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Journalism of Courage
Airtels DVR shows us where the Direct-to-Home space is headed
Having climbed Mt HD,the television industry has set its sights on conquering 3D technology. However,in India,a major obstacle in this uphill climb is the lack of 3D content. While you are able to buy a handful of 3D movies on DVD and Blu-ray,you cant obviously keep watching the same movies,especially when you have bought a Rs 1lakh plus TV especially for the third dimension.
And that is just one more feature for the new top-of-the-game HD Recorder,which lets customers view HD and Standard Definition SD channels with pause and rewind options.
It can also record up to 550 hours of content,including all episodes of a series,that too without recording the repeats of programmes. The intelligent recording management on the DVR gives users the option of scheduling records in just two clicks,coupled with the option of selecting beforehand the number of episodes to be saved. The recorded content can be accessed even according to genres like talk shows,romance,etc.
While it has 550 hours of storage,the DVR can automatically delete viewed content to make space for new programmes. The DVR can also record two programmes at the same time,thus preventing disputes in many homes. Interestingly,the recordings can be scheduled even through mobile phones with a similar user-interface as the TV,provided you have a unique user ID and password for your account.
Another innovation in the DVR is the onscreen widget powered by Infosys. The widget can show time,weather,news and stock tickers. But the transparent widget cannot be customised or even moved to another part of the screen,and can be a bit of a distraction after some time. Thankfully,it can be switched off.
Airtel has already upgraded 250 channels to HD quality. The sound quality is anyway Digital Dolby Plus 7.1 surround. The new DVR can be bought for Rs 4,490,while old customers can upgrade to HD for Rs 3,990.
Flashtv HD
Many of us have lots of downloaded TV shows and ripped DVDs on our hard drives and computers,which will never make it to the big screen in our living rooms. While some new LCDs can play content from USBs,not all formats are accepted.
But Amkettes Flashtv HD can fulfill the big screen dreams for your DIVX and AVI files. This small box can play any format you have without conversion to full HD content,by simply connecting it to your LCD or plasma screen through an HDMI cable. Movies will look better if you have the content in HD too,but even those 720p movies get a boost with Flashtv HD.
If you connect a hard drive to Flashtv,the content will show up in your AV yes,you can run it on regular TVs too. The user interface is very easy to use and segregates files into videos,pictures,music,etc. It does not show any folders,though,and all content of a kind are clubbed together.
But navigation is easy,thanks to the remote,which even has dedicated buttons for different files. The remote also lets you effortlessly pause,fast-forward and rewind videos and movies. The search option comes handy if you have an extra-large hard drive.
The Flashtv box also provides options like an SD card slot or a USB for reading content and HDMI,S/PDIF,YPbPr and even the old AV options to beam content.
However,I found a power On/Off button missing on the unit.
The Flash TV HD costs Rs 4,595,while its also available at the street price of Rs 3,995 along with a free HDMI cable
worth Rs 499.
