Industry

Satellite television

Founded

2008

Headquarters

Gurgaon, Haryana, India

Area served

India

Key people

Sunil Bharti Mittal

Products

Direct broadcast satellite

Parent

Bharti Airtel[1]

Subsidiaries

Bharti Telemedia Ltd.

Airtel digital TV is an Indian direct-broadcast satellite service provider owned and operated
by Bharti Airtel. Its satellite service, launched in 2008, transmits digital satellite television and audio
to households in India.[2] It uses MPEG-4 digital compression with DVB-S2 technology, transmitting
using the satellite SES-7 108.2E.
As of 28 November 2014, Airtel digital TV has total 383 Channels and Services including
25 HD channels.[citation needed]
Its primary competitors are Dish TV, Tata Sky, Videocon d2h and cable television providers. It has a
total subscriber base of 9.54 million as of 30 September 2014.

Airtel Digital TV Recorder[edit]

A premium DVR (Digital Video Recorder) allows 150 hours of recording live TV on a 160 GB hard
disk with MPEG 4 picture clarity. This product was discontinued after the launch of [HD] Recorder.

Airtel Digital TV [HD][edit]

Airtel Digital TV HD provides channels in their native resolution of 1080i or 720p with 16:9 aspect
ratio. The STB is compatible with 7.1 Channel Dolby Digital Plus surround sound as well and is in
fact the first HD STB in India to be compliant with Dolby digital Plus.[4]
Airtel Digital TV HD+ is a recorder that records content on an external USB drive/hard disk drive. It is
different from the Digital TV [HD] recorder that records content on an in-built hard disk drive. HD+
offers potentially unlimited recording, as the capacity depends on that of the external hard disk drive/
USB drive. However, it only has a single tuner and hence only a single channel can be watched and
recorded at the same time. This is in contrast to the [HD] recorder that enables one to watch and
record two different channels at a time and to also supports simultaneous multiple channels
recording.

Airtel Digital TV [HD] Recorder[edit]

On 4 May 2010, Airtel digital TV from bharti airtel announced the launch of its 3D ready High
Definition Personal Video Recorder (HD Recorder). [5] Retaining its pioneering Remote Recording
feature, airtel digital TV's HD Recorder offers unique features of Automatic Favourites, Search and
Genre and Category sort and is 3D ready.
On 24 May 2011, Airtel announced that its digital TV HD and HD-DVR boxes are software-enabled to
view standard definition (SD) content upscaled to 1080i HD.[6]

Technical information[edit]
Airtel Digital TV's standard definition broadcasts are in MPEG-4 with Interactive Service (ITV) and 7day EPG (electronic programme guide). Interactive Service (ITV) of Airtel Digital TV includes an addon service that allows a user to shop, book movie tickets etc. A universal remote is included in the
package that can, over IR frequencies, control both the TV and the DTH box. Like other DTH service
providers, it also provides a pay per view interactive service that includes a catalogue of movies in
Hindi, English and regional languages.

On Demand Entertainment[edit]
Airtel Digital TV provides On-Demand services on connected boxes. A customer can view a diverse
Video Library of 1600+ titles including Movies, TV Shows, Sitcoms and can Catch-up on missed TV
shows of last 6 days for Top 35 channels. Best viewed with newly launched WiFi Plug-in costing
Rs.849, available on www.shop.airtel.com

Interactive Services[edit]
Airtel Digital TV also contains interactive services apart from tv channels including below:

1. iDarshan
2. iKidsworld (Ch.361)
3. iMusicspace (Ch.379)

Games[edit]
A subscriber can make their TV a Gaming Zone. Currently there are 6 Games available on Airtel
digital TV in 3 pack variants - Silver (2 Games), Gold (4 Games) and Platinum (6 Games).