Discuss Dialog TV Here

All non-racist, non-fighting, peaceful bloggers are welcome to peacefully discuss Dialog TV affairs here, in comments under this post.

This is only temporary, as the Dialog TV Forum is in a huge mess.

I will not allow any racsism and religious affairs to be discussed here. No fighting. Comments will be moderated.

I hope you all find good place to talk until the problems at Dialog TV Forum are solved.

Thank You.

Dialog TV Unofficial Website - Now Open!

I have just completed the first stage of my new Unofficial Website for Dialog TV. This website provides the information Dialog takes a long time to provide, or never provides at all. Also, it is a much better alternative to the main website if you want to find the correct prices and packages according to the real name of the channel. In the Dialog TV website, TEN Sports is marked as "10 Sports". And... well, just go there and see. I hope they fix it soon.

Returning to the subject of the new website, it is the successor to a failed project named the Dialog TV Wiki. Failed means that there was no one to help maintain the wiki, whereas a wiki should be maintained by community, not one person.

Therefore this website will only be maintained by me. But of course, all are welcome to email me or post a comment in this blog about any mistakes or updates.

So I hope you all consider visitng the site. Note that you should enable ActiveX on Internet Explorer before-hand, or when asked, to access the website properly.

Dialog TV - Unofficial Website

Also note that I have no relation with Dialog TV exept that I am a mobile and pay television customer. The unofficial website is maintained by me, not Dialog. I hope Dialog has no objection to the unofficial website.

Dialog TV wins the Poll!

Dialog TV has won the first poll of this blog.

Here are the details of the poll:-

• Q - Which pay television service do you think is the best in Sri Lanka?
  
• A - Comet Cable, Dialog TV, Dish TV India (via SATnet or Telecave) and LBN

Here are the final standings of the poll:-

1. Dialog TV - 64 Votes - 51%
   
2. LBN - 54 Votes - 43%
3. Comet Cable and DishTV Tie

I will be introducing a new poll now, and after this the winners will be listed on the side of the screen. I will not make a post for every winner of a poll, except when it is a very important poll.

New Domain for TechnoGuy's Blog

I am pleased to announce that this blog is now accessible on its own domain.

http://www.technoguy.tk

I obtained this domain for free from a service named "Dot TK". The will provide free domains under the ".tk" suffix for anyone who signs up, provided the domain they want is available.

Please visit this blog through this domain, as it will ensure that I can keep the domain for myself. Or else the domain might expire if not enough people visit through it.

Thanks to everyone who visits this blog and helps me in my work.

TechnoGuy's Poll

I am introducing a new poll every week on this blog. Just check on the right side bar and the poll should be on the top. Each poll will be open for 6 or 7 days. If your IP address is recorded (works most of the time), then you can change your selection.

This weeks question: Which pay television service do you think is the best in Sri Lanka?

The answers: Comet Cable, Dialog TV, Dish TV India (via SATnet or Telecave) and LBN

Remember that you can always change the answer if you change your mind.

Channels on Lanka Broadband Networks

Lanka Broadband Networks operates a cable based television network providing over 70 channels with the best picture quality in Sri Lanka. There are both analog and digital networks covering certain areas of the Colombo district.

This is a accurate list of channels on LBN. Channels available on both the analog and digital networks are listed. Where I know, I will mention if the channel is available on only analog or digital. Please comment on this post with any new information or with any corrections for this listing.


Paid International Channels

1. HBO
   
2. HBO Signature
   
3. HBO HiTS
   
4. HBO Family
   
5. STAR Movies
   
6. CineMAX
   
7. Zee Studio
   
8. ESPN
   
9. STAR Sports
   
10. NEO Sports
    
11. NEO Sports +
    
12. STAR World
    
13. AXN
    
14. National Geographic Channel
    
15. The History Channel
    
16. Discovery Travel and Living
    
17. Discovery Channel
    
18. Animal Planet
    
19. Cartoon Network
    
20. Nickelodeon
    
21. Disney Channel
    
22. Toon Disney
    
23. Channel [V]
    
24. MTV
    
25. Vh1
    
26. Zee Trendz
    
27. CNN
    
28. Bloomberg Television
    
29. NDTV 24x7
    
30. KTV
    
31. Sun TV
    
32. STAR Vijay
    
33. Sun Music
    
34. STAR Gold
    
35. STAR Plus
    
36. Zee TV
    
37. Zee Cinema
    
38. STAR Chinese Channel
    
39. Surya TV
    
40. Dubai One
    
41. Saudi Channel
    
42. Chutti TV

Free International Channels

1. Channel NewsAsia
   
2. Al Jazeera International
   
3. GOD TV
   
4. EWTN
   
5. Islam Television
   
6. DD Podhigai
   
7. Jaya TV
   
8. Win TV
   
9. ETV
   
10. TVM
    
11. Pakistan Television
    
12. TV5Monde Asie
    
13. DW-TV
    
14. Arirang
    
15. NHK
    
16. Zee Muzic
    
17. B4U Music
18. Dharmavahini

Local Channels

1. Rupavahini
   
2. Channel Eye
3. ITN
4. ARTv
5. Swarnavahini
6. ETV
7. Derana
8. Max Television

Total Channels

Paid Int. Channels = 42
Free Int. Channels = 18
Local Channels       = 08

Total Channels on LBN
= 42+18+8
= 68 Channels

New Channels on Dialog TV

During the months of June and July 2007, Dialog TV has been introducing new channels to their lineup. A total of 13 channels were to be added (excluding STAR), and 11 have been launched so far. These channels are available on the third transponder.

Updates: HBO Family was added on June 15. NDTV and SRTV were added on June 17. GOD Channel was added on June 19.

Here is the list of the 11 available new channels, according to channel numbers on the decoder:-


CH37 - TEN Sports - WWE, Cricket, Le Tour de France and more


CH38 - Hallmark Channel - Family friendly and other interesting programming


CH39 - SET - Indian Idol and Hindi entertainment


CH40 - HBO HiTS - Seven new HiT movies for each day of the week


CH41 - Australia Network - Entertainment, movies, news and more direct from Australia


CH42 - SET SAB - Hindi entertainment for the younger generations


CH43 - NEO Sports Plus - Sports


CH44 - NEO Sports - Channel dedicated to cricket (mainly Indian cricket)

CH45 - The Buddhist - Sri Lanka's first Buddhist television channel


CH46 - HBO Family - Family friendly movies


CH47 - NDTV 24x7 - Indian English news channel


CH48 - SR TV - Tamil movie channel


CH49 - GOD Channel - Christian religious channel


Here are the channels which are yet to be tested:-


STAR World - American Idol, Oprah and other English entertainment


STAR Movies - English movie channel


STAR Plus - India's No 1 Hindi entertainment channel


STAR Vijay - Popular Tamil entertainment channel 


Picture Quality
As in all test transmissions, you can expect low picture quality at the beginning. Normally, correcting this would be one of the main focuses of test transmissions. However, in Dialog's case, with most channels distributed in digital technology, it is not a matter of picture quality. But Dialog has a wide variety of technical problems such as picture freezing. Picture freezing was first seen on the SET channel after DialogTV's launch in February 2007. It then seemed to spread on to other channels. This was possibly the case for the new channels as well. Therefore the main focus of the Dialog TV test transmissions is getting the technical problems solved.

But enough of technical details. Of course, at the beginning the quality of the new channels was plain awful. This made me rather reluctant to boast about Dialog's new channels. This lasted until Monday this week.

The NEO Sports, NEO Sports Plus, SET SAB and CNN channels were removed temporarily on Thursday last week. CNN had picture freezing, but now it seems to have been solved after the reappearance on Monday (July 9). The NEO channels returned on Tuesday (July 10), together with no picture freezing and with much improved picture quality. Then the other channels too were given better compression and thus better picture quality.

Update: SET SAB is back, as of June 12 2007.

During fast movements on TEN Sports and Hallmark Channel, the picture would previously be covered in black and white blocks as a result of very heavy pixelation. It was worse that watching a video on a 56k internet connection. But since Tuesday, the fast movements were very clear and 90% of the pixelation had disappeared. The overall picture qualiy had improved greatly.


Sound Quality
Sound quality has rarely been an issue on Dialog TV (yes, surprising). Even with the new channels there is not much of a problem.

But in some channels only one side of the audio is provided. Stereo sound incudes at least 2 sides (channels). It is not yet clear as to why this is done by Dialog TV.

In case of HBO HiTS, it is a feed coming from Hong Kong. Therefore these is commentary in both English (on one side) and Chinese (on the other side) during advertisements of their programming. Therefore it is suitable to block the Chinese side during advertisements. But this has to be changed during the movie, as otherwise there will be an awful sound quality with only one side of audio.

But yesterday I noticed Chinese and Englich commentary going one after the other. Mybe HBO has stopped the dual language on dual side thing, because then people or services have to block the unwanted commentary. One language at a time is much better.


EPG
The Electronic Programming Guide for seven days was introduced for most channels in Dialog TV throughout this year (2007). The EPG for the new channels are already being introduced.

TEN Sports and Australia Network had EPGs when I checked around 3.30 pm today (July 11). Hallmark Channel surprisingly did not. But probably the EPGs for other channels will appear throughout this week, or month.

Update: EPGs are also available on HBO HiTS and SET, after the evening of June 11. Also the Australia Network, HBO HiTS and many other EPGs of older channels have descriptions of the program.


STAR Channels
Due to technical problems the launch of these channels have been continously delayed. But it is confirmed that they will appear within this month (July) or the next (August). Lets just hope that they do not have heavy pixelation, or the much feared picture freezing when they arrive.


For now, I congratulate Dialog for the introduction of the new channels. I hope they sort out the package structures properly and introduce the right channels to the right packages. At the moment, the package settings are creating a bit of a revolt among Dialog TV customers.