After waiting for more than a week for the traunt cablewallah to turn up, I finally decided to get a DTH.
Airtel was selected as it had the best channel selection for the price (the South Value pack at 185 Rs contains all the Discovery / NatGeo / Animal planet that I want).
Also, I wanted to go for plain Standard Def box with Recorder which airtel had (others had STB, HD-STB, HD-STB + recorder)
one more advantage is that having an airtel mobile will allow me to access the customer support toll free(yes I did foresee it ;-) )
Installation:
Called them one friday evening on phone and completed the payment (through Credit card).
within couple of hours, I get my customer ID and a message that the installation is scheduled next day at so-and-so time.
Next day an hour before the scheduled time, the installation guys call up, confirm my place and installation begins(one person installs the dish and second person configures the TV, Trains the remote & checks signal quality)
1 hour of their arrival, all setup is done and I can watch the channel 100.
The guys charge me 200 extra for some 16 mts of extra cable (i live in gnd floor and dish is on 4th) which I am ok with and pay without any cribbing (though deep in mind I dispute the amount of extra cable being used).
The Installation person tells me to keep the STB on for at least 1 Hr and gives me the customer copy of the "agreement" and goes.
1-Hr over & no channel except CH-100 available...2-Hr same story..4 Hr same story.
Then I call the customer service(CS) and they promise it will get activated in 1 more hour.
8 Hrs & same story, I call up CS again and complain and they repeat the same promise.
16 Hrs & still no channels, I call up again and they say that they will get back soon and soon enough the installation guy calls me and asks me to check the STB serial number in the setup menu.
Lo and behold ! the ID of STB contained in the "agreement" and as shown in the screen are different (last digit)..Duh ! The connection is activated in next 10 minutes.
Viewing experience:
The picture quality is very good.
Channel change takes 1-2 seconds which is ok.
Recording/Pause works as expected (no more repeated ads).
Single remote. no need of TV remote for volume etc.
Recorder comes with 2 tuners; so you can view one while recording another channel or record 2 channels simultaniously.
Outputs are RF, Composite, Component & HDMI (USB / ETH not tried)
The set top box hangs every so often and I need to power cycle it to recover it. the hand happens when you quickly do "complex" things like change channels through maze of submenu, play recordings etc.
The SMS BAL to 54325 does not work despite complaining 12+ times.
"Subscribing" to free movies is not working, looks like this is just a bait.
Some of menu colouring (dark green on black background) does not have adequate contrast.