option. cz there r people who doesn't happy with only one sport for 3 weeks.
if they time share with axn or ngc there will be highlights programs on ESPN hd too for the those who miss the live matches.

We will see what happen. ESPN hd full time is the only reason why I buy hd pack. Hopefully I think I'm not the only one.
ESPN hd shouldn't be time shared by any channel under any circumstance.

Guys please comment on this matter.

Unknown said...

Star Movies HD Time Schedule time is wrong not recording properly. I had to change record time manually.

nilu said...

why not dialog add Hiru TV as HD channel.

don said...

As far as I know Hiru TV is niether digital nor HD.Correct me If I am wrong.

SLP said...

@don
yes, not in either way, HIRU tv is digital ready and HD ready, means at any second if the country transfer to digital, then they are capable to shift their transmission to digital platform.

As far as I know, CSN is upgrading their broadcast to digital/HD as same as HIRU tv.

Other local channels, no information about this. Anyhow initial planning of TRC is shifting to Digital fully in 2017.

yet it seems to be impossible.

Unknown said...

I got the Pearl Package & HD Package. Is it possible to disconnect pearl package & keep the HD package ??????????????

SLP said...

hai dialog,

SLPL is peaking... think about star cricket HD

before its too late.. ah

Anonymous said...

hey SPL is not televise on star cricket hd. only ESPN and star cricket. Dialog can't do anything

Mario said...

SLPL is not being broadcast on Star Cricket HD

Anonymous said...

I did some search about hd packages of other countries. Most packages are cost 1/3 of the full payment. In that sense dialog tv is doing fine. But all the other packages offer 8-15 hd channels.

We have to realize it is impossible to that many hd channels in country like sri lanka. So my point is that Dialog must give other important live events in hd through time share with axn or ngc.

LiKE

UEFA Champions League - Ten hd(All the matches are in the mid night so no problem in that to time shared )

ICC T20 - Cricket HD

US open (even just the back end of the tournament ) -Ten hd

etc...

Dialog tv please consider....


sonik said...

@NiskoshalaD: You are most certainly entitled to your opinion, and thank you for contributing here,

BUT, I respectfully dis-agree.

Neither you, nor anyone else on this blog can dictate to DTV customers what they should and should not watch, regardless of what time of the day it may be.

Channel replacement and time sharing is not an option for any pay tv provider anywhere in the world.

Imagine, if YOU were awaiting a program on a channel only to have it replaced at the exact time by another channel, without your consultation. How would you react to that? How can anyone assume that no one is watching AXN and NatGeo and therefore they can be time-shared?

Therefore, please don't encourage this "time sharing" and channel replacement nonsense on DTV. It makes way for a very poor quality pay television service and paves the way for other pay tv operators to do the same and overall, will contribute to very poor quality pay tv in Sri Lanka. We have come a long way but we should be moving forward, not backwards.

The fact that DTV cannot provide adequate bandwidth for their HD and SD services is a hole that they dug themselves into. And as far as lack of bandwidth for HD is concerned, it is most likely because of their overnight HD launch done to compete with SLT without any proper planning. Why should the customer pay the price for Dialog's technological and logistical muddle?

Unknown said...

@Sonic. I totally agree with you. They should stop time sharing. Add more HD channels like Star World HD.

Nishan said...

@ Sonic..me too totally agree with you..DTV sucks all the time...

@NiskoshalaD...your comments are not acceptable..

Anonymous said...

Peace out guys I'm just saying that we are paying a fortune to Dialog to watch HD channels. I'm a dialog tv customer since 2007. I know their Shi... but last year I fed up with dialog and get a Peo tv package guess what their more shi.. than dialog. Every day i have to call their sucking customer service.

There is no way that SLT launches peo tv hd in this year. At least 14mbs needed to broadcast IPTV HD. With the current broadband packages of 8mbs so they have to increase to 22mbs in theory.

Even I like to have 10 -15 hd channels but come to the earth guys, you are talking about company like dialog and in a country like Sri lanka.

If dialog are incapable of giving more than 4 hd channels in the moment the time share is the only possible way to go. I'm not encouraging dialog tv to time share channels. But the ugly truth is Sri lanka is a poor country.

Can any one say that their not enjoyed lanka vs india in Ten hd (i means not the results)

@sonik

" Imagine, if YOU were awaiting a program on a channel only to have it replaced at the exact time by another channel, without your consultation. How would you react to that? How can anyone assume that no one is watching AXN and NatGeo and therefore they can be time-shared? "

Dialog published EPG list in the start of that week so every one can know their desired program is not broadcast in AXN HD but in AXN SD. I'm not saying that this is perfect at all.

But If you r paying close to 50% of your pay tv payment just for HD channels ,you deserve to take maximum out of that package. If not they must reduce the HD package's charges to 600.00










sonik said...

@NikoshalaD

Why should anyone pay a fortune for an AXN HD channel and watch a program on AXN SD just because dialog decides to change the channel? What kind of customer service is that?

Sri Lanka being a poor country has nothing to do with Dialog not having bandwidth for HD channels. That comes down to poor planning on their side, for which the reasons have been mentioned here time and time again.

You are talking about "A company like dialog in a country like Sri Lanka" , but did it occur to you that, when DTV time shares TEN HD and AXN HD (for example) they are paying for both channels in full regardless of what is on air. That is, they don't get a discount from either channel for airing it only half the time. Only "a company like Dialog" will do such an idiotic thing and lose money on channels they aren't even airing.

I fully agree with you when you say that you deserve to get maximum for the money that you are paying for HD. The way to do that is by demanding better service with a wider range of channels. Not by time sharing and replacing channels like nobody's business...

Anonymous said...

No one say that Sri lanka being a poor country is not having any thing to do with Dialog HD. All the matters we r facing as a country has lot to do with we r being poor.
Consider this
Sri lanka's population is just over 20 mil.

Total number of Dialog tv customer may be 200,000

How many of those customer have HD TVs to watch dialog hd.May be 20,000 . That's where being a poor is sharing this problem.

In a country like India those numbers are getting multiply 100 or 1000.Even in a small country like Singapore have much higher ratio of HDTV/ TV .

IF any one is so egger to watch some thing after night. They should record (not axn but ngc) it from another time and watch in mid night(If you didn't have something else to do like sleeping ) Because every program on AXN and NGC keep on repeating over and over through out the week

I'm not encouraging dialog to time share but if it's the only thing that dialog can do in this moment in my opinion they should do it. If not they must reduce the HD package's charges to 600.00

sonik said...

Like I said earlier, you are entitled to your opinion.

10 years ago, no one thought cable tv would pick up in this "poor" country, but it did.

HD will pick up too. But its success will depend on proper planning and marketing, and a proper pricing strategy. None of which Dialog have at the moment.

Anonymous said...

Here You go guys congratulation for your effort now dialog remove Ten hd tag from the AXN and give us 4 more hd channels for the same prize including
*Star World HD
*Fox movies HD
*Star cricket HD
*Ten HD not time shared,All the 8 hd channels full time.

Bravo guys way to go..


You will understand what I'm trying mention when the T20 world cup kickoff.

Unknown said...

@NikoshalaD. Its great news. When will they launch new HD Channels??????. I would like to thankz dialog for taking our opinions into consideration !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

No man I'm being sarcastic for your comments about time sharing. There is no way that dialog tv z capable of giving more hd channels. May be next year if the hd customers are increase by some rapid numbers.
Don't you worry a bit, Sri lankans are getting richer every day. So may be sooner than i think.

I'm just trying to watch more hd channels even there r time share bcz there is no other alternative at the moment.

We ll see and hope for the best.

vetop1234 said...

@NikoshalaD...

"There is no way that SLT launches peo tv hd in this year. At least 14mbs needed to broadcast IPTV HD. With the current broadband packages of 8mbs so they have to increase to 22mbs in theory."

are you sure about your knowledge about bandwidth for HD TV??

you are talking about MPEG 2 data rates.since beginning IPTV used latest compression called MPEG4 part 10/H.264(dialog recently adopted).so for IPTV with this compression they only required 5-6 Mbps (equals to 10-12 Mbps in Mpeg 2)and there is no bandwidth limitation as transponder BW in Satellites.

so in the beginning they will also comes with few HD channels, but later they can add HD channels than Dialog TV

so PEO TV HD dreams will comes true soon.

Anonymous said...

I don't know much about hd bandwidth but I know that slt reserve 3.2 mbs for the peo tv. I don't know much about mp2 or mp4 but peo tv sd are lack quality dialog channels are much better.

now with 8 mbs internet and 3.2 for the peo tv, the snr margin should be 14-20 db . but yet there are so many inconsistenties at times. so 1080 hd I don't think so but I hope they will introduce in New year season. so there will be a competition in the market

Anonymous said...

there z some problems in ESPN hd. please fix that....like watching a match on a poor internet connection

Unknown said...

SlT now installing fiber optic cables so there will be better internet & better Peo TV + HD. I gonna switch dialog dosent increase HD channels or reduce the HD price....

Anonymous said...

me too bro. I didn't disconnect the peo tv yet waiting for new year

Nokia said...

Hi I noticed that Swarnawahini is also having recording facility now.

vetop1234 said...

Quality comparison should be done under common condition like same type of monitor with same settings. I have peo tv and dialog tv connections. So I tested quality of both connections with 42 inch TV with split screen (split of PIP function).there is a unique difference of peo tv picture quality than DTV.peo TV is much better than DTV. Check this experiment.

According to information I gathered PEO TV has end to end digital connectivity. It should have same quality of video that satellite provider send if you have good reception of PEO TV. With their new project you will be within 2Km of copper serving area. So you can enjoy PEO TV without disturbances in the future.

OkenSilva said...

Has anyone noticed that in the dialog website there is tab in the left hand side saying "Live Chat". I think we can leave our suggestions there....

Lankan Blogger said...

@ Marlon Ferdinando
SLT will never provide fiber optic services to households, not anywhere in the near future. Their backends most likely already use fiber optics (at least Dialog's does).

@ vetop1234
It's obvious you are a SLT fanboy, so I'm not going to bother decoding your SD vs HD bandwidth arguments.
But I'm pretty sure your TV doesn't perfectly render the video when on split-screen mode. The pictures would be distorted because of the split-screen nature and hence I doubt that's a good way of comparing quality.
Also, both Dialog and PEO and pretty much any digital DTH service would have an end-to-end digital connectivity. The video quality is actually affected by things like compression and encoding, which are present in both Dialog TV and PEO TV. Compression is used because neither service has infinite bandwidth/data rates to transmit uncompressed video.
Honestly I think you're just throwing around words like 'end-to-end digital connectivity' to make it look like you actually know what you're talking about.

Unknown said...

@Lankan Blogger. SLT now installing fiber optic cables in my area. I don't know anything about other areas. They going to increase PEO TV subscribers. SLT trying to make some changes.

vetop1234 said...

@ Lankan Blogger
Only I mentioned was one experiment you can do .when doing split screen on your TV there is some aspect ratio changes but still you can notice the picture quality difference.

This is only visual difference. I will post exact data by doing this with professional measuring equipment (PSNR,MOS values)

The video quality is affecting not only compression but quality of input also. If you input composite video (Analog) to encoder it has lesser quality than you input SDI (Digital) video.

I am not a SLT fanboy as per you .but I am doing some experiment with my two connections. Check above simple experiment without ignoring doing nothing.

Lankan Blogger said...

@ Marlon Ferdinando
The fibre optic cables are for communications in their internal structure. The consumers like us will continue to use copper two-wires as always. I don't see them changing to fibre optic for consumers (like Virgin Media in the UK and Verizon FiOS in the USA).

@ vetop1234
I'm sure your TV degrades the video quality when using the PiP function, in addition to the change in aspect ratio. The television's image processor can't be so powerful as to support two videos each at maximum quality.
I cannot repeat your 'simple experiment' because my television set doesn't support split screen viewing.
Also, the picture quality depends on the STB you are using. The new Korean decoders provided by Dialog are much better than the old Technosat MPEG4 ones they handed out in 2008. Trust me, the Technosat boxes had horrible decoding. That is of course Dialog's fault for giving out cheap boxes.
I look forward to seeing your professional measurements.

Anonymous said...

as I know both of them have 720*576 aspect ratio. but u can clearly see that dialog tv's picture quality is better than peo tv's contrast levels are so low in peo tv but u can adjust it on your tv.
but something or other happens to peo every month. so dialog is way more better that peo tv

nilu said...

can i get the new decoder without HD package. any idea.

vetop1234 said...

@ Lankan Blogger

how you pretty sure the thing you never experienced.
what kind of distortions you expect other than aspect ration change in split screen???
i mean if some one need to check picture quality of those services they can get rough idea from split screen . telling this quality is better than that quality without doing anything is nothing.

@NikoshalaD...
720*576 is not the aspect ratio.it is the resolution of standard definition (SD) video.

@Marlon Ferdinando
as i mentioned earlier SLT has a new project.their aim is to reduce the distance from you to exchange and limiting the copper distance area to 2Km or less.next year they will enable per customer 20Mbps data rate and minimize network issues.

Anonymous said...

then next year we ll talk about that. and if u please consider the topic of this blog. It's dialog tv not peo tv. there z a crappy peo tvblog that no one care to visit

Nokia said...

DTV must do someting to the EPG of star movies.

I lost recording of Rio for my child as the EPG is wrong....

If not they will have to send a printed program guide to all HD active customers as we pay extra for a better expiereance of TV.

nilu said...

Australia Network channel goona replace by local channel. did anyone see the message?.

TV & Radio Sri Lanka said...

Please continue updating under the latest post titled - Australia Network to be replaced by "LOCAL" channel.

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