The First Anniversary

Twelve months ago, a man nicknamed himself TechnoGuy Sri Lanka and entered the worldwide blogosphere. He created a blog to tell the world about Information Technology worldwide and how it affects Sri Lanka, and also to tell the world about the local Media industry.

Twelve months after February 17th, 2007, the very same man celebrates one year of blogging and thus the First Anniversary of TechnoGuy's Blog.

I am very happy on this day. First of all, I thank the TV & Radio Sri Lanka group of blogs for introducing me to Blogging. A partial thanks also goes to the shutdown of CBN Sat, which is not really a good thing, but prompted me to search the internet for information and made me discovery the CBN Sat Forum (now Dialog TV Forum).

Although I have become increasingly busy at work during the last year, it has not kept me from blogging. True, I missed out one entire month without a single post. But yet I tried my best back then, and still try to do so now whilst I am piling up with an ever-largening amount of work.

I have posted almost 50 posts and I've had an amazing 4500 visitors so far. I'm waiting for another 500 visitors. Meanwhile I've had almost 10 polls in which people have actively participated.

On December 26th, 2007, I introduced a new visual theme for the blog. This was both good and bad. The good was that this new style allows for a two side-columns for better organization. And the new theme does look better than the Blogger-made theme I used. The bad was that I lost all poll information because I overlooked writing it down before replacing the template.

I truly hope and pray that my blog will live on for many years to come, whatever may happen to me. I will try my best to post something useful and interesting as frequently as possible.

So I wish myself the best wishes for the future of TechnoGuy's Blog, and wonder what to post next.

Meanwhile, would you kindly consider voting on how well I've done so far, and commenting on future improvements I could make?

New Channels on Dialog TV (Early 2008)

Its time for new channels once more on Dialog Satellite Television. This time the channels are not essential for Dialog's survival (at least for the moment), but will be pleasant additions if package prices are not increased.

Here are the channels that have already been launched:-

CH55 - Shruthi Television - Hindu religious channel

CH56 - Rana Ru - Entertainment and news for members of armed forces (scrambled for ordinary subscribers)

Unfortunately, this year there is no complete list of channel which will be launched. But here are the channels thought to be launched on Dialog TV on their 4th Transponder, according to unverified sources:-


Fox FX - Dedicated to programming targetted at men



Fox Crime - All about crime



Fox News Channel - Popular news channel based in U.S.A.



Fox Sports - Sports channel which is available only in the Middle East so far



Fox Movie Channel - Movies from U.S.A.



Deutsche Welle TV - News and entertainment from Germany



TV5 Monde - Movies and entertainment from France



E! Entertainment Television - #1 channel for hollywood gossip and rumours (already on Dialog Mobile TV)


Channel NewsAsia - News channel based in Singapore



Baby TV - Entertainment for toddlers and information for parents



SS Music - Music from all Southern states of India


Channel C - Sri Lankan Music channel backed by Torana Music (already on Dialog Mobile TV)

There is a possibility that Dialog is in talks with Sun Network to provide India's most popular Tamil-language channels on Dialog TV. Hopefully these talks will have a positive result.

Picture Quality
Shruti Television has a high picture quality so far as only 10 channels are active, and 8 channels are probably not working at their fullest yet. Unfortunately the quality of Rana Ru cannot be accessed as the channel is scrambled for ordinary customers.

Sound Quality
It is difficult to measure the sound quality as many programmes on Shruti Television do not have professionally recorded audio.

EPG
None of the channels have Electronic Programme Guides so far.

But another interesting piece of information is that the EPG will be given a dedicated data channel. That means the EPGs of all channel will load faster and all EPGs can be accessed without changing the channel.

Acknowledgement
I thank all those who post information regarding new channels and improvement on Dialog TV at the Dialog TV Forum. The information provided here is solely based on the information they have provided.

Dialog Mobile TV: Updated

Dialog has updated and improved their Mobile Streaming Television service sometime during the last few days. I was pleasantly surprised to browse to the Dialog Mobile TV Channels page and find some new channels and a new design.

3G and GPRS Feeds
First of all, each channel has two feed. One is for 3G and the other for GPRS. The GPRS feed has a lower bitrate so that GPRS users can actually watch television properly without spending the day buffering. The 3G feed has a higher bitrate and therefore higher quality, and so far I have not experienced any buffering problems.

New Channels
The important part is that Dialog has introduced new channels. Two of the new channels are popular pay television channels. Another new channel is a local pay television channel, launched last year on Dialog Satellite Television. I have never heard of the other new channels, so it is possible that Dialog (or a friendly company) is broadcasting those themselves.

Live Cricket







This channel contains STAR Sports India which broadcasts the India-Australia-Sri Lanka Triangular Series these days. It is unknown whether this channel is permanent.








The good old new channel that was available on Mobile TV for a long time now.








This remains Cartoon Network India, and is a trouble for parents who care about their Phone bills. Nothing has changed here (except for the seperate GPRS and 3G feeds).

Channel C
This is a new channel which broadcasts Sri Lankan music videos. It is currently undergoing test transmissions.









The ultimate channel for Hollwood Gossip and News. It is unclear whether this is the Asian feed or European Feed so far. But this channel is supposed to turn up on Dialog Satellite Television as well in the next few days.









This is the Sri Lankan pay television channel which broadcasts tele-dramas and films 24/7. It was launched on Dialog Satellite Television in December last year. The channel will be available only for Dialog Satellite TV customers who pay an extra LKR 25 after March 31st 2008. This makes me wonder whether Mobile TV customers too will have to pay for the channel.

Crazy TV
All things crazy! I go crazy when I try to sort out if this channel is international. So I believe that this channel may be broadcasted by Dialog themselves.

Joke TV
Once again, the channel is self explanatory. And also, this too may be broadcasted by Dialog.

Bollywood TV
This channel broadcasts Indian music. So far I have not seen any films, so maybe the channel is only for Bollywood Music. I've never heard of this channel before either.

Local Channels
The local channels on Dialog Mobile TV are the same as on Dialog Terrestrial and Dialog Satellite, except that here TNL is missing. Isn't something else missing from before?

The loss of the Maharaja
Yes, Sirasa TV, Channel One MTV and Shakthi TV are missing. And possibly they are not returning at all. Why? I don't know.

There is a possibility that Dialog wants Maharaja out of the way as Dialog is launching its own channels now. Or maybe Maharaja Corporation wants their channels to be available only on terrestrial. Whatever happens, it's Maharaja's loss, not Dialog's.

Final Thoughts
This improvement is likely to heat up the mobile market in Sri Lanka. So far, Dialog has been utterly silent about this, but soon there is likely to be a major advertising programme. Mobitel will work fast to improve their services and maybe introduce some new channels to their Mobi TV service. However, no one seems to be talking about any Mobi TV, even though Mobitel has announced it. Does anyone know about it?

These days Dialog may be celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Dialog GSM (not confirmed), which means that there will be many benefits for customers.

I'm watching and waiting for Dialog's next move, as well as their competitor Mobitel's next move.