The economic crisis has taken its toll on the DTH industry, with several providers postponing the launch of Digital Video Recorders (DVR). Reliance Big TV, who was planning to launch its DVR by mid-October, might unveil the product only in the beginning of next fiscal. The DVRs are upgraded DTH set-top boxes which allow the viewers to record multiple programmes from different TV channels, this feature also comes at a higher price, DVRs would cost between Rs 7000 to Rs 9000.
"The sale of DVR service comes with heavy cost implications to DTH service providers, which only adds to their existing financial burden of offering the basic DTH services. This may be among the reasons why some of the existing DTH players are holding back the launch of their DVR services," said an industry expert.
Reliance also intended to launch its IPTV service by end of 2008, but that has been deferred as well.