sum.na

Quick Summary: Dialog TV compared to Comet Cable

Comet cable:

Requirement: Direct line of sight to transmitting tower (so requires a tall pole in your garden, with an antenna pointed horizontally (direction and height of tower varies depending on where you are located).

Purchasing experience: Went to the head office, met a customer service person, filled a form, and paid (current cost: around Rs 20,000) Promised installation in 20 days. Installation took more than 20 days.

Technology used: Comet cable uses MMDS which is sort of a terrestrial line of sight system. Comet appears to operate in wireless space reserved for wimax, and due to the narrow amount of bandwidth, expansion is limited (Comet have regularly mentioned upgrading to a ‘digital’ system, which would mean that customers would probably have to purchase new equipment).

Decoder type: Comcrypt 4000 decoder (Analog?)
Picture quality: Varies: Channels at the start (e.g. HBO) are good but channels get progressively weaker towards the end of the spectrum.
Rain fade: Does not experience rain fade. Is however affected by nearby lightning and microwave ovens! (despite being earthed, antenna may also pose a lightning hazard)
Subtitles/Teletext/Multiple Audio: Not available
EPG: Not available.
Stereo: Not tested (possible in theory?)

Experienced problems:

Comet cable is quite reliable - it just works 99% of the time (except when Comet forget to pay their bills and channels show a message “This cable operator hasn’t paid and is liable for disconnection”). Every year, comet ‘re-negotiates’ the star packages with their supplier which means some of those channels vanish. for a while.

Comet cable also experienced a ‘management change’ last year. This again involved vanishing channels and the office being surrounded by armed guards. Not comforting.

Major outages: Two of the most popular channels (Star World + Star Movies) have gone offline for days/weeks this month, as well as last year (or was it the year before?) other than that, the channels work usually.

CHANNELS OFFERED: Fixed list of 18 channels: no new channels, good channels have been historically been replaced by crap (e.g. NDTV). (see cometcable.com for channels and packages)

Dialog TV

This is a picture of my Irdteo card. Yup, it has a connector like a sim card. This is what resides in the front slot of your dialog decoder.

Requirement: 45 degree view of West. Relatively easy to obtain, and the dish can be located at any level even ground level.

Purchasing experience: Aspiring DTV customers have to take a number and wait in line to see a dialog customer service rep (why dialog treats potential customers this way is something I don’t quite understand). After a wait of around 15 - 20 minutes, I met a CSR, filled some forms, and paid (Current cost for a DTV connection : Rs 12,500). Promised installation in 5 days: DTV actually installed the connection 28 hours after payment was made!! (Note: I purchased from a dialog arcade)

Technology used: Classic DTH system, uses Intelsat 12, requires a 45 degree view of the western sky. So antenna can be at ground level. Dialog is true satellite TV and uses a KU Band dish/LNB and DVB decoder. So, dialog can add future channels easily.

DTV uses DVBs, IRDTEO2 encrypted, (decoded via CAM/SMART CARD), and a customized co-branded chinese STB. The decoder appears to use custom software/cannot be re-programmed/many options locked (e.g. tuning options).

Picture quality: Visual quality is exceptionally good, comparable or exceeding mainstream international satellite providers. Due to the technology used, picture quality is not easily affected by weather/electrical disturbances etc.
Rain fade: Possible (inherent flaw in all KU DVB systems) but have not experienced so far. Good signal strength means it will be unlikely/rare.
EPG (On screen electronic program guide): YES
STEREO: Available (but I haven’t confirmed which/if channels broadcast in Stereo.
Picture ‘reminder’: Ability to bookmark a program and change to it: Possible/not tested.
Subtitles: Possibly Available/not used
Teletext: Possibly available/not used

(Re subtitles and teletext: it would appear the decoder includes such technology but it may have been disabled.)

Reliability: GOOD: Dialog occationally experiences random outages - for example yesterday morning, things were a bit odd: channels failing randomly - not sure what was causing this problem but it appears to be in the uplink (Downlink signal and transponder seem fine) It could be possible these random outages are temporary and relate to the testing process/as DTV are constantly adding new channels.

Major Outages: one month total shutdown last year when they were halted by govt (not their fault)

CHANNELS OFFERED: DTV offers a massive collection of channels (Currently 51 channels including testing channels) and are constantly adding to the list (see dialog.lk).

Comments:

Comet cable’s decoder allows you to watch multiple channels simultaneously via the RF out - i.e. you can watch some channels on different TV’s in your house by parallel wiring: for example if you connect another TV you can watch Animal Planet or Hallmark even while you are watching HBO on the main TV.

It’s likely that Comet will eventually go digital. Aside from the fact that they may have to give up the 2+GHZ space, the decoder they use has a few potential issues (do a google search for it and you will see what I mean), which mean that it is in Comet’s best interest to upgrade to a digital solution.

DTV’s decoder has an RF out but for some reason I was only able to get a black and white picture. It may have been an issue in my wiring but I think its more likely that they prefer people to connect only one TV (i.e. via the RCA out). You can work around this by using a VCR to convert RCA -> RF Out

DTV has the ability to add almost infinite channels. That and the fact that they are using proven accepted scalable technology means that they are probably a better investment.

Update: Animal planet and Discovery are no longer working on Comet (problem started sometime yesterday). As always, no explanation, no warning.

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