In 1982 with Asian Games held in India, our country saw the entry of colour Television. Since then many things changed in history of Indian Television. India’s national broadcaster spread throughout country on its Terrestrial network. Then in 90s came era of Satellite television through Cable TV network.
In first decade of 21st century, we saw another emerging medium Direct-to-Home (DTH), and even people from remote regions could receive 100s of channels in their homes. Now in 2010 another revolution in Indian Television is about to begin. It’s High Definition Television (HDTV).
HDTV provides sharper & clearer picture with resolution of 1280x720 pixels or 1920x1080 pixels as against 720x480 pixels of Standard definition TV. HDTV also provide Widescreen cinema experience with Surround sound (operator’s content choice).
India already saw first entrant of HDTV through Cable network ‘ICC Cables Network’ of Pune who offered limited HD content and also DTH Operator ‘Sun Direct’ who offered Tamil & Telugu programmes along with National Geographic HD channel & IPL HD feed through broadcaster. But with 2010 Commonwealth Games broadcasted in HD by Doordarshan, many other DTH operators like Reliance Big TV, Airtel Digital TV, DISH TV and TATASKY have plans to launch their HD service. On 05 May 2010, Reliance announced its HD+DVR (Digital TV Recorder, STB with internal recording facility) offering STB at Rs 7490 and plans to launch HD channel in coming months. Soon by 27 May 2010 Dish TV also announced to launch its HD service with major attraction being FIFA 2010 World cup in HD in agreement with broadcasters ESPN-STAR. Although no official news from Airtel & TATASKY (and Videocon too!), but these operators could also surely testing their HD service capability in background and we could hear some announcement from them soon. Already channels like National Geography & Discovery ready to launch HD service in India, many abroad TV contents & Sports content is available in HD format.
Now with prices of LCD/LED TVs coming down and many TV manufacturers selling HD ready TVs, Indian are ready to embrace new experience of Television viewing knows as High Definition Television aka HDTV!
Source:-
ICC Cable Networks Pune HD - http://www.iccnetwork.net/new/iccnetwork.html
Sun Direct HD - http://www.sundirect.in/HD/index.php
Reliance Big TV HD - http://www.bigtv.co.in/hd_dvr.html
Reliance Big TV HD news - http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k10/may/may28.php
DISH TV HD news - http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k10/may/may183.php
HDTV Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_television
