Direct-to-home players are banking on technology to deliver the numbers

IT'S YOUR eyeballs they are after. The battle for are after. The battle for 14 million homes is not being fought in the corporate boardrooms, but in the laboratory. The chief technology officer has suddenly become the most sought after person in the direct-to-home industry.

The job at hand is to deliver an out-of-the-idiot-box viewing experience to throw up the winner in the Rs 3,000 crore industry. Perhaps there would be more than one.

"DTH in India is now moving beyond the first stage where increasing the customer base was the only priority. The new developments will revolve around offering solutions in technology, to enhance the viewing experience," says Amitabh Kumar, president, technology at Dish TV, the current market leader in the DTH field.

Most of the other players, including Tata Sky, Airtel Digital, Sun Direct, RelianceBig TV, and the new kid Videocon, would tend to agree.

Technology is now among the top key performance indicators.

Airtel Digital chief marketing officer Sugato Banerjee sees technology both as an opportunity and a challenge.

"Technology is both a leveller as also a key differentiator.

Technology delivers niche consumers with high Arpu (Average revenue per user)."

So what should a consumer expect? Despite claims and counterclaims by companies, some of the most attractive features are spread across several operators. The TV viewing experience includes interactivity that offers you everything from soul searching to marriage to jobs to banking, a personal video recorder, pay per view service, Mpeg-4 for better picture quality and higher number of channels, two language electronic programme guide and a single remote, integrating television and set top box controls. Videocon has come out with a technology of direct reception by its TV, eliminating the set-top box.

Even payment for services through TV is around the corner.

"We are bringing in a brand new approach to technology.

We have the unique feature where no set top box is required for Videocon satellite based TV sets," says Himanshu Patil, CTO, D2H (Videocon) platform.

Says Yigs Riza, CTO at Tata Sky "DTH has enhanced the TV viewing experience with the introduction of new-age world class technologies like personal video recorder technology." Tata Sky, of course, offers this technology that allows a user to pause a live programme or rewind/fast forward a favourite broadcast. But what about the recurring complaints by consumers on signal quality and disruption: Operators say they are keen to address the connectivity problem by throwing technology at it. "We have launched a multiple format solution including technology installation to reduce signal-to-noise ratio and a dedicated head-end in Bangalore to reduce signal loss. We have also increased the dish size by 20 per cent," says Airtel's Banerjee.

Other operators too are going in for technology upgradation at the back-end, to ensure a hassle-free viewing experience.

Premium service is the name of the game. That's where the money is. And pay per view is expected to take off. "On demand service, which at present is at a relatively low level, is set to break out to where five per cent consumers would use it at least once a month," says Kumar of Dish TV.

Next would be high-definition service. Most of the DTH systems are ready to introduce the service, as LCD sets with high-definition capabilities have sold across the nation.

Something similar would happen to high quality audio broadcast with hi-fi. Audio download services with proper protection of intellectual property rights such as digital rights management systems are also rearing to go.

Operators are working on features such as `sling media' that enables video images captured from the set top box to be sent over the internet to mobile phones or other devices. Also in the works is multiple languages subtitling and teletext on a variety of subjects.

Most players see high-definition television (HDTV) as a big change and are planning to make a splash with it during the commonwealth games.

As DTH technology moves to capture more of the potential 150 homes, the sky no longer appears to be the limit. rakeshkhar@mydigitalfc.com Fresh eye DTH has enhanced TV viewing with the introduction of new-age technologies like personal video recorder The technology allows a user to pause a live programme or rewind/fast forward a favourite broadcast Most DTH systems plan to introduce high-definition service, as LCDs with the capability have been sold Operators are working on sling media that enables images from set top box to be sent over internet to mobiles