I would like to share my worst experience with Airtel Digital TV. I used to be a customer of Tata sky since 2008 and I moved to Airtel Digital Digital TV HD mainly because of more number of malayalam channels. In their advertisement they claim that they have a newer technology DVB-S2 which is better than other operators. Also over phone they told me that (I purchased it online) their clarity is much better than tata sky HD.
After taking connection I found that Picture Clarity of Airtel Digital TV is pathetic.. When I called up they said they are not comparable with other DTH operators. For comparison of clarity I can tell you few tips. Almost all HD channels especially Discovery, Star Movies and Nat geo, the pictures look very dull and not crispy or bright.
(I use a sony 40 inch TV which gives a superb clarity on Youtube HD videos, WD TV live and in Tata Sky. In non HD channels see the channel Ceebeebies, you cannot read the channel name written on top properly it looks so noisy. See the scrolling text on news channels, you can see a fire work along with the text due to noise. If you watch Asianet, Suvarna News etc. the logos will be fully noise.
I complained regarding the poor picture clarity to Airtel, many times and they simply closed the complaint without any action, including their Nodal officer. Finally I got fed up with their negative attitude towards the customers and I stopped recharging it. Yesterday on 22-4-2013 Airtel sent a Local recovery agent to my house to take back the HD Box, that too without any kind prior communication. They use some local guys to threaten customers and take back the box which I paid for.
I called up Airtel and they say it is their policy to do like that and they don’t have any answer for what for they took money from me. When I took the box I was told that I purchased t and now they say it is their property so if I don’t recharge, even if service is bad, they will take it back.
Dear all please beware of Airtel’ rude attitude towards customers (after you make the payment) and daylight robbery. I also feel that Airtel goes for too much compression on channels so that they go below Standard Definition requirements which looks as mpeg noise when you watch TV. Using less bandwidth they may trying to include more channels sacrificing quality.
You can verify the same by watching some fast moving action scenes. The picture clarity on HD box is poorer than a 360p/i resolution on SD channels. Please anybody from TRAI see this please initiate some action to curb this kind of cheating operators so that it would be useful for subscribers.
Try Tata Sky instead!