The Great Indian Tech Blog
Comprehensive Tata Sky Plus HD Review : Features and Operations review of Tata Sky’s premier HD DVR offering
Author: Gadget Techie, Category: India, Latest News, Online Services, Tata Sky, Video Review
Finally I decided to go over to the HD side, and why not get a DVR while we are at it. I decided to upgrade my Tata Sky box to a Tata Sky HD Plus set top box. HD signifies High Definition while plus signifies DVR capabilities. On Wisetechie.com we cover the installation and the basic features and formalities, Here on IndianTechBlog we cover features and operations part of the review :
HD Channels : The current HD gold bouquet has 6 full time HD channels (Star Plus HD, Star Movies HD, Star World HD, Star Gold HD,Nat GEO HD and Discovery HD) apart from that there is Set Max HD which only comes on during IPL matches.
HD quality is superb, at 1080i the images are crisp most of the time, to preserve HD quality, Start is not advertising on its HD channels and fills in remaining time with fillers. So a show which starts at 8:00pm finishes at 8:22pm on Star Plus HD and 8:30pm on Star Plus SD.
Hardware Capabilities : The set top box from Tata Sky is a fairly competitive piece of equipment offering 500GB of storage space. Apart from the space, features like live pause, rewind (live) and slow motion are really awesome. The set top box also has a cool rotating play display which tells you the state of playing from the hard disk.
The box has 2 inputs and HDMI and RCA outputs. It also promises 5.1 channel audio (which I haven’t verified). It has a super light indicator as shown in below video :
You can record 2 channels at one time, if you are recording two channels at one time, it wont let you switch channels and you will have to stop recording. This again is very counter intuitive.
Its takes a while to figure out why its giving the warning and how to stop recording one of the channels. If you had paused a similar warning is given on changing channels, this time with no reason as to why its asking you to confirm a channel change.
The recording can be done in many ways, ad hoc recording, just go to a channel and press record to record the current program. You can also choose a program in the future to record, apart from this there is also an option to record all instances of a TV series.
TV series is a little confusing though, it took me a while to figure out how to edit series settings. The manual is totally useless, offers absolutely no information on operation. Tata Sky really shortchanges customers on manual quality.
The usability of the box is severely reduced due to earlier point. I literally had to tutor my parents on usage.
Apart from the special characteristics, the set top box has the ability to set 50 favorite channels. I also observed that sometimes on changing the channel it wont come on. That’s a major issue that needs addressing.
So that’s it for this part of the review, for the earlier part of the review , head on over to Wisetechie Blog
Overall Positives :
1. Great price of Rs. 3999
2. Tata Sky Service Quality , best in DTH providers
3. Star’s bouquet of HD has no ads till now, 500 GB space is awesome
Overall Negatives :
1. Extremely complex to use for normal folks
2. No proper manual given, no guidance provided by setup staff
3. HD gold pack costs 50 rupees per month extra. So another pack you have to add to your bouquet.
1GB MP4/MP3 USB Wrist Watch with 1.5” OLED Screen Review
Author: Gadget Techie, Category: Clocks, Gadget Reviews, LCD, Video Review
First things first, we do actually own this watch , so the review is 100% genuine and not cooked up the slightest bit. The watch has a watch display too, but to see that wait till the next post when we post still photographs of the watch. The video quality is a little bad as it was taken with a N72 phone, our digital camcorder was out of batteries. The video being played on the watch is crystal clear BTW, the focusing of our video camera is out though.
Specifications:
- - It comes in the following languages:
- English
- French
- Italian
- Spanish
- Deutsche
- Portuguese
- Dutch
- Hungarian
- Chinese (Simplified)
- Chinese (Traditional)
- -Plug and Play USB flash drive
- -MP3,MP4,FM,Ebook Functionality
- -1.25 inches 128×128 OLED screen
Pros:
- Good battery power, 7 hours of playback at-least.
- Abcolutely the most unique item on anyone’s wrist. Easy to recharge via USB port, also provided is a Mains to USB adaptor.
- Comes in a nice box (although it was a little crushed)
- Great gift item as it comes in nice packaging and has great utility.
- Crisp and Clear Display with no problems.
- OLED looks uber cool – Photos exclusively showing the OLED display will be posted soon.
Cons:
- Complicated instructions, keep the manual handy as you will need it many many times.
- Interface is a little cheap looking, i don’t like the pink and sky blue combination
- A little bulky for those with small wrists, as the watch is huge it looks ugly on small wrists.
- FM is received via the inbuilt receivers and is extremely poor.
- 2.5" headphones so normal headphones may not be used in this, no external speakers, an adaptor must be used for normal headphones.
Verdict: Watch is extremely cool and so is the time display, the font for M isnt so great though and appears squeezed on Mondays. Otherwise it really is a unique item great for listening to music during your morning walk or exercise session.
Asus P320 Mini PDA Galaxy – Video Review I
Author: Gadget Techie, Category: Asus, Gadget Reviews, Mobile Phones, Video Review, Windows Mobile
This is the Asus P320, we check out its desktop and desktop features.
Enjoy this great phone with Windows Mobile professional 6.1 and GPS 
Asus Mini PDA P320 Video review Windows Mobile 6.1 professional
Author: Gadget Techie, Category: Asus, Gadget Reviews, Mobile Phones, Video Review, Windows Mobile
The Asus P320 video review.
The video shows the Asus P320 mobile phone review, various features such as Asus Today Screen, Asus Launcher, Windows Mobile Professional 6.1 features, GPS, Google Calendar. Web browsing of the handset is also tested. The today screen features a weather icon like the HTC touch, a feed reader, a notes utility. Also worth noticing is the Asus status feature.
Essential buying guide for anyone looking to buy an Asus P320 mobile phone.
