Airtel IPTV Ownership Experience

[shaleen.agl]

HiI got Airtel IPTV installed at my home in NOIDA yesterday.I got to watch it for about an hour each last night and today morning.I had already factored in the unfriendly user interface and slow response in activity and in switching between channels.I was, however, thoroughly disappointed with the picture quality.The posts I read on this thread do mention about "some pixelation", but the images my television is displaying are so bad that those at best match the lowest resolution videos posted on YouTube.The broadband is working fine (1 mbps/unlimited plan) and the engineer said the numerical parameters do not show any problem in transmission.The Airtel team leader called me in the morning and said he would send someone with their own television set to check the image quality on it.For information, I bought a Sony Bravia 32 inches Full HD just a week back.Please advise what can I do to improve the image quality... I expected a resolution CLOSE TO HD transmission.Also, am I the only one with bad image quality reception on IPTV, or is it a generic problem?Thanks and RegardsShaleenPS: My apologies for writing such a long post, but believe me it's nothing compared to the disappointment upon watching that quality of images. I would deeply appreciate any help.

 

[pudu123]

As far as I know, IPTV picture quality will not be as good as DTH.Someone correct me if I am wrong..I have been using IPTV for 6 months now.Since I use my computer LCD monitor to view IPTV, I don't mind the inferior picture quality. Time Shift and bundling of all pay channels in one single package seemed to offset that for me.Your case is different as you seem to have a quality Sony TV set.. You will feel the hurt more...I hope the Airtel guy can increase your picture quality..

 

[kumararvind]

Theoretically an 8mbps line can be split into 2mbps for broadband and 6 mbps for iptv........but airtel somehow only gives 1mbps on broadband....so one can expect 7mbps for iptv....which can again theoretically give a good quality hd transmission in 720p.......but again airtel is not even able to manage a 2mbps constant feed ( with good QoS)for its iptv. There are many packet losses(which is completely unacceptable for iptv infrastructure)...and this introduces the jaggies that we get to watch......All these indian companies are doing is giving bad services in garb of giving the best quality services because the Indian consumer has no experience with good and quality service. We are so used to analog cable that we jump to anything better than that. To get the DVD quality being harped about by DTH providers, we need a constant stream of 5mbps + but no one gives more than 2 mbps for each channel. TS is the best among the worst when its come to quality, but again its me. The best possible scenario is digital cable with fibre backbone....actually the best possible TV viewing experience could have been was IPTV with VDSL2 tech, but Airtel is only giving ADSL2 ...that too not at its full potential.... Till Airtel starts investing here in India on its IPTV backbone rather than buying some defunct companies in Africa....there is no hope for us who are waiting to see the day when quality TV will come to our homes.

 

[Sushubh]

rightly said. everything seen and considering... the quality of iptv (with internet part being used fully) is pretty sad. and that tells me that their lines are not capable of supporting both high speed internet and decent quality iptv transmission.

 

[Bhaskar Priya]

While i've had pretty good experiences with IPTV in Noida there have been few nagging points.1. sometimes the Internet speed drops down to somewhere in the range of 5-10 kbps and the IPTV shows "Waiting Signal". it remains in this state for about 15-30 seconds and then everything goes back to normal.2. The remote could have been a lot better. comparing it with Airtel Digital makes it look like a bicycle in front of an Audi.3. The enormous boot time. you could make maggi in the time it takes the damn thing to boot up.

 

[shrapnel]

Got IPTV a couple of days back. Its great, especially the Time-Shift feature !No serious problems here, other than that they don't have ESPN on Time-Shift.I guess the problems most people report here were earlier teething problems.shrapnel

 

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[Sushubh]

time to change channels? i have another awful issue. i pause live programming. after like 10-15 minutes when i press play 9 out of 10 timesit would not resume... it would try to resume. then falter and then take me to live programming. this is a annoying bug that i face almost all the etime. it does not happen if the break is of 10-30 seconds. like i pause to get something from the kitchen. but if i pause for a longer duration. it simply does not resume for me.

 

[netbavo]

Hi,New connection experience:-Applied for new connection online on website.. Got a call after two days and was assured that Airtel guy would visit to collect documents and connection would be enabled in 2 days. To my surprise no one came, no calls for next 2 weeks. I myself went to the airtel shop in Indirapuram and asked for a IPTV triple connection. was told that the concerned guy is unavailable and that they would give me a call back when he is available. I got a call from Airtel salesperson after 4-5 days and he came to my home collected documents and forms, and cheque of 1750 rs. and said the connection would be activated in 2 days. after 4 days the airtel line men came. without airtel Tshirt. no shoe cover etc... lol. Did the wiring. The wiring is nicely done. the person told me that another guy will come in evening to connect the telephone instrument , modem and iptv stb. It has been about 5 days since then. No one came.. Now the Airtel sales executive is not even picking up the phone. Still waiting for the New connection. Will update on the performance once it is activated.

 

[netbavo]

More update. Today somehow the airtel sales guy picked up the phone after continous calling for an hour. He said today my connection will be done 100 %... its evening now.. now one has come or called. Tried logging a call to airtel customer care.. that looks like its comparable to BSNL.. The toll free no is for mumbai callers only.. And you need to call another no for delhi. Called it 3 times. every time some other persons picks up asks for all the details. name location. form no. etc etc. then asks to hold and disconnects the call. this happened 3 times.Looks like Airtel do not want new customers.

 

[Vipul Khurana]

I got Airtel IPTV installed a week back - Magic 1299 plan. After reading all the posts here, I wasn't expecting much. But I must say, not bad. -Didn't have any problem like flickering while using torrents or P2P at full speed.-It takes a second to change the channel - I am used to it or don't change much at all. -Timeshift is awesome. -For my 21 Inch TV, picture quality can be as good as it can be. -Yea, Interface sucks. -They have changed the remote. Its better than the white one posted in the sticky thread. Will post a pic sometime.-Not much of a tv person, 4-5 hours a week - mostly sports, IPTV suits me. Star World on TSTV is amazing, it would be great if they extend it to Sports and VH1 as well. Overall experience: Good for me.