It’s time for headphones to be smart now!
Everything is getting smart these days. So, why not your good old headphones? Parrot (a company which makes awesome bluetooth gadgets & the famous parrot AR drone) has introduced a pair of over the ear headphones which are smart. The headphones, named Zik, have bluetooth, accelerometer & NFC chip on board which can be used to:
- Swipe the right touch sensitive panel vertically to set the volume, or swipe it horizontally to skip music forward/rewind.
- Automatically pause the music playback when you remove the headphones (this one is my favorite)
- Pair the headphones to your NFC compatible phone by just bumping them together
- Stream stereo music from your A2DP compatible phone over bluetooth
- Stream music over NFC (if your phone supports it)
ESPN Star Sports HD channels now available on select cable networks across India
ESPN Star Sports, the body which owns the two first 24×7 sports HD channels in India (ESPN HD & Star Cricket HD) have signed a deal to allow select cable operators in India to show their HD channels. The channels are available to 3 cable networks – Incable, 7Star in Mumbai & UCN in Central India. Subscribers of these digital cable operators can now enjoy these HD channels by upgrading to a HD set top box.
All the cable operators in the metro cities are required to go digital by March 2012. This will be followed by digitization of the entire country’s cable system by the end of 2014. This should give the cable operators in non metro areas to educate their subscribers and start supplying HD compatible set top boxes to them. In the metro cities though, operators will have to launch lucrative schemes and high quality DVR enabled set top boxes at cheap prices if they want to rope in subscribers, as their DTH competitors already have a good infrastructure in place for this.
Nonetheless, this is great news for subscribers. In addition to HD channels, digitization of the cable industry will also enable service providers to offer high speed broadband connections to customers. A segment which desperately needs a healthy competition in India.
BigFlix launches NetFlix like streaming service in India
BigFlix has launched a NetFlix like online streaming service in India. The new service, called BigFlix Plus is available at a (very reasonable) monthly subscription price of ? 249 and offers unlimited streaming of all the available content. Currently, BigFlix’s library contains around 500 movies.
The service is currently standard definition only, with maximum resolution of 480p (the website says the movies are in HD quality, which is clearly wrong). However, the company executives claim that their infrastructure is capable of supporting streaming of 720p HD content. They will be enabling HD streaming in future. Also planned is addition of more (and popular) Hollywood content which should make the service pretty lucrative.
Upgrading your TataSky set top box? Beware of their absurd warranty policy
if you are planning to, or have upgraded your TataSky set top box, you should note that TataSky has an absurd warranty policy on up gradation. Instead of starting a new warranty on the new set top box you have purchased, they just continue the old box’s warranty on the new set top box as well. This means that if your old box’s warranty is expired, you will NOT get any warranty on the new box and TataSky will charge you for any repairs. However, if you are a new subscriber, you get 1 year warranty. This is totally absurd as you pay the same price as a new customer.
This is most likely a design flaw in TataSky’s billing system. The good news is that TataSky is one of the few service providers which listen to its customers and accept their mistakes. Although it took many phone calls and an online complaint, I could get my box’s warranty period fixed. In case you have upgraded your set top box in the past, call them up to make sure that your warranty period is what it should be. Although TataSky’s boxes generally do not break down, you never know when anything can go wrong with electronics. And in case you are planning to upgrade your box, make sure you ask them about this. If they get enough complaints about this, they will have to fix the issue in their system. Also, do not trust their agents. They are contract employees and will lie to your face to sell you stuff. Call their customer care center.
TataSky to offer Netflix like IP based VoD service to its HD+ subscribers
TataSky is testing a Netflix like IP based service in India which will enable its HD+ subscribers to watch previously broadcasted TV shows and new content on demand using their broadband connection. This feature will be available only to the HD+ subscribers as those are the only set top boxes having an ethernet port to hook up to your broadband router. Also, in order to offer a jerk free playback, the system might buffer the content on the hard disk in the HD+ set top box (as most broadband connections in India aren’t fast enough to stream lag free SD or HD content).
This is going to be a big leap in home entertainment in India. It is possible that TataSky is doing this to mitigate the risks it foresees due to unavailability of transponder space for HD channels. However, if they are able to implement this effectively, this could pave the way to “real” video on demand (VoD) services in India.
Hindustan Times reported this in July and select users are getting calls from TataSky offering them to be part of the free trial of the service. The minimum broadband connection requirement is, apparently, 256Kbps promising DVD quality shows to be available on demand.
The primary concern that users will have with this approach is that this service will potentially eat up all the FUP quota of their broadband connection. TataSky will have to work with the ISPs in India to work out a deal to avert this. However, it might be difficult for them to cut a good deal, as the major ISPs in India (Airtel, BSNL, Reliance) are their direct competitors in the DTH space.
[via MediaNama]
Airtel Digital TV adds 4 new true HD channels
In an attempt to further fuel the HD war in India, Airtel Digital TV has added 4 new true HD channels to its bouquet. These channels are:
- UTV Stars HD
- History TV 18 HD
- Colors HD
- CNBC TV 18 Prime HD
This move takes Airtel Digital TV’s HD offering to 11 true HD channels. Surprisingly, they still do not offer Star Cricket HD & ESPN HD. Nevertheless, this is good news for all their subscribers. They have also introduced a couple of HD plans for their subscribers which offer different combinations of these channels.
Despite being maxed out on their transponder space, TataSky squeezed in ESPN HD (by dropping a few SD channels) last month bringing their HD channel offering to 8 true HD channels. This clearly shows that DTH operators are thriving to offer as much HD channels as they can to rope in more customer. And with Cable operators gearing up to offer HD services next year, they really need to buckle up.
[via airtel.in]
Indian cable operators planning to launch HD channels
As a result of the regulation requiring all the Multiple System Operators (MSOs) or otherwise called as “large” cable operators to go digital by 2014, major players from metropolitan cities like Hathaway and DEN are planning to launch HD channels on their platform. As per the new regulation, the cable systems in the metro cities are to go digital by March 2012 and rest of India by the end of 2014.
This could be the biggest competition to DTH operators in India which are currently the only platforms to offer HD services in India. However, owing to a steep entry cost (an HDTV and a HD STB) and high subscription prices of HD channels, the DTH operators have not been able to rope in many subscribers yet. A healthy competition in this field will help in bringing some of these prices down (at least those specific to the operator) and should result in more HD subscribers in the near future.
In addition to HD services, the digitization of the cable system in the country will mean that the MSOs will also be able to offer other value added services like high speed broadband, telephone and on demand video streaming. Digital cable usually has much more bandwidth than DTH platform which is limited by the transponder space in the satellites in space.
[via ET]
TataSky HD will add ESPN HD in time for Indian Formula 1 Grand Prix
With India’s first Formula 1 grand prix starting from 30-October-2011, subscribers of TataSky HD have been wondering if they would be able to watch the mega event in HD as TataSky does not carry ESPN HD – the official broadcaster of the HD feed of the event in India. Well, we have good news! TataSky’s official twitter account has confirmed to us in a tweet that they will, indeed be adding the ESPN HD channel on their platform on 30-October-2011:
They also announced the news in another tweet to all their followers. Awesome news for all the TataSky HD subscribers in India. No word on pricing yet, but we hope they include this as part of the HD Gold pack. Also, we are not sure if this means that they have increased their transponder capacity or not. We tried to ask them, but, apparently, they did not directly answer the question. They just said that ESPN HD is in addition to the existing 7 HD channels. Most likely, this means that they have somehow procured more transponder space, unless they are dropping some SD channels to accommodate ESPN HD. Nonetheless, awesome news!
99¢ TV show rentals pulled from Apple TV
It looks like Apple has pulled the 99¢ TV show rentals from Apple TV. This news follows a few days after the latest Apple TV software update which adds the feature to stream any previously purchased TV episode from iTunes in the cloud without the need to download them, and might point towards a change in rentals on Apple TV.
TechCrunch also suspects that Apple might be working on a new rental policy which will allow users to stream rented TV shows on iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) in addition to Apple TV. We should know in a few days time.
[via TechCrunch]
Dish TV Launches India’s First Conditional Access Module (CAM) Device To Enable Consumers To Switch DTH Operator Without Changing Their Hardware
Have you ever wondered why there is a big slot just above your subscriber card slot on your DTH set top box? Most of us might not have noticed the slot, but it is very well there on all set top boxes. The slot is meant to be used with a Customer Access Module (CAM) device, a PCMCIA type card which goes into your set top box and can enable it to be used with any DTH operator of your choice. According to TRAI‘s regulations, all set-top boxes sold by DTH service providers should be CAM-compliant.
Think of it as similar to mobile number portability. Only in this case, you switch your DTH operator. Here is how the system works:
