I&B Ministry
I&B Ministry to study why MSOs are not taking indigenous STBs
NEW DELHI: The Information and Broadcasting Ministry (I&B) will facilitate a meeting of manufacturers of indigenous set top boxes (STBs) and multi-system operators (MSOs) next week in view of complaints by the manufacturers that no orders were being placed for their STBs.
This was decided at a meeting of the Task Force which will oversee the next two phases of digital addressable system (DAS) and which met under the chairmanship of Ministry Additional Secretary J S Mathur here today.
Earlier this week, the manufacturers had met Ministry secretary Bimal Julka and made the same complaint.
The participants were apprised that around 3.5 households had to be covered in the third phase of digitisation.
A Ministry source told indiantelevision.com that the meeting discussed various roadblocks on the road to full digitisation and ways to overcome these hurdles.
Star India legal & regulatory senior vice president Pulak Bagchi, who is also the representative of the broadcasters said emphatically that broadcasters would support voluntary transition to DAS as long as there were some ground rules.
He also said that broadcasters were prepared to give concessions to operators switching over to DAS provided the operators totally stopped analogue transmission.
Bagchi also said that it should be made mandatory that any MSO or local cable operator who switches over to DAS should switch off analogue and not run both systems.
The meeting was attended by around 20 people and included representatives of trade bodies like FICCI and CII, apart from MSOs, LCOs and DAS advisor Yogendra Pal.
I&B Ministry
Prasar Bharati sets EPG standards for DD Free Dish platform
New specs define 7-day guide, LCN mapping, and device compatibility.
MUMBAI: Your TV guide just got a backstage pass structured, scheduled, and far more in sync. Prasar Bharati has released detailed technical specifications for Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) services on DD Free Dish, laying down a standardised framework for how channels and programme information are organised and delivered. At the core of the update is a defined EPG data structure, covering genre-based categorisation, scheduling formats, and Logical Channel Numbering (LCN). The aim is simple: make navigation less guesswork and more guided experience across the platform’s over 40 million households.
The specifications also introduce a seven-day programme guide window for each channel, alongside clear rules for channel grouping and LCN mapping effectively deciding not just what you watch, but how easily you find it.
On the technical front, the document outlines requirements for Program Specific Information (PSI) and Service Information (SI), including descriptor usage across tables such as PAT, BAT and NIT. It further details service lists and network linkage parameters, giving OEMs and developers a clearer blueprint for integration.
Importantly, the framework is designed to work seamlessly with television sets equipped with in-built satellite tuners, enabling users to access DD Free Dish directly without additional hardware, an incremental but meaningful step towards simplifying access.
The platform will continue to operate on GSAT-15 transponders, using MPEG-4 compression and DVB-S2 transmission standards, ensuring continuity even as the interface evolves.
While largely technical, the move signals a broader push towards standardisation and user-friendly discovery in India’s free-to-air ecosystem because sometimes, the real upgrade isn’t what’s on screen, but how easily you get there.
