Comparison between Airtel Digital TV & Reliance Digital TV
With 38 cities across 15 states on list, the second phase of digitization is on and if you haven't yet switched to a set top box, soon you will have to. Choosing one best DTH connection can be difficult because there are so many options and one does not know how actually they differ from each other. Read our detailed comparison between Airtel Digital TV & Reliance Digital TV along with other DTH options you have.
Readers might agree that Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications are two major corporations in India and have tangled before in endless takeover battles and fights over market share, industry standards and spectrum. But before coming to a comparison between their DTH TV services, let me shed some light on the ongoing digitization drive.Digitization of TV signals
As per the order of Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Indian television will be completely shifted from analog to digital system. Come June 25 and your cable connection will be cut (in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata & Chennai) if you don't fill the subscriber form.
Gone are the days when your local cable operator wired the television sets with a strand from his web on the roof. Now, you will have to buy a digital set-top box from your cable operator or from DTH service provider to continue watching your TV programs.
Cable operators install multiple dish antennas and pay the television network to receive broadcast from channels. He then clubs these channels into one single wire with different frequencies and connects to multiple TV sets with low or no extra charges.
Back in 2001, government tried to enforce Conditional Access System (CAS) i.e., set top box to protect consumer rights. The idea was that customers should pay for only those channels that they want. Government attempted to bring a scheme called 'Free to Air Channels' and if would have succeeded, subscribers would have enjoyed customized set of channels for as low as Rs 80 but due to issues from cable operators, set top manufacturers and some political parties, it didn't.
The current government policy against the unregulated cable television business in India has given an opportunity to DTH or satellite TV operators to step in. As digitization is gradually carried out in four phases, the whole country would have switched to set top boxes by December 31, 2014. You can get a set top box from your current cable operator or buy one from DTH service providers.Decoding DTH
Direct to Home Service (DTH) is satellite TV broadcasting directly to consumer's home. Unlike the set top box provided by your cable operator, here you have a personal equipment through which you can communicate directly to your distributor via satellite and stay hassle free from cable-wallas.
With digitization, audio & video quality of your cable TV channels will increase but this can't meet the standard set by high definition programming on DTH services. True HD channels are broadcast usually in 1080i and programmed in Full HD 1080P resolution. In layman's language, HD channels have five times better image and sound quality.
Advantages of DTH
Disadvantages of DTHService providers in market
Currently, there are 6 major DTH service providers: Dish TV, Tata Sky, Sun Direct, Videocon D2H, Reliance Digital TV and Airtel Digital TV. Dish TV was the first entrant in DTH industry and till date, enjoys biggest subscriber base due to the first mover advantage. Other service providers matured later but offer more HD channels, quality of packages and value for money. The DTH subscriber base in the country is expected to rise to 64 million by 2015. In the ever increasing Indian television industry, all the six major DTH operators compete for business. In the annual research report by Singapore based Media Partners Asia's (MPA) Ltd., their popularity graph (as of January 2013) was drawn.
Comparison between Airtel Digital TV & Reliance Digital TV
On 8 October 2008, Bharti Airtel Ltd. launched the much anticipated Airtel Digital TV and started its teaser commercials on national television. The advertisement didn't actually identify the brand and ended with a voice-over saying, "See you at home". Reliance Digital TV, then known as Reliance Big TV, picked up a fight then & there by running similar commercials with that same red sofa setting & voice-over but this time identifying the brand as Reliance Big TV.
Bharti Airtel was the fifth player in the DTH business after Reliance Communications, Tata Sky Ltd., Dish TV Ltd. and Sun Direct TV Pvt. Ltd. Videocon came later. Airtel offered a universal remote control and 20% wider dish antenna for better reception in monsoons, something which Reliance Digital TV & other DTH operators lacked. The universal remote controls IR frequencies of both the set top box and the TV so that you use one remote instead of two.
In this time of cut-throat competition, Reliance Communications and Airtel are in talks with south-based Sun Group and Liberty Global respectively to sell their stakes in satellite business. Infact, the reports say that both are looking to exit from this business. Tata Sky and Videocon are also facing similar financial limitations and planning to bring their IPOs in share market.
On the basis of the parameters given below, let's see how far Reliance and Airtel DTH services have come to impress television viewers.
Technology
The service providers offer digital compression technology so that the platforms can carry more channels without compromising on quality. MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 compression is used. If we talk of technology, both Reliance and Airtel use the advanced MPEG-4 technology unlike Tata Sky and Dish TV which are still stuck to MPEG-2 technology. Unlike Reliance, Airtel also uses DVB S-2 technology which makes it stand out in terms of technology. The DVB S-2 technology offers more interactive services but unfortunately, most customers look unimpressed with the services. Airtel added more interactive services recently. One more thing I would like to mention here is that the set top box used by Reliance gets over-heated fast, hangs quite often and does not work after manual update. The channel navigation is slow and the software unstable. Airtel, on the other hand, offers a sleek set top box that not only looks better but also works better. The STB software is good and customers face no problems. Users get universal remote control so that one single remote can control the TV as well as the set top box.
Winner: Airtel Digital TV
Number of channels
Airtel provides 287 channels whereas Reliance provides 250 channels (excluding HD channels). The set top box of Reliance upgrades the videos to 1080p, higher than Airtel's 1080i and thus Reliance gives 250 HD-like channels but these are not true HD. These are just up-scaled channels. Reliance Digital TV offers maximum number of English and Hindi news channels. It carries some niche channels like NGC Wild, NGC Adventure & NGC Music which are unavailable on Airtel Digital TV. Both the operators carry the newer channels like Colors, Movies Now, Big CBS Love, Big CBS Spark and Big CBS Prime. Reliance Digital TV offers maximum number of channels in its base pack. Its 'select' service allows watching 12 channels at a time while you can watch not more than 8 channels on a screen in case of other operators. On the other hand, the exclusive feature of Airtel Digital TV is the 10 premium World-Space satellite radio channels it offers. After Airtel shifted to the new SES 7 satellite, more number of channels can be added to the platform. Both the operators offer a-la-carte menu so that packages can be tailor-made according to customers' specific requirements. Thus, customers pay only for the channels they want. Reliance Digital TV finally launched this menu after an order by Telecommunications Regulations Authority of India (TRAI) in 2010.
Coming to the HD channels, Reliance Digital TV offers only 8 true HD channels whereas Airtel offers 14 true HD channels. Airtel offers second highest number of true HD channels after Videocon D2H. This includes all your favorites: Colors, Sony, Star Plus, Zee TV, Discovery, National Geographic, History, Ten, Star Gold, Zee Cinema, Star World, Star Movies, Zee Studio and Movies Now.
Winner: Airtel Digital TV
Pricing
The basic packages of Airtel Digital TV are cheaper than those of Reliance Digital TV. The basic pack of Airtel Digital TV costs Rs.158+ tax in northern India for Value Sports pack and Rs.129+ tax in south for Super Value pack while the basic pack of Reliance Digital TV costs Rs.202 for Silver Value pack in north & south. The channels are priced between Rs.4-Rs.30 each.
Winner: Airtel Digital TV
Rain fade
Other than Tata Sky, all operators perform well in monsoon showers but it is Reliance Digital TV that reports minimum loss of signal even in heavy rains. In most DTHs, loss of signal or black out exists for the entire period of rain while in Reliance Digital TV, it is only for 6-7 seconds. Airtel Digital TV comes with a wide dish antenna for effective signal reception in monsoons and works quite well but Reliance leads the race in this area.
Winner: Reliance Digital TV
Portability in automobiles
Unlike Reliance Digital TV, Airtel Digital TV can be accessed in your automobile so that you get the comfort of TV viewing even when travelling.
Winner: Airtel Digital TV
After-sales service
If after-sales service is an important criterion for your selection, do not go for Reliance Digital TV. People have had bad experiences of incorrect package activation and unprofessional customer care service. Airtel Digital TV, on the other hand, sticks to its claims of 24/7 customer care, online chat and engineer support within 24 hours of complaint. There is a big gap between the after-sales services provided by the two operators and if there is any service provider that leads here after Tata Sky, it's Airtel.
Winner: Airtel Digital TV
The competition is tough and every DTH service provider is competing to grab your attention. With 38 cities across 15 states on list, the second phase of digitization is on and if you haven't yet switched to a set top box, soon you will have to. Choosing one best DTH connection can be difficult because there are so many options and one does not know how actually they differ from each other. High Definition STBs and channel packages involving HD channels are more expensive than the Standard Definition ones and you must be well-informed before spending your hard earned money to buy one.
Thus, in a table below, I have presented a comparison between Reliance Digital TV and Airtel Digital TV along with other options you have.
My Rating
If you are a south Indian, you can blindly go for Sun Direct as it offers many regional channels and exclusive offers. For others, I have provided a rating chart here. If I have to give points out of 10, I would rate them as follows:
If I have to buy one, I would consider these DTH services in the decreasing order as below.
Airtel Digital TV or Videocon D2H > Tata Sky > Dish TV > Reliance Digital TV
Airtel Digital TV is clearly far better than Reliance Digital TV and unless you have some solid reason for preferring Reliance, I think you should go for Airtel Digital TV.
Read Airtel Digital TV Review: Is it better than Tata Sky ?
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