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-   -   TRAI announces major overhaul of DTH pricing (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/gadgets-computers-software/205988-trai-announces-major-overhaul-dth-pricing-23.html)

I have not fully understood the DTH business model. So pardon me if I sound naive. Do these DTH operators have scope for further discounting or are they operating on a thin margin already?
Is this a disruption of a inefficient business or is this an example of unnecessarily govt. Intervention ruining an industry

I just got rid of my Hathway TV cable the other day. having subscribed to a YouBroadband 200 MBPS connection. The cable operator was giving us a tough time, not responding to our complaints & the box was inoperative for nearly a month. Good riddance, I say at this point.

How can one watch the different types of TV channels like Star, Sony , Zee , Regional channels and news channels (both English and regional). Where can once access all these in one place. Is it possible in today's world if one has a good internet connection with good speed. Thanks in advance.

Well, you can download the various apps on Amazon Fire Stick, which I have. You can then watch news and serials. The serials may not be available 'real time', but who cares. Frankly, we have never watched any serial (Hindi or regional) for a long time. At the most our entertainment is limited to KBC or (occasionally) Kapil Sharma-but that we have not watched in some months. Its quite boring. The Netflix/Prime world is a bit better these days. But to answer the technical question, yes, the speed is good enough for the purpose.

Hotstar Premium ( 999 for 12 months) is a great deal. You will have access to a lot of regional channels and a decent collection of movies. The Star suite is available by default

SONY LIV (500 for 12 months) is also a reasonable deal. I use it mainly for cricket and football. But you get access to all the SONY channels.

SUN NXT (365 for 12 months) turned out to be surprisingly good. They have a very good movie library and you can watch all the regional channels on the SUN network.

You can pick up the Amazon Fire Stick (~ Rs 3K).The above mentioned services are available as apps. Almost all the major news channels are also available as free apps - Times Now, NDTV, IBN, WION, Fox, Al Jazeera, BBC.

A decent internet connection will do. ( > 15 Mbps). I gave up my Airtel DTH subscription and upgraded my internet . I do not regret the decision one bit.

having bought ACT Stream for 1500, i disconnected the airtel DTH (multi-connection). Have fire stick for the other TV. You can also side-load few apps like Oreo TV to which live telecast of sports from other regions and all the channels of DTH for no cost.

I would like to give a slightly different perspective:

a) I think replacing DTH with streaming would work well when the net connectivity bandwidth and reliability is high.

I live in a metro (Pune) and have a broadband connection but due to construction activities in the neighborhood and recent takeovers and mergers in the telecom sector (Tata Indicom -> Airtel), I have had and continue to have problems of network down and other reliability issues.

Given this, I like having DTH since at any time, I have at least one means of seeing relevant content.

b) The internet is unpoliced and when you have 2 children who are in the 9 - 14 range, you do need to be careful that they don't see content they shouldn't. There are also privacy issues involved. In YouTube for example the only way to get kid friendly content is to register which allows YT to track your usage with unknown consequences. Prof Zeynep Tufekci has written a lot on this issue and there is a also a good Ted Talk which is recommended watching.

There are of course other means of controlling content being watched such as Kaspersky but these are generally quite cumbersome and have privacy issues as well.

Given this, I like the option of DTH though I do agree with the chaos introduced by Trai.

One query - With regard to SUNNXT, do the movies have english subtitles too.
Want to subscribe for their Telugu content but will also watch Tamil & Malayalam movies so if english subtitles are available, it will help me.

Just checked, the SUNNXT annual package is for Rs 480 - just checked.
Thanks.

For people looking to get Sony Liv subscription, there is currently an ongoing offer with paypal where you get ₹499 cashback on subscription price of ₹499. That makes it free for next one year. I have taken this offer just recently.
This offer is valid as first transaction at merchant (in this case sonyliv).

Do you experience occasional audio dropouts(click/pop sound) on netflix streaming in ACT box?

I have an ACT internet connection and would like your review of the box please? Channel availability, stability of streams etc.

Unfortunately, not all movies are sub titled. The new releases have sub titles and movies released in the last couple of years have them too. However , the older movies and the classics dont.

The box is easy to install and setup, it comes with two USB ports and Micro SD card slot. By default, there is a starter pack which is subscribed till end of this year, where you get few channels free of cost. However, the channel list is few and far between. The box does come with two months free subscription for HOOQ.

I basically use the box as to mirror the phone, watch movies on USB, and use it for Netflix, Prime, Hotstar and Oreo TV. Oreo TV app covers you for all the channels you need to watch.

I find another issue here. There are many channels I do not watch but may like to look at once in a while. This is now ruled out. Frankly, I was quite happy with the TataSky Mega pack.

Dish still has such packs which it calls Combos.
https://www.dishtv.in/Pages/Packs/DT...-Packages.aspx


Doesn't TataSky have something like this?