[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by blacksport

I feel in the long run players like Videocon and DishTV will lose customers and die off or quality players like Tata Sky and Airtel will bleed and die. Am not sure which could happen.

Can't say for others but Videocon is sure to die off. They have positively the worst service/people. Even on this thread, you can read about anything but negative experiences with them. I am stuck for a few more months since I was on a long term recharge and have to bear them. Once this recharge/money runs out. I will probably change operators in a heartbeat.

[SilentEngine]

I had a rip van winkle moment today. Don't know how I remained oblivious of the mess out there!

My 6-month ultra pack on Tatasky was due for renewal this week. I must have ignored messages from Tatasky earlier, and today I see a message from Tatasky that I have been migrated to new pack. It had pre-selected a best match pack which had a monthly recharge of 780 but didn’t include the channels that I wanted. For my earlier pack I was paying approx 700 pm. So I have to pay slightly more and get a lot less channels than earlier in the bargain.

On the face of it, this feels like a half baked solution to a non-existent problem. I do appreciate the intention behind this which is to give control to the subscribers to pay for only channels that they want to watch, but lot of people are going to end up paying more than than what they currently pay, at least for some time.

I reset my selection and I got it down to 657 by picking some mini packs and some a la carte channels but I feel like I am being short changed. I have missed out on all sports channels and English entertainment channels.
I have not explored broadcaster packs yet. May be I can get the cost down with some packs from there.

I have these questions/thoughts at the moment.

1. Can we change the channel selection anytime as we want or is there some minimum lock-in period? Basically I am thinking is there a possibility of adding a channel for few days and then removing it later? Example, i have picked all 10 available English movies HD channels, but reality is I may not watch all 10 in a given month. I won’t know ahead of time which channels I will be watching in a month.
2. One obvious outcome of this move, I think most of local cable operators will go out of business. With the cost being same there is no reason for anyone not to go with a DTH player with better quality.
3. Earlier there was an option for someone to pick a pack with all the available channels for a fixed reasonable cost. Now that option doesn't exist anymore.
4. Ideally the pricing should be truly pay-as-you-go model. That is, it should not be based on simply the number of channels that you are subscribed to but should be based on the actual viewing time. Right now, someone who watches very less TV but a diverse set of channels will end up paying more unnecessarily.
5. TRAI seems to have inadvertently helped on-demand/online content providers at the expense of DTH players because lot of fence-sitters will now jump.

[motorworks]

Originally Posted by SilentEngine

I had a rip van winkle moment today. Don't know how I remained oblivious of the mess out there!



My 6-month ultra pack on Tatasky was due for renewal this week. I must have ignored messages from Tatasky earlier, and today I see a message from Tatasky that I have been migrated to new pack. It had pre-selected a best match pack which had a monthly recharge of 780 but didn’t include the channels that I wanted. For my earlier pack I was paying approx 700 pm. So I have to pay slightly more and get a lot less channels than earlier in the bargain.





I reset my selection and I got it down to 657 by picking some mini packs and some a la carte channels but I feel like I am being short changed. I have missed out on all sports channels and English entertainment channels.

I have not explored broadcaster packs yet. May be I can get the cost down with some packs from there.



I have these questions/thoughts at the moment.



1. Can we change the channel selection anytime as we want or is there some minimum lock-in period? Basically I am thinking is there a possibility of adding a channel for few days and then removing it later? Example, i have picked all 10 available English movies HD channels, but reality is I may not watch all 10 in a given month. I won’t know ahead of time which channels I will be watching in a month.

.

I use Tata Sky as well and have usually resorted to subscribing to the yearly all channels at some 7.5k per annum.

Post these new rule changes, i tried to do a monthly recharge, in the hope that I can bring down my monthly bills, since there are others like Hot star and Netflix being anyway subscribed.

Its a very painful activity to manually select channels and packs from broadcasters, I got my first month wrong, forgot to subscribe to some channels, and then later figured that if I want to add few channels, I need to pay a one time fee every time. So I waited for the next month, spent time and configured channels the way I wanted at some 520 per month. Not cheap, but seems like there is no other way out.

I suggest you try monthly recharges for 2-3 months and then take the plunge for a long term pack.

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by motorworks

Its a very painful activity to manually select channels and packs from broadcasters, I got my first month wrong, forgot to subscribe to some channels, and then later figured that if I want to add few channels, I need to pay a one time fee every time. So I waited for the next month, spent time and configured channels the way I wanted at some 520 per month. Not cheap, but seems like there is no other way out.

I suggest you try monthly recharges for 2-3 months and then take the plunge for a long term pack.

What is this one time fee? Is it NCF or something else? There is no mention of this anywhere either in TRAI or Tatasky website. Ideally the cost should be pro-rated based on actual activation/de-activation of any channels/packs.

I would anyday prefer a long term pack of 6 months or so, over manually selecting channels. Right now there isn't an option at all. Eventually I am sure Tatasky (and others) will introduce these but right now they are only happy to collect inflated monthly charges from most subscribers.

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by SilentEngine

I reset my selection and I got it down to 657 by picking some mini packs and some a la carte channels but I feel like I am being short changed. I have missed out on all sports channels and English entertainment channels.
I have not explored broadcaster packs yet. May be I can get the cost down with some packs from there.

Update:
I used TRAI channel selector page to pick some broadcaster packs, and it helped to reduce the cost to 524 from 657. Channel count is exactly at 100 and it required some careful handpicking of channels (where i picked few SD channels instead of their HD variants to prevent count from exceeding 100). I selected "drop everything and start afresh" option. It did not charge any additional fee. I had a balance of 133 earlier with recharge due on Mar 29. After the change balance is 139 and recharge due date is pushed to April 1. Not sure if this is how it's going to work from April when the new pricing takes full effect.

So effectively by picking broadcaster packs, i am paying less overall, but still pay same NCF. I assume NCF goes to TataSky and actual channel fees goes to respective broadcasters.

[BeantownThinker]

Originally Posted by SilentEngine

I had a rip van winkle moment today. Don't know how I remained oblivious of the mess out there!

Me too! My long duration pack apparently expired last week. However, I knew it is going to be messy when I try to select the channels.

Originally Posted by motorworks

I use Tata Sky as well and have usually resorted to subscribing to the yearly all channels at some 7.5k per annum.

Originally Posted by SilentEngine

I would anyday prefer a long term pack of 6 months or so, over manually selecting channels. Right now there isn't an option at all.

Unfortunately this is no longer an option.

Let me highlight the level of ridiculousness that has been perpetrated by TRAI and TATA Sky.

Earlier I was on South Platinum HD pack where I was paying Rs. 8900 for the FULL YEAR and was getting ALL channels without exception.

Now when if I want to subscribe to ALL channels then I end up paying Rs. 2900 PER MONTH without NCF. Even more ridiculous is that TATA Sky is unable to tell me what the NCF will be BEFORE I subscribe. So with NCF it will be an estimated price of Rs. 3300 PER MONTH. This is day-light robbery!

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by BeantownThinker

Let me highlight the level of ridiculousness that has been perpetrated by TRAI and TATA Sky.



Earlier I was on South Platinum HD pack where I was paying Rs. 8900 for the FULL YEAR and was getting ALL channels without exception.

It's actually a smart business ploy by Tatasky and other DTH players. This way many unsuspecting subscribers will end up paying much more than earlier! I don't think TRAI has stopped them from introducing such long term packs.

To answer my own earlier question of minimum lock-in period, it's apparently one day as per Tatasky.

https://www.tatasky.com/wps/portal/T...a-sky-channels

A month is equivalent to 30 days
Minimum subscription period is one day

[aadya]

I would suggest all the working class people to select the required channels on friday night and unsubscribe them on sunday night.

I have kept minimum number of channels active for about Rs.170 per month. Myself and my Home-Minister hardly watch tv. We keep couple of free channels preferred by the domestic helps. If any guests are about to come we activate the channels preferred by them a day before they arrive and then deactivate it the day they leave.

I think the demand for the recharge is more of a glitch in the website due to older habits. Try logging in with different menu options this should get rectified.

[GTO]

I don't know who is right or wrong here, but the TRAI & DTH have absolutely RUINED it! Firstly, it's not made things any cheaper. Second, the channel list now looks cheap and like viewing prices at a vegetable market. 10 bucks for this, 6 bucks for that. How CHEAP:

[krish3]

The new method is good for people who need only few channels, but hits hard on those who subscribed to a lot of channels.

We've only taken the ones we need and the price comes to Rs 251 per month including the mandatory Rs 153/- charge. We could reduce it even further, because we realized that even among these that we thought we watch, we didn't watch a few channels at all.

[carboy]

I am unable to find some channels on the TRAI selector for DishTV

https://channel.trai.gov.in

For e.g. SET (Sony Entertainment Television). SET HD is there, SET Max is there but regular SET is not there. What am I missing? What is horror the govt has set upon us. I really am not interested in spending a day figuring this out.


Edit: Found it. It's listed as Sony Entertainment TV instead of SET, while the other 2 are listed as SET HD, SET Max etc

[_chikku]

Originally Posted by carboy

I am unable to find some channels on the TRAI selector for DishTV

https://channel.trai.gov.in

For e.g. SET (Sony Entertainment Television). SET HD is there, SET Max is there but regular SET is not there. What am I missing? What is horror the govt has set upon us. I really am not interested in spending a day figuring this out.


Edit: Found it. It's listed as Sony Entertainment TV instead of SET, while the other 2 are listed as SET HD, SET Max etc

In Tata sky price for Sony SD and Sony HD is same, even for star plus. So I have 2 bouquets on SD, Sony and Star on HD. Price doesn't change for me.

[vasudeva]

I fail to see the logic behind media reports of higher prices. At least I do not have to pay for junk channels. My subscription was ending on 12.9.2019 under the cheapest plan. However, after migrating, it is now ending on 29.1.2020. Bill is now 175 + tax. Anyway, why pay more on DTH and get SD when one can get better UHD content on Netflix. Plus lower headaches and BP. I avoid news channels except for 15 mins because I want my BP to remain below 200/150.

[KL01toKA03]

I find the new system good. My opinion is not just because it brought down my monthly DTH bill from 750 to 450. I would have happily paid to switch to the current system even if it was optional. I'm all for giving consumers the choice to get what they want, instead of being forced to accept what the service providers were offering.

What would I like to change? The paid channels could have a single price. Free channels+ choice of paid channels (including bouquets) would have made life simpler.

[saket77]

Selecting channels on Videocon D2h is almost rocket science. I tried countless times. Once I succeeded too, but that never came into effect. Damn!

Now, I have just let it be and have not recharged since February. Thankfully, I upgraded to a smart TV last year and home wi-fi is enough for the daily dose of news and some entertainment. Eagerly waiting for Jio-fiber now.