DD Free Dish

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DD Direct Plus is a Direct To Home television service in India, run by the state owned broadcaster Doordarshan. The service offers all Doordashan channels, along with a few private satellite television channels. This service is entirely free except the initial cost of equipment. Doordarshan has claimed that 2 million boxes have been sold so far. Several thousand Set Top Boxes have been distributed free to various Panchayats, village schools and hospitals.

The DD DIRECT+ platform carries 33 free-to-air channels and is likely to include more channels in the future. The satellite earth station for uplink of signals is in Delhi. NSS-6 is the high power Ku-band satellite hosting the DD DTH services.

The Quality of DD signal is one of the best at least in India compared with other DTH providers.

These channels are available free of charge.

The approximate cost of the equipment to view DD channels is around Rs. 1800/- including Set Top Box, LNB and antenna.

DD DIRECT+ carries 19 Doordarshan channels, 14 Private TV channels and 12 audio channels of All India Radio. (There are a few Test channels that run from Test 1 to Test 20, though for the moment only DD Regional channels are being shown on them)

Frequencies of DD DIRECT PLUS Bouquet

Freq: 10977 S.Rate 27500 Pol: Horizontal ***NEW FREQUENCY
Freq: 12688 S.Rate 27500 Pol: Horizontal ***NEW FREQUENCY (JULY , 01 2006)

Freq: 12534 S.Rate 27500 Pol: Horizontal
Freq: 12647 S.Rate 27500 Pol: Vertical
Freq: 12729 S.Rate 27500 Pol: Vertical

Channels of DD DIRECT PLUS Bouquet

Channels in Testing Phase

Freq : 10977 Horizontal Test 6 To 10
Freq : 12688 Horizontal TEST 11 to 20

DOORDARSHAN Channels

PRIVATE Channels

Via Non DD DIRECT+ TV Freqs.

Zee Jagran12538, V, 40690
Dish Interactive
Play TV
CGN TV Hong(11090, H, 29500)
Lanka TV
Lanka TV2

RADIO Channels

Via NON DD Direct+ Radio Freqs:-

Future channels

In a bid to strengthen Doordarshan's Direct-to-Home (DTH) service, the Centre has decided to increase the number of TV channels on DD direct plus to fifty, from the existing thirty-three. Minister of Information and Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs, P. R. Dasmunsi sated in the Lok Sabha on Friday that the equipment needed for expansion of Doordarshan's DTH service was being procured, and would be installed by mid-2006.

“Thecannot be specified at this stage. However, the decision regarding new channels will be taken on merit after the necessary technical infrastructure is in place,” he stated.

Till December one last year, forty-nine private TV broadcasters have applied for inclusion of their channels on DD direct plus. Of these, 17 are Delhi based, five from Tamil Nadu, four from Kerala, three from Maharashtra, two each from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and one each from Punjab, Assam, Uttar Pradesh.

Thirteen are foreign based including three from USA, two each from UK and Korea and one each in Singapore, Germany, Canada, France, Nepal and Netherlands.

The foreign channels that have evinced interest include Channel News Asia, German pubcaster Deutsche Welle, French TV5 and Canada’s SS TV.

Various Indian channels who have shown an eagerness to be part of DD Direct Plus include Sahara One, Sahara Samay Rashtriya, E TV, Win TV, Asianet, Zee News, Total TV, Jaya TV,ETV Kannada, interactive music channel Speed Music, CMM Music, ETC Music, SS Music and Sur Sangeet.

Prasar Bharathi senior official K S Sharma on Wednesday told newsman in Delhi that number of private channels in DD Direct+ will be increased to 50 by July 2006^{[citation needed]}. Decision is already taken. But still, at the time of writing of this article, (September-2006), these channels have still not been started.

External links

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