My two pennies on Airtel HD-DVR

raj29shenoy

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23 Jan 2015
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I have been using Reliance dth from the date of its inception. In the quest of watching HD channels I moved to Airtel HD-DVR (How I arrived: <https://dreamdth.com/community/threads/how-i-arrived-at-airtel-hd-dvr.52070/>)

My two pennies on Airtel HD-DVR:

Booking and Installation: :k
Booked from a retailer here at the price of ₹8600 for DVR plus one year South Mega HD package at 12pm on Sunday. He promised me installation will be done by 2pm. Nobody turned up till 2.30pm. Called up the retailer, he immediately arranged for the installation. Guy came at 3.15pm and finished everything by 4.15pm. Installation was neat and effective. He used the same cable which was used for Reliance. So he gave me unused cable just in case Reliance asks it back. Additional cable was also laid (extra one needed for DVR). He also paired the universal remote with my TV remote. Then showed all the features of the DVR. Pretty neat. In a nutshell I was happy with his work except for the stinking smell owing to his Ghutka/cigerrette habbit. :no

Video Quality:
HD :hd picture quality is the best as most FMs have said. :clap
SD quality is average. Reliance was simply best in this regard. I believe Reliance is best in SD when compared to any dth.

Audio Quality:
Very important factor for me i.e. to have DD Surround sound in the HD channels. Its mixed feelings here. English movies, sports channels have true DD 5.1. But many channels like colors HD have pseudo DD 5.1 (In a true DD, the speech should come from center speaker only and music coming from other channels. In pseudo DD, speech comes from all channels which makes it pathetic to hear). True DD 5.1 channels are great experience and others pretty normal.

STB: :tup
Very good looking, looks of high quality. It has a 500GB WD HDD inside. HDMI, SPDIF all work well. Very fast in responding. Reliance was sluggish.
Recording feature works well. Pause, rewind, forward, series recording all works well. Can record two channels at a time.
STB gets heated fast but not to alarming level, have to check how it behaves in peak summer season.
Mosaic mode not available, Reliance used to show 12 channels in mosaic mode.
Languages of certain channels can be switched but no such option available to switch subtitles on or off. Reliance had this feature for some channels.
Not so happy with favourite channel feature. Should have allowed more than 15 channels to be stored. Still to figure out how to effectively use it.
Not able to verify if 3D feature is present in STB.

Remote: :tup
Universal remote is great, paired well with my TV. Buttons are smooth, easy to hold and very light weight.

Performance during rain:
Yet to rain in my area to check this feature.

CC response:
Nothing to complain so far

my Airtel app and myaccount online:
My customer id is succesfully registered in their system. The app works well. I can see all the features such channel's program list, option to record them, validity period, recharge details etc etc. It is quite informative and useful.
Tried recording via app. It is working well. But its not possible to cancel the recording from the app. Also, app is not listing the programs available in HD channels as of now.

airtel logo: :sp
Is relatively transparent, it does not obstruct the scenes behind it, thus making it easy to read scroll news, scores etc. It is not as transparent and tata sky or d2h, but still it is manageable. Reliance was worst in this regard, hated their logo all the way.
 
Small questions:
Release number shows 503 and software status shows IDLE. Is it latest? Or 504 is latest? How to upgrade?
Not able to verify if 3D feature is present in STB. How to check if its 3D compliant without using the 3D TV?
 
Nice review.. All technicians have tobacco habits, cant do anything to it..
Do u have any problems with remote frequency? do u have to align parallel to stb?
 
rahul442 said:
Nice review.. All technicians have tobacco habits, cant do anything to it..
Do u have any problems with remote frequency? do u have to align parallel to stb?

Did not face any problems. In general I have to point towards the STB. But need not be very perfect in allignment. I mean I do not need to put in efforts to point towards STB.
 
Ghutka/cigerrette habbit. :no :D

It can be ignored bro.... :)

And yes, welcome to d airtel family :tup
 
Some snapshots:

STB Front view:


STB Back view with HDMI and SPDIF connected:


Snapshots of HD channels:






Proof of Dolby Digital on Star Sports 1 HD on Onkyo HTS
 
Nice pics.. Put screen shot of Signal quality and Signal Strength screen..

Airtel Digital TV
 
Signal Strength and quality:

WP_20150126_17_36_08_Pro.jpg


Are they good enough to give best picture quality?
 
Ur getting great signal quality signals.. Did the technician used some digital meter to get signals? In my case technician didn't use any meter and he just got yellow quality signals manually..

Airtel Digital TV
 
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