Taking a potshot at rival Dish TV, Tata Sky has launched five more Asli (or true) HD channels, emphasizing that they are shot with real HD cameras.
The new channels include Star Plus, Star Gold, Star Movies, Star World and National Geographic Channel and cover news and regional content also, it said.
Tata Sky had been left behind in the HD game by Dish TV earlier this year when the latter announced a whopping 30 HD channels, about five times what the others were offering.
However, competitors soon started pointing out that some of the channels are ‘upscaled’ HD — converted into HD through software — and not original shot on HD cameras. The HD Gold Pack is priced at Rs 50 per month, one of the cheapest HD packs in the market.
It took pains to explain that all HD channels on TATA Sky are shot using HD cameras with a vertical resolution of 1080 lines, which will give 4 billion pixels in one screen-full. On the other hand, standard TV shows only 0.4 billion pixels. The higher the pixels, the more life-like the picture.
Meanwhile its competitor Airtel Digital announced it has upgraded the software of all the HD set-top-boxes to 3D format, meaning that 3D content, when ready, can also be viewed on them.