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| Edited By: Sreejiraj Eluvangal |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 30, 2018, 03:54 AM IST
DishTV, the direct-to-home (DTH) service provider from the Zee Group (a co-owner of DNA), hiked its broadcasting capacity by 50% - taking its total to 320 standard channels and 30 high definition (HD) channels -- the highest in India.
"With this, we will be able to offer region specific content, enhanced VAS, as well as a substantially enhanced HD bouquet, driving growth of HD services,” said Jawahar Goel, managing director, Dish TV India.
The operator, which had been facing a relative spectrum disadvantage due to its older 'MPEG-2' technology of its older boxes, solved its problem by leasing capacity on Asiasat, a satellite adjacent to the NSS satellite, its current home. The move will also make it the first operator to lease capacity on two separate satellites for a single DTH service.
The move will further increase competition in the fledgling HD market. Currently, only around half a dozen channels are being made available -- across operators -- in the HD format, both due to paucity of HD content as well as lack of satellite transponder capacity, while Dish is aiming at 30 such channels.
The move marks an aggressive entry by the player, as will be using the more efficient MPEG-4 technology for its HD channels -- bridging the technology gap with newer operators. Dish and Tata Sky are the only private operators to still use MPEG-2 compression technology for its signal, while the newer MPEG-4 is estimated to be about twice as efficient, allowing double the number of channels.
Goel said Dish TV will continue to use MPEG-2 for all the standard definition (SD) TV channels, including those bounced off the new satellite. Moving to MPEG-4 will make the channels inaccessible to its old subscribers who possess only MPEG-2 boxes.
Dish TV, the pioneer in the DTH field, has found its turf increasingly under attack by a bevy of new DTH operators. Unlike Dish TV and Tata Sky, who were paying channel-broadcasters based on the number of subscribers, the newer operators entered into 'fixed price' model with the broadcasters, allowing the latter to initially offer lower priced offerings. The older players too moved to fixed price contracts recently, increasing the competition in the market place and driving prices even lower.
Dish TV, with the new offerings, said it will have "25-30% more" channels than the 150-200 channels offered by competition. In a market of around 30 million subscribers, Dish TV has added half a million subscribers in the month of November, the firm said, adding that it will add over one million subscribers in the current quarter, "a record for any operator in the country."
