Prasar Bharati likely to launch DD India HD

Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati could soon launch the High Definition (HD) version of its English News channel DD India with scrolls running on DD Retro and DD Sports mentioning the name of DD India HD which indicates its imminent launch. Going by the scrolls the channel could launch any time after 3rd October, 2020.

The scroll on DD Retro mentions that the Doordarshan Delhi services of transponder C-05, GSAT-10 satellite will be available with a new downlink parameter, and downlink frequency from the intervening night of 2nd October – 3rd October.

The transponder will carry DD National, DD News, DD Bharati, DD Kisan, DD Urdu, DD Sports, RSTV, DD Feed, DD National (HD), DD News (HD), DD India (HD), and DD Feed (HD).

Doordarshan currently beams the High Definition version of DD National HD and DD News HD with the later available on DD Free Dish and Tata Sky. DD India in Week 36 was the 4th most watched English News channel ahead of NDTV and India Today Television with 1570 weekly impressions (in 1000’s).

Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekar Vempati had recently on Twitter in response to a question on the non-availability of the HD version of DD Bharati and DD Retro said that Prasar Bharati had already requested ISRO for additional capacity on their future satellites so as to allow Prasar Bharti to increase the number of DD channels available in HD. He further said that HD channels required 3 times the satellite capacity of an SD channel.