KSRTC Volvo introduces new Airavat buses !

Dec2

KSRTC has introduced new Airavat services from Bangalore to Thiruvananthapuram, Horanadu, Shimoga, Ernakulam and Kumbakonam. It has also launched routes from Shimoga into AP, as well as from Bangalore to Mangalore.

Its quite clear Yeddyurappa is showering goodies into his district with these new introductions. As such the train connectivity between Bangalore and Shimoga is sparse and this set of bus routes must add more charm for travelers to this region. Promising even full sleeper buses between some destinations, KSRTC wants you to travel like a Baby. Till now there was only KPN Travels that had buses to Kumbakonam, but with the introduction of an Airavat, the temple city of South India is now well connected to the silicon city of India as well.

To know more and to book tickets online, hit this link.

Tags: bangalore, blog, bengaluru, karnataka, yeddyurappa, sadananda gowda, cm, chief, minister, shimoga, volvo, ksrtc, ap, tn, andhra, pradesh, tamil nadu, buses, airconditioned, sleeper, mutli, axle, coaches, airavat, ambaari, flatbed, mangalore, thiruvananthapuram, kottayam, ernakulam, chennai, tirupathi, hyderabad, horanadu, panaji, ksrtc, message, feedback, phone, time, table, reclining, seat, leg, room, drivers, trained, infrastructure, depots, lcd, screens, mobile, laptop charging points, air, suspension, temple, city, kumbakonam

Silk Board to E-city highway to attract toll from today

Apr7

Source: TOI

For those who enjoyed the toll highway from Electronics city to Silk Board in Bengaluru, constructed by NHAI, finally you must get ready to pay toll to use it henceforth. For those going to work, its still a boon and worthwhile investment. And for those investing in Hosur/Attibele/Jigani/Suryanagar, its even more worthwhile in terms of RE investment.

As for me, I did get a chance to enjoy this road, but even as I drove for the first time, came across a horrific accident where a car’s frontage was completely in smoke after hitting the divider. Further on, I noticed only half of a two wheeler which made gory thoughts come to my mind wondering where the driver and the other half of the two wheeler were. If you want to bet on your life, please drive below 80 kmph and in one single lane always. If at all you want to change lanes, its advisable that you give proper indicators for doing the act.

As for police patrol, its quite strong on the highway and they seem to come over immediately in case there is a problem. There are also digital signboards along the highway making it somewhat techno-gizmo-oriented. The highway itself due to its elevation is a breath of fresh air. Drive slow, and enjoy your drive.

The new Mahindra XYLO definitive pictorial review – pricing, features, drive, accessories, detailed and honest opinions!

Jan25

12:15pm. Sireesh Auto, Rupena Agrahara, Mahindra showroom. Me and my friend. Prebooked test drive. Even before I could have a full look at the XYLO, the test drive car was already waiting. No wasting time, jumped into it and started off on my drive. What I bring below is a detailed review of everything about this car. But before that thanks to Venkatesh @ Sireesh, for enabling this review for all of you.

Looks

Looks are subjective always. Whats looking good to me may not look good to you. The Xylo is Wide, Tall, and bulky, even bigger looking in proportion and actual size to the Scorpio. The tyres look pretty puny for a vehicle of this size. Well agreed this is not the most modern looking car of all, but as I said, I dont see a car from the outside much. What is important to me is the inside. I observed so many things in this car, that I am not sure how to put them in the review, but let me do my best here!

The front of the XYLO pretty much is close to scorpio, but the headlamp cluster is much more lengthier and less round. Its an odd proportion, but I like it for how it is. The front fender looks slightly out of place and does not fit snugly with the bumper. Its more like a rake attached to the XYLO . The side mirrors are quite wide and nice. The engine compartment is tight, and many things are neatly laid out within it. Its amazing to see how many parts are fitting into a place like this on the XYLO. Well done to M & M on this front. The rear lamp cluster looks more like a bottle of Appy (the famous apple fizz drink), and it sure seems a bit funny whenever you cast your eyes on it. It is worthwhile noting here that the boot door opens sideways and not bottom to top as is in the case of Scorpio. The lower end version comes with standard tubeless tyres, 15 inchers with lots of rubber width, while the higher end version comes with alloys as a fitting from the company itself. Whether they are durable or not is another question to be answered in the long run.

Interiors

Lets look further onto the interiors. This has always been M & M’s strong point, and the XYLO is no exception. But mistakes could always happen and as you read this section you will notice how some small things have been goofed up with in the interiors. The dashboard comes with black and aluminium finish in the center or beige and aluminium, I prefer the former though its available only in the high end model. The top end model comes with split A/C, a DDAS (now common, have I not heard this name before somewhere?) – according to Mahindra, its called digital display assist system! Maruti must file for infringement on using a similar name! Whatever that is, the central information console is pretty cool and it provides information as the speed, gear you are in, the distance you can go before you empty your tank (approximate calculations of course) and other such information. Its a shame that the XYLO does not sport a climate control even on the top end version.

The whole central part of the dashboard looks like a big watermelon in shape. The inbuilt stereo has AUX + USB support with four speakers and a woofer (and maybe tweeters which I did not notice or observe). The backlighting is cool and things are easy to operate and read on the music player. However the volume distorts the music beyond level 15. So this is not the best in class system one would say. But level 15 itself is pretty loud and clear and I dont see many people go beyond this for normal use, unless you want to get deaf sooner! Having said that the central aluminium finish is ok to me, but it may not be so with others who may not like it. The steering is chunky but does not feel as good as that of the Scorpio. The real comparison of this car is being done with Toyota Innova, another MUV which is on the costlier side. But M&M has carefully propositioned this car as a sedan-killer, and not an Innova killer, since they seem to realize their own drawbacks in this car, which I shall speak about shortly.

Drawbacks in the interiors

I never usually keep a section for this in my reviews and tend to mention it in the Interiors section itself, but the XYLO needed some special attention to these possible mistakes or goof ups and I wanted to point them out in a section separately for you to take note. So here goes! Firstly there are two armrests in the front seats. One for the driver and one for the copassenger. While this is fine, the way it has been designed in the Xylo is that while the armrest is activated, the driver cannot plug the seatbelt into its slot. This is really absurd. M&M has given parcel trays (or for that matter, lunch trays if you may want to call them) for people to eat sitting on each seat. This is perhaps laudable for long trips when this necessity occurs, but the quality of the trays seems really pathetic. It looks and feels extremely plasticky to use. This is not just limited to the food tray, but also to the door lock. I could not imagine that the door lock was feeling a bit out of quality on such a car. After having seen and felt the Scorpio locks for a long time now, this was certainly not expected out of M&M for the Xylo.

The vanity mirror for the copassenger is next. Fine one can understand that ladies have to be pleased to all levels, but giving two lights next to the vanity mirror is a bit of overdoing that. I have never imagined what gain I can have out of having such lights, when I have powerful cabin lights! The uneven placement of the second 12V socket at the back struck me when I sat behind. The place was already dirty and it shows how much the passengers can kick this area over and over again. Next are the cup holders to the front near the dashboard. These are more half cup holders with open ended borders to the left and right. This according to me is a risk as the cup contents could easily fall onto the carpet. Having said that the cup holders themselves only would serve small cups and not big ones. I was struggling to find the bottle holder in this car. The guy at the back opened the storage behind the handbrake and I noticed there were two cupholders as part of the lid, and the rest of the area was for the bottle!! So if I wanted to keep a bottle, the lid of this bottle storage area must always be opened, which is ridiculous! Its more like a design flaw than anything else. M&M, this was not expected of you in your urgency to bring us a sedan killer. The other thing I noticed was the child lock on the doors. This looked like a lollipop stick pointing out of the door to be fiddled with! Quite amusing.

Drive and performance

Even if you were disgusted or happy about anything and everything a car has to offer, the drive and performance would make your opinions swing either for or against a car. And this by far to me is the most important thing in a car that makes me give either more or less points to it. So lets see my drive experience with the Xylo right away. I took a small drive about half a kilometer that involved two U-turns, merging with main roads, and sufficient braking and acceleration. My friend took a 2km drive which also involved speeding, and road humps. While I talk about the drive, I shall also mention some other things which are part of interiors of the car.

It was a really hot winter afternoon (a misnomer isnt it? but thats how the city is!) and I was definitely expecting the A/C to calm me down sufficiently. This is a strong point in Scorpio and tends to be so with the Xylo too. The vents are neatly located both in front and rear and the rear ones are ceiling mounted and not near the foot as in some other cars! Thanks M&M for this. It feels just fine. The last row A/c does not have any controls, while the middle row sports a dial to set speeds of the A/C cooling fan. At my seating position the power windows felt a bit inaccessible, but for people who are even more closer to the steering, perhaps this would then become a pain (I am trying to clandestinely tell you that I am a tall guy ).

Firstly I tried getting into the drivers seat and the immediate feeling I got is I was about to get onto a truck (lorry as in indian english). This seating is really high, and this also provides a real tall stance to this car. But ingress/egress is not easy, and old people will definitely suffer to make it into the car. Secondly switching between rear two rows is quite a pain as the gap could be a bit less for bulky people. Somehow after I managed to get into the drivers seat, I felt that the seat in Xylo was much better than Scorpio itself. It hugs you from all sides literally and is more cushiony than the bigger brother. The meter console is quite simplistic with white dials and black fonts, but nothing elegant. The view of the road is awesome and it feels like you are sitting quite high up there! This car could have been called Xy-high instead of Xy-lo

Ok now for the drive. I cranked the engine on, and felt the engine vibrating within the car. Its fine with me, not too noisy but not too quiet. The gear stick is easy to use, but is shaped rather oddly rectangularly. And since I am used to round gear shifts all this while, the sedan killer did give me something funny and unique in this department. The gear operation is smooth, and is much better than the Scorpio. I slowly nudged the gear to ONE, and expected a surge forward, but nothing. No big deal. After driving the swift for 20000 kms, such an expecation was only natural from me. I had to press the accelerator pedal hard and the car slowly started moving forward. But the speeds I can go at in each gear is pretty limited and since the speedo was disconnected it prevented me from knowing what speed I was at. The brakes were real hard and when I did break near the signals, the entire car shook sideways. This clearly indicated the body roll problem has been overlooked in the Xylo too. Must I now conclude that M&M does not know how to solve this problem? Or that this is a problem in all tall SUV/s – MUV/s? But whatever it is, this behaviour of the car is irritating and causes unwanted problems at high speeds. I have sat in a Scorpio for a 1000km journey into TamilNadu long back, and by the time we returned to Bangalore everyone was complaining of neck and back ache.

The seats of the Xylo might address this to some extent, but the body roll is extremely high even at speeds below 50kmph. This only means that at higher speeds, one could deem this car to be unstable to a high degree. I am not technical enough to speak about what tests have been conducted regarding this aspect, but I can talk about my experience when I have sat in this car. To sum up – I could not hold a small camera steady enough for a shot of the dashboard when this Xylo was being driven on a rather straight stretch of road at progressively increasing speed. Each time my friend hit the brake pedal, my heart was in my mouth. I was violently shaken, and thrown about in the middle seat. I changed to the last row on my way back and the problem of throwing around seemed to be compounded. If there is one reason I WILL NOT buy this car, it is this body roll. And given the fact this occurs at lower speeds, my disinterest in this vehicle grows further since it then wont be fit even for city use in some way or the other.For a 2.6 litre m-eagle engine, this car lacks grunt or does not give the feeling of good pick up within. The feedback to the driver is too low and I was not sure that the car responded as I had indicated it to with the accel pedal and the steering.

Seating luxury and other stuff

One thing commendable about the Xylo is the seating. The seating is spacious, all the way upto and including the last row. When folded, the last row paves way for a huge really huge boot space where you can stack all the items in your house The lights in the ceiling are spot on, and well designed for maximum impact. The sunglass holder, vanity mirror, armrests in every row are all very good thinking. However I am still wondering why the cup holders in the armrests are in pink or purple colours, they looked kiddish to me and slightly out of place with the overall black theme of the inside!

There is also a butterfly latch to the rear window, which makes it a bit airy when the aircon is not in use. Toyota, you have some things to learn from M&M in this regard and hopefully in the next version of Innova, you wont fry us alive in the rear seat. The rear parking assist is a nice touch in the top end version and it shows you the safe parking area alert in the mirror portion. We tested it and it was fine. Please be advised though that objects of height lesser than that of reverse parking camera located at rear would not be identified!

Pricing, safety (??), final opinion and future options

In short the pricing with options:

E2 – low end	7,55,263 OTR
E4 – with dual ac, rear wiper, coloured bumpers, etc	8,08,350 OTR
E6 – Electric side view mirror adjust, audio system, parking assist, arm rests, lumbar supports, all lamps	8,82,672 OTR
E6 – with ski racks	8,88,570 OTR
E8 – the ultimate, with alloys, DDAS	9,26,321 OTR

Ok, all this pricing is tempting enough. But heck what about safety? NO ABS, NO AIRBAGS? M&M are you kidding us? Why must we take a car that does not provide any safety standards? Then it wont be a sedan killer, it could also be a people killer in the long run if not driven properly. Personally I would love side airbags, considering the amount of body roll this car gives me! They also plan to launch a 4×4 version of this car. I cant imagine what that vehicle will feel like. If you read this review M&M, please get your product right before launching the 4×4 version.

My opinion: 50-50

Bad for body roll, safety, and driving experience for both driver and passengers, good for features inside the car, space, height and road stance. So I am undecided. It might fit the taxi segment a lot, but without safety, its a far cry that this vehicle will sell in huge numbers. If I were you and I had 9-odd lakhs, I would still go for the Innova for its stability, strong feel and more than comfortable ride.But if you have a large family, today there is no other MUV in the 6-8 lacs segment other than Xylo. Its definitely a good start for M&M but if they reduce the body roll and give a more definitively comfortable ride with safety options, then this car is an ideal one. I feel this car will sell initially on the hype, and the sales if not on a decline trend will remain stable without an increasing trend down the line. As usual one can expect M&M to get feedback from their first set of scapegoats before they launch a new and improved Sedan Killer – Xylo the second, without the quirks of the first! This car is neither a sedan killer, nor a Scorpio or Innova killer at the moment!

Enjoy the Xylo!

YOUR COMMENTS ARE VALUABLE FOR THIS POST, AS I HAVE TAKE CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF MY TIME TO TEST DRIVE THIS CAR AND BRING THIS REVIEW TO YOU! PLEASE USE THE COMMENTS SECTION AND TELL ME WHAT YOU FEEL!

Technorati : 2.6, Sireesh Auto, abs, ac, airbags, aircon, alloys, automobile, aux, bangalore, bengaluru, blog, climate control, crde, ddas, digital drive assist system, electronics city, end of sedans, engine, india, innova, karnataka, lorry, m & m, m&m, m-eagle, mahendra, mahendra and mahendra, mahindra, mahindra and mahindra, maruti, meagle, muv, review, reviews, rupena agrahara, scorpio, sedan killer, suv, swift, tamil nadu, toyota, truck, usb, vdi, venkatesh, winter, xylo

Sun DTH 499 plan – is it really a special offer or its an eyewash?

Dec5

The advertisement in question that caught my eye is this: (source: TOI)

I immediately jumped at the thought of having a SUN DTH at home by disposing the earlier hathway connection, considering I am getting this offer at just Rs.499/-. One look at the asterisk (*) next to it prompted me to go right down to the ad again, where I was expecting a Conditions Apply, which indeed was there too!

I was further expecting they would ask me to sign up for atleast a year, but what I actually found was quite contrary to my expectations! Installation charges Rs. 1000 extra, + taxes (@ 12% of 499 bucks, which is almost another 50 bucks!

So there you go Sun Direct DTH is yours now for “just” 499 + 1000 + 50 = Rs.1550/-. Sun, who do you think you are hoodwinking? We are smart for all this guys. Try something else more genuine. Like adding Worldspace might sound like a better bet now that Airtel is giving us that!

Technorati : Bangalore, Bengaluru, Blog, Cable tv, DTH, Dayanidhi, Dayanidhi Maran, Dinakaran, Direct to home, Dish TV, Dish TV India, Flextronics, Jayalalitha, Kalaignar, Kalanidhi Maran, Karnataka, Karunanidhi, Maran, Reliance Bluemagic, Reliance Fresh, Reliance Insurance, STB, Set top box, Sun, Sun TV DTH, Sun TV direct DTH, Sun direct dth, Sun network, Sun tv, Tamil nadu, Tata Sky, Technology, azhagiri, doordarshan, hathway, james murdoch, madurai, million, remote, rupert murdoch, stalin, subhash chandra

Mobile DTH or Rain Water Harvesting

Nov28

The recent spate of rains is attributed to North East monsoons and to cyclone Nisha (I wonder what’s with the Indian people to nomenclate cyclones just as with USA, but it sure does sound really funny sometimes – cyclone Narakasura, cyclone Ravana, cyclone Anajaneya – it gets funnier the more I think of it!).

The rains have only added to more gloom during the great recession of 2008 and the chilly weather has made it so dull to dampen spirits of attending office at all. The only gloom left is a pink slip with this kind of weather pattern

I was driving rather slowly today to office thanks to an early start and empty roads what with schools delcaring a holiday in memory of late VP Singh (yes he died today after a prolonged cancer battle). I am dreading the last day of our own homegrown prime minister – Irrelevant people would block the entire Bengaluru traffic for days, and make us all walk all over the city just to make those memories worse.

Having said that, near Hebbal flyover I saw this contraption otherwise called an umbrella, but when used in wrong situations could very well serve to harvest rain water, or even function as a mobile DTH service when fitted with the right LNB material! It was quite funny that this umbrella was still serving its purpose in some way or rather in many ways!

And finally every gloomy day has something to cheer about at the end of it, so I leave you with a rainbow over my terrace that made the gloom turn into a bit of cheer!

Technorati : , bangalore, bengaluru, blog, cyclone, deve gowda, dth, flyover, harvesting, hebbal, image, infrastructure, insat, karnataka, mobile, nisha, pink, pm, prime minister, rain, rain water harvesting, rainbow, satellite, tabeubia, tamil nadu, terrace, v p singh, water, weather, winter, yellow

Bonsouth, the posh south indian restaurant in Koramangala, Bengaluru

Oct1

I had written an article about South Indies, a south indian restaurant in Indiranagar where I had been to sometime last year. The occassion was a meeting with my best friend Kishore, on his visit to India from USA.

To just tell you more here, Kishore and I know each other for more than 15 years now, he is more than just a friend to me, he is part of my family and one of the key influencers of my life. Well, without digressing much, it was one year more of not seeing him, and this time he landed in Bengaluru once more. This time we decided to head straight to BonSouth yet another south indian restaurant in Koramangala, a stone’s throw away from my house.

BonSouth is a restaurant, which is situated bang on the 80′ Road Koramangala and it is built on a huge piece of land. As usual as one would expect, you cannot park anywhere closeby thanks to BTRAC and thousands of no parking boards everywhere (I think this BTRAC aims at inconveniencing people rather than helping them). So BonSouth currently has taken up the land next to their restaurant for parking purposes. These days I find this is being the norm of many people including MTP (More than Paranthas) another Delhi based restaurant in Koramangala adopting the same approach.

We had gone by two wheeler, and I didnt have a problem finding parking for myself. It was night and we landed up for dinner. Knowing and having seen South Indies before I must have realized the costs of going to Bonsouth, but I was not too surprised looking at the menu card. Firstly we were handed over the spirits menu, where it showed one bottle of champagne to be about 12,000 bucks (roughly 250$) which I thought was on the higher side. After some discussions, we decided no to spirits (especially understanding the fact that a brahmin iyer family would not allow me in if they smelt alcohol ). We then wanted to go straight to that part of the menu which was synonymous with its name – BonSouth.

The ambience was just right with enough room to talk and catch up for a long while before the food was served and finished. The items on the menu were arranged according to the states in South India – Andhra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, each sporting its own famous cuisines. We settled down on cabbage vada for starters, and some lemon rice and curd rice, along with some andhra veg soup – now dont ask me the names, they were bizzaire! A candle was lit for us, and we went ahead and started our meal.

What is of significance that I did not know then but later understood, is the fact that both South Indies and Bon South belonged to the same person and he was running this food chain promoting southern specialities in each area of Bengaluru. So much so also that, I came to know the whole place for both these restaurants were landscaped by a firm called Terra Firma, a company started off by Rohit Marol a well known landscapist today.

The indications were strikingly similar – well dressed waiters (perhaps there is a much more respectful term than this), with suits and coats, all having wireless PDAs to take orders and well mannered too. The landscaping of the place was also done up well with small water bodies here and there and the lighting to suit the mood. Overall for about one starter, two rice items, and one soup (without dessert) the bill was about Rs.800, more or less the same as what we paid at South Indies ealier. But I somehow felt that the food in BonSouth was much better than the one at South Indies given that I could not find any difference in the ambience.

There is also a buffet lunch and breakfast options available somewhere around the Rs.275 mark if you wish to take part in it. Overall, we had a nice dinner and our pockets were lighter by a grand at the end of it. However, given that the prime importance is for the time spent with friends, and a peaceful atmosphere, I would recommend this place as a must visit – atleast once, for the experience, if not again and again. So head straight to BonSouth, and get a taste of what south has always meant to you!

Technorati : Bon south, LA, ambience, andhra, b-trac, bangalore, bengaluru, bill, blog, bonsouth, breakfast, btrac, buffet, candle, champagne, chowchowbath, cmh road, cost, culinary, delhi, dining, dinner, experience, friends, indiranagar, karnataka, kerala, kishore, koramangala, lifestyle, los angeles, lunch, meal, meals, menu, menu book, more than paranthas, mtp, oasis, parking, pda, restaurant, rice, rohit marol, signal, sony world, soup, south, south indies, spar, spirits, stewards, subhiksha, tamil nadu, tamilnadu, terra firma, usa, waiters, wireless

Tata Sky versus DishTV – whats in it for you? (pictorial in depth review of the service providers)

Jun10

I had been observing the DishTV service ever since my father in law installed it at his house a year back. However I did not have a chance to check on Tata-Sky service until now – that is until I myself was a victim of the satellite broadcasting hooliganism if I may use that word freely here. I am putting together my experiences on both of these services, before Airtel (Bharti) and Reliance IPTV launch their services in Bengaluru.

I kind of like writing informally, but I ll try to be as formal as possible with the comparions of course with pictures to aid you understand better.

Customer service

I made a call to DishTV and I received the required answers almost immediately. They had both IVR options as well as direct customer rep talking to me, which made me feel good. At that time I did not intend to go for their connection, but nevertheless, someone from either Bangalore or Delhi always called me regularly to see if I was still interested in opting for their service. Finally I got it installed for my father in law under the freedom offer where for a given set of channels, other than box cost, he need not have paid anything anytime. With respect to retaining customers, Dish TV is making all efforts and I would give them 8/10 for their dedication in this respect.

Coming to Tata Sky, I totally made two calls for installation. While the first call was answered in about 3-5 minutes time, the second one had me waiting for almost 15 minutes before someone on the other end decided to pick up the call. Having said that, naturally as a customer I got really annoyed and made clear my feelings to them as well. My box arrived on May 30, and an installation was scheduled for June 3. Then I get a call on June 1 and the voice on the other side tells me (not asks me) – “We are reaching your house in 30 minutes, and you have to be there for installation of the box!” I mean what the hell ? I am not at home, and you just say you are coming by? Is this how you schedule installations? – I didn’t want to buy that argument and asked them to come on June 3 itself. Now this is when I casually made the second call on June 3 to find out if they are coming by. I have no answers until 15 minutes. To add to this misery a recorded voice on the other end goes on saying how I can SMS some code to them to order an ACTVE package, for my box that is not at all installed! The conversation went thus:

CustomerServiceRep(CSR): May I help you sir?

Me: Sure you can help me, how about changing that stupid SMS message details to some song or something more soothing so that I can wait in peace while you decide a right time to answer my call according to your astrological calculations.

CSR: Its a nice feedback sir, we will definitely consider it for your sake!

Me: And perhaps you can also have someone call me back if the estimated time for answering calls is going to be more than 2 minutes

CSR: Yes sir, good feedback again.

Me: Nowhere have I had a wait of more than two minutes for a rep to talk to me. Is this how you define customer service?

CSR: Sir, you are lucky, that I could get to you in fifteen minutes atleast. Earlier it used to take half an hour for such calls you see!

Me: I work with Tata and Sky, so are you trying to tell another insider like yourself the real story? Then why will people like DishTV not overtake us in competition?

CSR: Sir we dont consider Dish to be a competition at all. We are afraid only of Reliance, not even Airtel sir.

Finally the CSR hangs up thanking me for my feedback and promising installation on June 3 itself. At about installation time, 6pm, I get another call saying since its rainy and since the guy’s vehicle is not ok, he cant do the installation. I shout at him and ask him to finish it the next day and the next day they promptly complete the installation. I give Tata Sky 5/10 for their customer service. In one word, its pathetic and they have a lot of catching up to do.

Installation nitty gritties

The installation personnel wear proper uniform, and come with the complete set of necessary tools required to complete installation. Both providers bring the dish antenna, along with LNB and the wires required. They also carry power drills and enough clamps to secure wiring properly. While the DishTV antenna is oval and large in size, the Tata sky antenna is smaller and more circular in shape. The LNB however is similar.

Tata Sky antenna and LNB

DishTV antenna and LNB

While the DishTV antenna is able to be clamped only on top of walls, the TataSky antenna can virtually be clamped anywhere due to flexible moving clamps. Irrespective of terrain this antenna thus can be fit in most places which is a breeze. Also the entire wiring for DishTv is NEVER clamped anywhere, and it looks very clumsy, whereas the TataSky wiring is fully clamped securely to the wall making it more neater in terms of installation.

Tata Sky wiring (first) and DishTV wiring (second)

For installation, I would give DishTV 6/10 where as Tata scores higher at 8/10.

Set Top Box and Remote Control

I also did a comparison of both set top boxes (DTV and TS – TataSky). While the DTV box is called Zenega and is from a taiwanese company called Handan BroadInfocom Co., Ltd, the TS set top box is from Thomson Electronics, a french company which is the world leader in set top boxes at the moment. The Zenega box has RF in/out, a serial port (intended for interactive communication later on?) and also aux in and tv out along with CVBS out to output to TV. The Thomson box on the other hand misses out on Aux IN and serial port and only has basic RF in/out with CVBS. These are at the rear of the box. On the front side though I liked the TS box better since it has a concealed smart card slot which makes it more durable and out of reach of people who dont know whats in it. Also the LEDs for on/off and alerts are neatly arranged along with front side switches for other operations. The Zenega box on the other hand, has no smart card (atleast as far as what I could make it out to be) and has the front side buttons on the side stacked up vertically. Personally since I dont use these buttons much, its of less relevance to me where they are placed honestly! On box design, DishTV and Tata both score in their own ways, but total about 6.5 to 7 /10 if not more!

Tata Sky box:

DishTV box:

Coming to the remote controls – this area is of extreme interest to me for a few reasons. I firmly believe that a remote must be user friendly, intuitive and most of all extremely simple and accurate to use. So I would naturally expect large keys to fit my fingers and a nice holding position for the remote itself. While the DishTV remote is too puny and rather obscure with most options too small to read for people with glasses, the Tata remote on the other hand is nice to hold, chunky, fleshy and intuitive. There are blue colored keys for important things and the others are black making it easy to use. However, Tata has chosen to name the buttons in a funny way such as having Organizer, Home, buttons as opposed to EPG or Menu buttons found on normal remotes. One thing I think a company must never do is to try and introduce new formats for something accepted and being used in the industry. One such gadget is the remote. Tata, please dont mess around with the names on the remote, they really irritate users at times. I am a set top box veteran and it pains to see such remote control labels which none can understand!

Tata Sky remote:

DishTV remote:

For design, I would give the Tata remote 8/10 and the DishTV remote only 6/10.

EPG (Electronic programme guide), menu and other screens and their usage

Having fairly large amount of expertise in this area, I found the Tata menu system a much better overall menu system to work with rather than the skimpy DishTV menu system. The EPG for instance on the Tata boxes is quite comprehensive and is in matrix format showing me multiple channels and multiple time lines. The EPG on the DishTV box however, shows me only one channel’s information at a time. Also the navigation button design is really horrible with respect to looks on this system. Tata on the other hand uses a highlight system which is more pleasant to use. This clearly shows DishTV has not been investing time and money to make that user experience well worth it yet. Tata with NDS’ software have ensured that nothing is left unturned to satisfy the user to the fullest level possible.

You can see some of the screens yourself and decide. While DishTV have a small PiP in place in the menu, Tata have chosen to cautiously ignore using it as we internally know that such features are prone to problems for the developers causing boxes to crash every now and then. The layout of the menu is much more organized in Tata Sky with useful information that we can always refer back to. There are help screens, with a dedicated help button on the remote and also account status screens, alerts, favourites and the list goes on and on. Look for yourself to see which is best! I would give 9/10 to Tata on their User experience and 6/10 to DishTV in this aspect.

Tata Sky screens:

DishTV screens:

Extras (Games, Quizzes, Stories and everything else under the sun)

So getting TV programs is no big deal. The set top box companies have to think that extra bit to make TV more interactive for children and adults alike. So what do they do? DishTV has an array of quiz programs and games which people can play. They are not exactly the most intuitive ones, but nevertheless you can kill some time with them. Tata on the other hand has ACTVE brand of games, story telling, news channels, religious darshans all bundled into the boquet of channels. While I personally did not like any of these much as they were pretty kiddish, I feel that they would still be of some use to children.

One has to remember that loading of these games or quizzes takes horrible amount of time, sometimes more than 2 minutes which is extremely annoying to any user even if he is a child. I personally feel set top box software development guys must stop including such time consuming applications on their boxes and stick to technology in terms of connectivity or video/audio format support etc. You cant please all at the cost of making the box slow. And thats not the only thing – non technical people like my mother and wife were easily able to hang the software on the Tata box without even pressing too many buttons. The software buckled just on entering and trying to play a game. Shame on you guys. Why did you throw caution during testing to the wind? Is it because we are Indians and would tolerate anything and everything? Wrong! Take notice before time runs out. Give us quality software at the least! If I were the testing coordinator releasing this box to customers, I would have failed the tests even before the box reached the store shelves.

Tata Sky ACTVE menu option screen (ACTVE stories)

Thankfully the DishTV software is more stable and does not crash often. I would give 6/10 to Tata for their ACTVE nonsense and about 7/10 for DishTV for their extras.

Packages, costs, boquets and brickbats

While DishTV is almost making their box cost zero (meaning offering the box to readers like you FREE of cost), Tata prefers to keep the cost at about 2,400 including installation charges of Rs.1000. Even servicing my Maruti Swift Car does not cost Rs.1000 and I wonder what is the great deal and brouhaha about charging users Rs.1000 under the guise of installation charge. Instead why not make DIY (Do it yourself) kits for users? So they may also learn and save money at the same time?

However one point to note is that the DishTV free box scheme still means you pay atleast 2,499 which is compensated by 3 months free subscription (which otherwise amounts to 300 * 3 = 900) + free movies worth 2,490. Now if I am neither a movie buff nor the movies available to view are not the latest it still means I am paying 1,599 towards the box alone which essentially means the box is not free.

For me a free box is something where I start paying monthly subscription alone with no installation charges, box charges or free movies or any other freebies. Consumers open your eyes and understand this simple fact. The profit margins are eroding for set top box companies, but still they come up with ingenious means of recovering the box costs! So remember – THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FREE LUNCH ANYWHERE IN INDIA!

Tata on the other hand has more reasonable schemes such as discounts for you if you refer friends and family members, like giving you monthly offs on the charges. Also upon bulk purchase for 12 months you get 2 more months free. The showcase movies package which promises movies worth Rs.4500 free is a raw deal just because the movies in showcase are not the ones you would love to watch always!

Tata Sky old pricing:

Tata-Sky new pricing:

Dish TV pricing for south and non south categories:

Additional boxes in one home for each extra TV and their costs

The Bane of today’s technology is that one box can work only with one TV even in 2008 ! Welcome to India! This country has still a long way to go by the time affordable multi tuner based server-client architectured set top boxes make it into homes (home gateway solutions). So lets review each providers scheme of things then for additional connections.

Tata Sky’s policies are simple here. Each additional box would cost Rs.1,499 with an installation charge of Rs.500 as opposed to Rs.1000, and the same package would cost Rs.125 more on each of the boxes at home. So this means the box cost remains the same irrespective of how many boxes you buy. So if I own 2-3 TVs realistically speaking, then I end up paying Rs.4,500 for the boxes alone which is a horrendous cost on me for a gadget that will depreciate in future sooner than later.

DishTV has a pricing of Rs.2,499 for each room with 3 months subscription discount. As stated earlier even if we subtract this amount of Rs.900 the remaining comes to Rs.1,599 for each extra box. Add a recommended installation fee of Rs.200 and what do you have? Rs.1,800 for each extra box. As compared to Tata, this is about Rs.200 lesser. But at what cost? You dont get the free movies for Rs.2,499 that you spend, and your subscription amount for second and subsequent connections remains as much as your first one: this means if I am paying Rs.300 for say Dish Maxi, for one connection, I end up paying Rs.900 for three connections.

Dish TV extra room equipment pricing:

Obviously its a no brainer that Tata sky is cheaper here. Dont get misled by free movies. You can always watch a paid movie at a theater such as PVR for a better experience! For this section I give Tata Sky an 8/10 and Dish TV 6/10.

Anomalies in transmission

While I have not seen much of DishTV lawsuits, arguments and counter arguments, Tata Sky seems to have gotten into some trouble with the sports channels, inviting their wrath by making customers pay for what has to have been free. After a bit of media bashing Tata seems to have calmed down and gotten back onto track to offer these sports channels once more.

Meanwhile DishTV has taken the opportunity to woo more customers when Tata was busy flouting broadcasting rules!

After all this only means broadcaster is king. No one likes to lose his money. And no one likes double crossing as well! Shame on you Tata Sky for this kind of gimmick. This was absolutely unnecessary. You can always earn this money in other ways – how about manufacturing more versions of indica until 2020 ? and testing it on the guinea pigs ?

Payment mechanisms

Both the providers offer SMS based and internet based payment mechanisms which make life easy for customers. Even more easier is the remote control based payment and subscription which is the defacto standard in the industry today. In this respect both score 9/10.

———–

So then friends, here ends the (hi)story of both the service providers. Now you are better informed to make good decisions! Safeguard your interests, think long term investment and look at what you need more proactively. If you like this article, share it with your friends so that they too benefit from it.

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Rain Rain went away ….

Mar28

The past week has been wet, chilly, cold and typical Old Bangalore like. With a cyclone in Tamil Nadu, whether they got cauvery water or not, we got a lot of their rain water. So much so that there has been about 200-300 crores of loss in Tamil Nadu and Kerala because of rains during the wrong time (agriculture affected). Fantastic plans for a weekend just went bust for most of the Bangaloreans. I happened to do YOGA on top of my terrace early morning in the chillness and quite obviously starting sneezing a thousand times immediately thereafter. But my three months of exercise miraculously made my cold vanish within 2 hours even without medicine. Now this is called immunity isnt it ?

Rain Rain Went Away …..

Never Came Again Another Day ! :-)

Its back to summer as usual. So the hot days are set to continue again until May or June when monsoon begins and whole city cries for its water logging. In another related incident or news, the road above the Magic Box near BDA collapsed just for this rain. Now the BBMP is in for more flak during monsoons. One wonders if the ride to the new airport will really be so smooth!

Your guess is as good as mine.

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