TechnoGuy's Blog

A Young Lankan Blogger

2010-02-21T15:16:00.002+05:30

www.lankanblogger.tk

OR

lankanblogger.wordpress.com

Goodbye!

2009-12-24T09:01:00.003+05:30

Well, sadly, I never got to officially say goodbye last year. I was extremely busy with my work and there was no choice but to abandon the blog. Returning after almost two years, I'm sad to find that many people have discovered this blog only after it was abandoned.

I wish to ask for forgiveness from those who enjoyed reading my blog and watched with hope that they would see a new post here. This will the last new post here, and alas, it is not about IT or electronic media. Instead I request forgiveness from all readers of this blog as I never hinted at the possibility of shutting down this blog.

I still do not plan to shut down the blog completely. Instead I will let it remain online for people to enjoy age-old articles. Personally, I am very pleased with the quality of the articles I have written years ago, considering my actual age at that time (you will be surprised). I am still younger than most of the blogging generation, especially in Sri Lanka.

Blogging here has been a great adventure for me. During its single year of real existence, this blog garnered thousands of visits and several committed readers, which is a great achievement for me. I learnt more about writing (somewhat) professionally in English, which later went on to help in my education. I learnt more about the world IT and media, especially in Sri Lanka, and I hope you learnt something too.

I hope to launch another blog soon, less under a false identity and more relevant to my real life. However I will not inform readers of this blog about my new adventure. It will be a new beginning, and it will not be directly targeted at IT or electronic media.

Finally, thank you for being a reader of this blog. It has been a pleasure blogging for you.

And Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2010 to all of you!

City Hits + TechnoGuy's Blog

2008-03-20T19:01:00.002+05:30

TechnoGuy's Blog has formed a partnership with City Hits, aiming to provide even more information and an improved service to our readers.

City Hits is a Sri Lanka-based Entertainment Community with the vision "to be the most important gateway to WORLD and a "one-stop" site for ENTERTAINMENT and leisure related information on the Internet". Although launched only in December 2007 (4 months ago), the blog has already garnered a large readership with almost 5500 hits so far. City Hits provides information on the latest TV Shows, Box Office Movies, Promotional Offers by Local Services, Sri Lanka's Popular Night Clubs, and so much more. Go there now and have a look for yourself.

TechnoGuy's Blog is about "Information Technology and Electronic Media from a Sri Lankan viewpoint". It has been online for just over a year now, and have over 5500 hits with 7 feed subscribers.

We hope that our readers will benefit as much as we do from this partnership.

TechnoGuy is now on YouTube

2008-03-19T19:15:00.002+05:30

I'm now registered on YouTube to provide videos related to Pay Television and IT in Sri Lanka. Of course I only have Dialog TV at home, so most of the videos will be related to it. Through this I hope to tell the world how good/bad the situation of Pay TV in Sri Lanka is, and educate future customers through real life videos so that they can see the truth for themselves.

My YouTube Profile

Please send in your ideas for new videos via comments here or email.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke has left us

2008-03-19T18:52:00.002+05:30

He is most well known around the world for creating the concept of Satellite Technology. Satellites play a vital role in today's world for communication and other purposes. If not for this man, when would such a conecpt have been created?

He also wrote a number of interesting science fiction books, and made many predictions about the future of mankind and the universe. He predicted that man would visit the Moon before the year 2000, and man did go there in 1969 and many times afterwards. Most of his other predictions too have proved to be correct.

Arthur C. Clarke lived in Sri Lanka (of all countries) for a large portion of his lifetime. I believe he liked the peaceful environment and beautiful scenery which would help him continue inventing, writing and predicting. He adapted to the Sri Lankan way of life and ofter enjoyed wearing a sarong and t-shirt like most other Sri Lankan men do.

Another major part of his life was his post-Polio syndrome which made him unabled to walk properly and placed him in the wheelchair. Yet he continued to lead an active lifestyle. Countless times I saw him at the Otter's Aquatic Club, sitting in his wheelchair, enjoying the scenery and watching the children have fun in the pool. He came there for regular exercise to keep himself as fit as possible.

Sri Arthur C. Clarke was awarded a CBE (knighthood) in 1989, although he was unable to fly to England and receive the honours from the Queen as he was too ill for the long journey. He was also the Chancellor of the Moratuwa University from 1979 to 2002. The Moratuwa University was the first to offer IT eduction in Sri Lanka, and Arthur C. Clarke would have played a major role in its development.

In 2005, Sir Arthur C. Clarke was present at the opening of CBN Sat, Sri Lanka's first Satellite Pay Television network. CBN Sat caused a revolution in the television industry of Sri Lanka, and Arthur C. Clarke would have been happy to be a part of its beginning.

In December 2007, Arthur C. Clarke celebrated his 90th birthday together with the President of Sri Lanka and numerous other dignitaries. At the same time he produced a video bidding farewell to his frined and fans, knowing that he would leave the world soon.

Early this morning, Sir Clarke passed away after being hospitalized for four days. He would have predicted his deaths months or even years ahead. And he would have been happy and at peace when he died, as he knows what a great service he has done for mankind.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, may your sould Rest In Peace!

VerveEarth

2008-03-01T17:35:00.003+05:30

VerveEarth is a new seach engine-type website which turns surfing the World Wide Web into just surfing the World. VerveEarth organizes registered websites and blogs according to their base position in the world. For example, my blog's link is in Colombo, Sri Lanka on the VerveEarth map.

When you visit VerveEarth, first you see a world map (via Google Maps), with RSS icons all over the place. You can zoom in to any region and all websites/blogs in that area will be shown clearly using those icons. You place your mouse over the icons to read their titles, or click on them to see the latest posts in short (thanks to RSS). If you are registered at VerveEarth, you can choose favourites and then view a map of only your favourite websites in the world.

VerveEarth gives everyone a more interesting way to browse the internet. Apart from just clicking around the world map, you can type in a website and search in normal fashion. If you really want to understand what I say clearly, then visit VerveEarth now.

I got to know about VerveEarth from a email sent to me from the CEO of the service (it was probably automated). VerveEarth's website is completely interactive and loads surprisingly fast on my snail-type SLT ADSL connection.

At the moment VerveEarth has very few websites documented as blog owners have to register for people to see it on the map. VerveEarth probably will not go for web crawling like other search engines. And also VerveEarth is still in beta, so you can trust the service to improve more as time goes on.

If you own a website or blog, I recommend you go over to VerveEarth and put it on the map. Once the service becomes popular you can expect a ton of hits to your blog/website.

In Sri Lanka - As of now only my blog and another blog are registered at VerveEarth.

The First Anniversary

2008-02-17T20:41:00.001+05:30

Twelve months ago, a man nicknamed himself TechnoGuy Sri Lanka and entered the worldwide blogosphere. He created a blog to tell the world about Information Technology worldwide and how it affects Sri Lanka, and also to tell the world about the local Media industry.

Twelve months after February 17th, 2007, the very same man celebrates one year of blogging and thus the First Anniversary of TechnoGuy's Blog.

I am very happy on this day. First of all, I thank the TV & Radio Sri Lanka group of blogs for introducing me to Blogging. A partial thanks also goes to the shutdown of CBN Sat, which is not really a good thing, but prompted me to search the internet for information and made me discovery the CBN Sat Forum (now Dialog TV Forum).

Although I have become increasingly busy at work during the last year, it has not kept me from blogging. True, I missed out one entire month without a single post. But yet I tried my best back then, and still try to do so now whilst I am piling up with an ever-largening amount of work.

I have posted almost 50 posts and I've had an amazing 4500 visitors so far. I'm waiting for another 500 visitors. Meanwhile I've had almost 10 polls in which people have actively participated.

On December 26th, 2007, I introduced a new visual theme for the blog. This was both good and bad. The good was that this new style allows for a two side-columns for better organization. And the new theme does look better than the Blogger-made theme I used. The bad was that I lost all poll information because I overlooked writing it down before replacing the template.

I truly hope and pray that my blog will live on for many years to come, whatever may happen to me. I will try my best to post something useful and interesting as frequently as possible.

So I wish myself the best wishes for the future of TechnoGuy's Blog, and wonder what to post next.

Meanwhile, would you kindly consider voting on how well I've done so far, and commenting on future improvements I could make?

New Channels on Dialog TV (Early 2008)

2008-02-10T21:13:00.003+05:30

Its time for new channels once more on Dialog Satellite Television. This time the channels are not essential for Dialog's survival (at least for the moment), but will be pleasant additions if package prices are not increased.

Here are the channels that have already been launched:-

CH55 - Shruthi Television - Hindu religious channel

CH56 - Rana Ru - Entertainment and news for members of armed forces (scrambled for ordinary subscribers)

Unfortunately, this year there is no complete list of channel which will be launched. But here are the channels thought to be launched on Dialog TV on their 4th Transponder, according to unverified sources:-

Fox FX - Dedicated to programming targetted at men

Fox Crime - All about crime

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Fox News Channel - Popular news channel based in U.S.A.

Fox Sports - Sports channel which is available only in the Middle East so far

Fox Movie Channel - Movies from U.S.A.

Deutsche Welle TV - News and entertainment from Germany

TV5 Monde - Movies and entertainment from France

E! Entertainment Television - #1 channel for hollywood gossip and rumours (already on Dialog Mobile TV)

Channel NewsAsia - News channel based in Singapore

Baby TV - Entertainment for toddlers and information for parents

SS Music - Music from all Southern states of India

Channel C - Sri Lankan Music channel backed by Torana Music (already on Dialog Mobile TV)

There is a possibility that Dialog is in talks with Sun Network to provide India's most popular Tamil-language channels on Dialog TV. Hopefully these talks will have a positive result.

Picture Quality
Shruti Television has a high picture quality so far as only 10 channels are active, and 8 channels are probably not working at their fullest yet. Unfortunately the quality of Rana Ru cannot be accessed as the channel is scrambled for ordinary customers.

Sound Quality
It is difficult to measure the sound quality as many programmes on Shruti Television do not have professionally recorded audio.

EPG
None of the channels have Electronic Programme Guides so far.

But another interesting piece of information is that the EPG will be given a dedicated data channel. That means the EPGs of all channel will load faster and all EPGs can be accessed without changing the channel.

Acknowledgement
I thank all those who post information regarding new channels and improvement on Dialog TV at the Dialog TV Forum. The information provided here is solely based on the information they have provided.

Dialog Mobile TV: Updated

2008-02-10T17:19:00.000+05:30

Dialog has updated and improved their Mobile Streaming Television service sometime during the last few days. I was pleasantly surprised to browse to the Dialog Mobile TV Channels page and find some new channels and a new design.

3G and GPRS Feeds
First of all, each channel has two feed. One is for 3G and the other for GPRS. The GPRS feed has a lower bitrate so that GPRS users can actually watch television properly without spending the day buffering. The 3G feed has a higher bitrate and therefore higher quality, and so far I have not experienced any buffering problems.

New Channels
The important part is that Dialog has introduced new channels. Two of the new channels are popular pay television channels. Another new channel is a local pay television channel, launched last year on Dialog Satellite Television. I have never heard of the other new channels, so it is possible that Dialog (or a friendly company) is broadcasting those themselves.

Live Cricket

This channel contains STAR Sports India which broadcasts the India-Australia-Sri Lanka Triangular Series these days. It is unknown whether this channel is permanent.

The good old new channel that was available on Mobile TV for a long time now.

This remains Cartoon Network India, and is a trouble for parents who care about their Phone bills. Nothing has changed here (except for the seperate GPRS and 3G feeds).

Channel C
This is a new channel which broadcasts Sri Lankan music videos. It is currently undergoing test transmissions.

The ultimate channel for Hollwood Gossip and News. It is unclear whether this is the Asian feed or European Feed so far. But this channel is supposed to turn up on Dialog Satellite Television as well in the next few days.

This is the Sri Lankan pay television channel which broadcasts tele-dramas and films 24/7. It was launched on Dialog Satellite Television in December last year. The channel will be available only for Dialog Satellite TV customers who pay an extra LKR 25 after March 31st 2008. This makes me wonder whether Mobile TV customers too will have to pay for the channel.

Crazy TV
All things crazy! I go crazy when I try to sort out if this channel is international. So I believe that this channel may be broadcasted by Dialog themselves.

Joke TV
Once again, the channel is self explanatory. And also, this too may be broadcasted by Dialog.

Bollywood TV
This channel broadcasts Indian music. So far I have not seen any films, so maybe the channel is only for Bollywood Music. I've never heard of this channel before either.

Local Channels
The local channels on Dialog Mobile TV are the same as on Dialog Terrestrial and Dialog Satellite, except that here TNL is missing. Isn't something else missing from before?

The loss of the Maharaja
Yes, Sirasa TV, Channel One MTV and Shakthi TV are missing. And possibly they are not returning at all. Why? I don't know.

There is a possibility that Dialog wants Maharaja out of the way as Dialog is launching its own channels now. Or maybe Maharaja Corporation wants their channels to be available only on terrestrial. Whatever happens, it's Maharaja's loss, not Dialog's.

Final Thoughts
This improvement is likely to heat up the mobile market in Sri Lanka. So far, Dialog has been utterly silent about this, but soon there is likely to be a major advertising programme. Mobitel will work fast to improve their services and maybe introduce some new channels to their Mobi TV service. However, no one seems to be talking about any Mobi TV, even though Mobitel has announced it. Does anyone know about it?

These days Dialog may be celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Dialog GSM (not confirmed), which means that there will be many benefits for customers.

I'm watching and waiting for Dialog's next move, as well as their competitor Mobitel's next move.

Dialog TV: Going MPEG-4

2008-01-18T19:47:00.000+05:30

NOTE: The switch to MPEG-4 is probably not going to happen so soon, but this article will remain here if anyone want to get a faint idea of what may be planned.

Dialog Satellite Television is planning to add a wide range of new channels within the next few months using MPEG-4 encoding technology. MPEG-4 offers lower bitrates and better quality, which means that any digital broadcaster can broadcast even more channels than before within the same limited space.

Lets have a look at what MPEG-4 can change for current and future customers of Dialog TV.

Solving the Transponder Issue
Dialog has only three transponders at the moment, with one more on its way. Each of the current transponders can fit in around 18 channels (except the third transponder, which has 19) with acceptable quality using MPEG-2 encoding. This results in a total of 55 channels, which is the channel count on Dialog. Once Dialog gets a transponder, addition of channels can be done fast. But the problem is that transponders are expensive, and satellites are fast running out of them.

So the best solution is to fit as many channels as possible to the existing transponders. This can be done even now with MPEG-4. But ultimately each channel will have less bandwidth to call its own, and the overall quality will suffer.

This is where the new MPEG-4 comes in. Using MPEG-4, the current channel number of 18 per transponder can be doubled to 36 channels. Yet there will not be a loss of quality because of the magic of MPEG-4. The quality may even be better than before.

This means that Dialog can avoid having to purchase more transponders, but still introduce more new channels.

Being a MPEG-4 decoder does not mean that the decoder is immediately MPEG-2 compatible. This depends completely on the hardware and software. But since MPEG-4 decoder processors are quite powerful, it is likely that MPEG-2 can also be decoded quite easily after a system software upgrade.

The Current Plans
Please note that these are subject to change. Visit the Dialog TV Forum for the latest information.

Dialog now plans to introduce a fourth transponder with 35 channels, using MPEG-4 encoding. This will surely be a great treat for the customers.

But using MPEG-4 will need customers to purchase new decoders, and so far Dialog does not sound like they will give them out free. According to the current information, those who want access to the new channels can purchase the new decoder. The new MPEG-4 decoder will cost around LKR 6000+++.

The new decoder will be backward compatible with MPEG-2, as channels on the existing three transponders will not be upgraded to MPEG-4 immediately.

Certain sources suggest that Dialog TV will use the same decoder as the Indian DTH service Sun Direct. Sun Direct too broadcasts using MPEG-4, and uses the same Irdeto encryption technology, so this is quite possible.

There is also a possibility that MPEG-4 decoding will be enabled through some sort of software upgrade for existing decoders, but it depends completely on whether the hardware will be powerful enough to decode the power hungry MPEG-4.

Customers will have to watch and wait till Dialog launches their new transponder with new technology. Unfortunately, the new channels being in MPEG-4 means that existing customers cannot watch the test transmissions. Lets be patient, shall we...

MPEG: A Brief Overview

2008-01-18T17:26:00.000+05:30

Motion Picture Experts Group, better known as MPEG (pronoounced "M. Peg"), is the group responsible for developing and standardising three of the world's most popular media encoding formats. The MPEG encoding is using in almost all digital broadcasting services, and also in a variety of digital video discs (DVD, HD DVD, Blu-Ray).

MPEG-1
This is the first MPEG standard, whose first version was finalised in 1993. It was developed with the idea of fitting audio and video into a Compact Disc (CD). The format was made the base of the Video CD, a compact disc containing MPEG-1 encoded video which became most popular in Asia.

MPEG-1 allowed for acceptable quality with a resolution only upto 352x288 pixels, and with a maximum bitrate of around 1.5 Mbps. The video quality was similar to that of a VHS tape, except for the pixelation. The audio consisted of only one channel (mono). The standard is almost obsolete today, but is important as it gave way for the more advanced MPEG standards we use today.

MPEG-2
This is the most widely used multimedia encoding standard in the world today, mainly because of its usage on DVDs. MPEG-2 is used worldwide for digital broadcasting as well.

MPEG-2 supports upto 720 × 576 resolution with max. 8 Mbps bitrate for usual DVD-quality video. It also supports High Definition video upto 1080p with a high bitrate. MPEG-2 Audio allows 2 (stereo) or more channels to be included, using MP2 or AC3 encoding.

MPEG-2 has less quality and a much higher bitrate requirement for HD video. Nevertheless, it is popular for broadcasting in High Definition.

MPEG-4
This is the newest MPEG standard available today, and hopes replace its predecessor MPEG-2 very soon. It was finalised in 1998, and first became popular for use in encoding media to share on the internet. Later it was adopted as the standard encoding format for the Blu-ray and HD DVD media discs.

There are substandards which work under MPEG-4, including MPEG-4 AVC, x264, DivX and Xvid. The actual quality and bitrate-efficiency depends on the substandard used. H.264 is arguably the best, with bitrates as low as 3.75 Mbps for HD video.

MPEG-4 is most advantageous over MPEG-2 because it can encode very high quality video with much lower bitrates than before. It also supports High Definition video. Bitrates vary according to the substandard used. A regular DVD-quality video using 8 Mbits in MPEG-2, can use as little as 2 Mbps on MPEG-4 to with hardly any quality loss.

Many DTH services now use MPEG-4 because of its low bandwidth usage. On satellite DTH services, even more channels can be squeezed into a transponder using MPEG-4. This can reduce costs greatly for service providers, as less transponders are required. DirecTV, Dish Network (both in USA), Reliance Big TV and Sun Direct (in India) all use MPEG-4 for broadcasting, and many existing services will upgrade to the new technology within the next few years.

The MPEG-2 standard would become obsolete very soon if DVDs did not exist and/or HD DVDs and Blu-ray discs did not cost so much.

In Sri Lanka - Dialog TV hopes to add new channels using MPEG-4 very soon. I will be covering that subject in another post, coming soon.

New Design for TechnoGuy's Blog

2007-12-26T20:26:00.001+05:30

I have completed the installation of a New Design for my blog. It is called "Minyx" and was created by B-THEMES.

The new design uses a large amount of external graphics. This could cause future problems if this blog gets high traffic, as other blogs may be using this design with the same graphics. The graphics are stored on an Image Hosting service.

There are three columns in the design, unlike many other Blogger templates. This design itself is based on a template made for WordPress, but it has been converted to Blogger-compatible format.

Unfortunately, due to my own ignorance, the Poll Information has been lost. If anyone does have a record of the previous Polls, please inform me.

Many thanks go to B-THEMES for creating this wonderful design.

I've also created a Poll for all visitors inform me of their experience with the new design. If you have any ideas for improvement, please post a comment.

Finally, I hope you like the New Design for the Year 2008. Happy New Year!

The New Dialog TV Decoder

2007-12-25T19:27:00.000+05:30

Today is Chrsitmas, and I celebrated it with my friends. I also got the opportunity to use the new Decoder built by Technosat (UAE) for Dialog Satellite Television. The New Decoder is a major improvement over the Coship CDVB5110D Decoder originally chosen by CBNsat.

The New Decoder, as I assume, is specifically designed for Dialog TV by the U.A.E.-base company Technosat. I assume so because the Technosat Website does not show or mention the Dialog TV Decoder.

The New Decoder follows in the footsteps of major DTH services such as Sky (UK), Dish TV (India) and DirecTV (USA). The interface is mostly made up of blue colour, and is more simpler than before (debatable).

Physical Aspects
The Decoder is physically shaped like a regular slim DVD player, only less wider. It is silver/gray in colour. It also has the Dialog Satellite TV label pasted on it.

Connections
The connections in the Old Decoder and the New Decoder are the same, except for the Digital Coaxial Output. I've listed out the connections I can remember:

1 x Satellite In
1 x Loop Out
1 x RF In
1 x RF Out

1 x Composite Out
1 x S-Video Out
2 x Audio L+R Out
1 x S/PDIF Optical Out (TOSLINK or Digital Optical Audio Cable)
1 x S/PDIF Coaxial Out (Digital Coaxial Audio Cable)

1 x RS-232 (COM)

The Blue Information Dashboard
The blue dashboard that appears when you change the channel or press the "i" (Info) button displays the usual information. But only the current programme is listed, not the next programme. And also the current time is included in the dashboard, not in a seperate window on top of the screen.

By pressing the "i" button a second time, it is possible to get information on the current Satellite, Signal Quality, etc.

Electronic Programme Guide
The Electronic Programming Guide now has its own full screen window. The current channel is displayed in a small window on the top-left side of the screen. The current time and date are displayed below that. On the right side is the list of channels and the current programme. By selecting a channel with the "OK" button, and then pressing the Red button, it is possible to see its weekly EPG.

By pressing the "OK" button while watching a channel, you can access the usual list of channels. But in the New Decoder this is a full screen window, with the current channel displayed on the top-left side and the list of channels on the right side, similar to the EPG.

Pressing the "i" button when selecting a certain programme on a channel will allow you to view its description. The description can cover many page (the most I saw were 4 pages). This explains why we sometimes see only the last few words of the description on the Old Decoders. When there is no description the Decoder politely displays "No Extended Information", without showing a plain black box.

It is also possible to set a Reminder for a programme on any channel. I could not experiment with this, though.

Snapshots
There is also an attractive feature which allows a user to view snapshots of 9 channels at a time. The name of each channel is displayed on the lower part of each snapshot.

Zoom
The Zoom feature allows you to magnify the current video up to 4x, just as in most of today's DVD players.

Menus
The menu system of the New Decoder consists of colourful graphics to denote each submenu. Unfortunately I did not have time to look around there.

Satellite Chooser
By pressing the "Sat" button you can select the satellite you want to use. Of course, in Dialog TV there is only one satellite: IntelSat 12.

The Logo
And I nearly forgot: almost every full screen page has the Dialog Satellite TV logo on the top together with the Title of the page.

Bugs
The Decoder can sometimes be a bit buggy. I once surfed through the channels and pressed the "Zoom" button, only to get an odd picture on the screen. The pictures was replaced by the normal television video after changing to another channel.

Purchasing the New Decoder
I do not know about any exchange programme for the New Decoders and Old Decoders. If you do want the New Decoder, it may be possible to purchase one for money (although you will still lose the Old Decoder). If you want to keep both the Old and New Decoders then you will have to pay for two connections.

Dialog will probably not open an exchange programme for these this decoder. If you know anything on this subject, please inform me.

Final Thoughts
Overall, I'm impressed with the New Decoder. Dialog designing and manufacturing their own Decoder together with a popular foreign company is a great thing. And the Decoder itself is almost on par with the ordinary Decoders of other DTH services, although not offering DVR capabilities.

But it is not worth exchanging the Decoder unless it is given free-of-charge or for a very low price.

Eventually I believe that Dialog TV will introduce another new Decoder, especially if they upgrade to MPEG-4 compression. And possibly Digital Video Recording capabilities too will be introduced.

As I do not have the New Decoder at home, I may be wrong at some points. Most of this was written by memory. I you do have the New Decoder, please correct me and provide more information.

The End of the Year 2007

2007-12-24T19:05:00.000+05:30

It has been a great 2007 after launching this blog in February and actively blogging for 10 months now. Just two months more for the 1st Birthday of TechnoGuy's Blog. Time flies...

This Christmas season I've posted some new information. I've also added new ways to keep up with my blog via RSS/ATOM Feeds, thanks to the popular Feed Burner service. I've only got around 3 subscribers to my feed at the moment, but I hope for some imrpovements in 2008.

So see you next year. For now I wish you a

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2008

Let Them Know Its Christmas Time Again

2007-12-24T18:03:00.000+05:30

Christmas is here. It is the season for Joy, Peace and Harmony among all. The Christmas spirit is not limited to the Christians. Have you not felt the happiness within and around you in December, even though you may be a Buddhist, Hindu or Muslim. Whoever we are, whatever religion we belong to, this is a season to show Love and Kindness to our neighbour.

Have you shown your Christmas Spirit this year?

Be Together For All

They protect our motherland and are the reason many of us live to celebrate Christmas this year. Just as we smile, joke and spend our time celebrating with our friends and family, the Guardians of Sri Lanka are watching fearlessly and giving their lives to save ours.

We can never repay to them what they have paid for us, but let us do what we can. Donate today to the "Be Together For All (Api Wenuwen Api Wemu)" Fund and help build a house for a soldier and his/her family.

You can donate to the fund by Cheque or even through your Dialog Mobile Phone.

Click Here for information on how to contribute.

Do They Know Its Christmas?

Do you know that many adults and children are dying of hunger in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa today? Do you want to even look at their wrinkled bodies and sad faces during Christmas? They have no food, no water and no clothes. Do not turn away, do not hide it at the back of your head, when you can do something.

The above song was sung by Band Aid 20. The original Band Aid created and sung the song "Do They Know Its Christmas? (Feed the World)" in 1984. The song became an instant hit in the Christmas of 1984, taking the #1 position in the UK Charts. The latest Band Aid was formed in 2004 under the name "Band Aid 20", including the newer pop stars and adding rap features to the song.

All proceeds from the purchase of the song "Do They Know Its Christmas?" go to Ethiopia to save a life. You needn't be a hero to save someone elses life. just purchase and enjoy the music.

Both the 1984 and 2004 editions of the song are now available for sale in Audio CD format, and well as on many online stores such as the iTunes Store.

Speed Test: Sri Lanka

2007-12-18T17:23:00.000+05:30

Many users from Sri Lanka have tested their internet connections with Speedtest.net, a free download/upload speed testing service. The service also lists the Continents, Countries, Cities and Internet Service Providers according to the highest download and upload speeds.

Lets have a look at how Sri Lanka rates.

Internet Service Providers - Download
1. MTT Network (Dialog Broadband) - 994 kb/s
2. Sri Lanka Telecom - 432 kb/s
3. Unknown - 413 kb/s

Internet Service Providers - Upload
1. MTT Network (Dialog Broadband) - 309 kb/s
2. Sri Lanka Telecom - 147 kb/s
3. Unknown - 134 kb/s

Cities - Download
1. Kelaniya - 677 kb/s
2. Kotte - 658 kb/s
3. Colombo - 458 kb/s
4. Battaramulla - 458 kb/s
5. Kandy - 413 kb/s

Cities - Upload
1. Kelaniya - 233 kb/s
2. Kotte - 171 kb/s
3. Kandy - 168 kb/s
4. Colombo - 160 kb/s
5. Battaramulla - 148 kb/s

Interesting. Evidently Dialog Broadband takes the first place because they have only high speed connections. SLT lags behind Dialog, and what is the Unknown ISP in Sri Lanka? It comes very close to SLT. I can guarantee that the City-based lists are not very accurate.

As more and more Sri Lankan surfers test their connection speed, the listings are likely to change greatly. So keep checking Speedtest.net for the latest ratings and see if SLT can improve with their Mobitel Broadband.

Speed Test: SLT

2007-12-18T17:14:00.000+05:30

Today I came accross a free online service named Speedtest.net which allows internet users to measure the download and upload speeds from the current location to a selected server. The closest server to Sri Lanka was Male in Maldives. The free service helped prove how awful the SLT ADSL service was becoming.

My home connection is SLT ADSL 512k download and 128k upload.

I tested my home connection in two stages: Daytime and Nighttime. Nighttime results are generally better as there is less internet traffic in Sri Lanka in the night.

Home Test: Daytime (1430h-1530h)

Home Test: Nighttime (2030h-2130h)

Webcam Business

2007-12-17T12:21:00.000+05:30

I have three Webcams at home:

1. Logitech Quickcam Chat
2. Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000
3. Kodak ...

The Quickcam Chat is my latest webcam, and is not an improvement over the others. My good old Quickcam Pro 4000 stopped showing video after about a year of use. When in operation it shows a black, sometimes flickering screen. Only the microphone worked properly. After research on the internet, I came to the conclusion that the sensor in the Pro 4000 was dead and gone.

So I bought a Quickcam Chat looking for a cheaper deal. Big mistake. The Quickcam Chat's picture quality was light years behind my Quickcam Pro 4000. The picture was even worse than the front camera of my 3G phones.

My Kodak webcam (1999) never works under Windows XP or Vista, so that too is useless to me.

Can anyone suggest a good webcam to buy, which has less chances of dying within the first few years?

Mobitel 3.5G

2007-12-17T11:50:00.000+05:30

Mobitel too introduced their Thrid Generation network last week. They announced an improvement over Dialog 3G's services as Mobitel has 3.5G, a newer version.

Mobitel M3 boasts 7.2 Mbps downlink speed and 1.9 Mbps uplink speed, which is a large improvement over the ordinary 3G. However, only 512 Kbps downlink and 128 Kbps uplink is available for mobile users. The higher speeds are available under monthly subscription for home and office users, not for mobile users. The subscription packages range from LKR 400 (512k) to LK 15000 (7.2M).

Free Data Bundles on 3G Home Usage
But unfortunately all the subscription packages have download limits. SLT once more cheats the customers, by calling these limits "Free Data Bundles". Once you pass the limit, you have to pay LKR 10 for every 10 MB downloaded.

I personally believe it is better to get Dialog WiMAX 4M for LKR 14000 and download without limit, than use Mobitel Broadband for LK 15000 and pay even more for "excess" downloading. Its simply not worth for users like me, who download a lot of data every month. I should get around to measuring my downlink usage.

For Mobile Users
M3 is slightly faster than Dialog 3G, and equal to SLT Home ADSL at 512K. Dialog 3G is at 384K, although it has been faster at times. M3 has a session charge of LKR 2 whilst Dialog had removed it some time ago. The prices are equal between the two at LKR 0.02 per kilobyte.

Oh, I almost forgot! There is a "Free Data Bundle" of 200 MB for mobile users too. Customers say that this provides 200 MB of free downloads to all customers. After passing 200 MB the normal data charge will be applied. That's nice of Mobitel. But then why give the same name "Free Data Bundle" for the "download limit" on 3G home usage?

Video Calling
M3 provides Video Calling T LKR 3 per minute and higher to M3 customers, according to the package. It was also said in the M3 launch speech that "this is probably the lowest price you will ever get". LKR 3 is definitely cheaper than Dialog 3G Video Calls (LKR 5 per minute), but whether it will remain so is yet to be seen.

Mobi TV
Now is the the Mobi TV service available in the Americas or Mobitel's own service under the same name. Most likely it is the latter (copyright issues?). This is the competition to Dialog Mobile TV. The picture quality on M3 could be improved because of the slightly faster downlink speed. Other than that, I do not have any information on the channels available.

We are the First in South Asia (NOT)
Mobitel has been proudly proclaiming that they are the first in Asia to provide 3.5G and HSPA (High Speed Data Access) in South Asia. There is a flaw in this advertising. Mobitel is the first to provide 3.5G, but not HSPA. Dialog was actually the first to provide HSPA in South Asia.

This is only a summary of the information that Mobitel has provided, but as with all advertising there are and will be misleading details. Please tell me about your experience with M3 if you have used the service, and about the Mobi TV service. And also some understanding about the "Free Data Bundle" business will be happily accepted.

For the moment I think I will stick on with Dialog because they have not set download limits, etc. And their service has not created much problems for me so far. I do not always trust SLT and their services, especially with the great fake price reducation they issued on landphones (benefits were only for businesses; we paid the same old amount).

Anyway, we must be happy that Dialog and Mobitel are the first to introduce 3G Networks in South Asia. A great milestone for both companies and for Sri Lanka.

UPDATE: Thanks to K FLYER and Tao 365 for further information.

Hands on with Dialog 3G

2007-12-10T14:51:00.001+05:30

Dialog Telekom was the first to introduce the Third Generation mobile systems to Sri Lanka. In mid-November this year, Dialog began providing 3G facilities to all Dialog Mobile customers. All customers can now use 3G facilities if they have a compatible 3G Phone.

Soon I received the 3G service on my Nokia N80, and began to wonder if there was a mistake somewhere. When I checked GPRS, it turned out to be very fast. But Video Calling did not work.A few days later, the Press Release on Dialog 3G was made available on Dialog's Corporate website. It explained that 3G was now available to all Dialog GSM and KIT customers. I enabled Video Calling too under the given instructions.

So how was the Dialog 3G experience? For me, it was mostly trouble-free and interesting. However, some of my friends with 3G did say they have problems. But since I have not seen them first-hand, I cannot comment.

3G Internet
Internet on the Dialog 3G network was like heaven after suffering GPRS for over a year now. According to my research, 3G (not 3.5) could reach up to 1.5 mbps. Even though Dialog stated on 384 kbps as the speed on their website, I believe it surpassed that limit at certain timed. One reason for the high speed would be that few people are using 3G services at the moment, although this will change as 3G phone become cheaper.

An interesting fact is that Dialog 3G Internet surpassed the speed of my home SLT ADSL 512k. When downloading a video of about 5 MB, ADSL crawled at a speed of 5 kbps. But when I connected my computer to the Internet via my phone, it downloaded at around 20 kbps. I'm starting to consider moving to Dialog Broadband too (Dialog 2 Mbps is cheaper than SLT 2 Mbps).

Dialog Mobile TV
Dialog Mobile TV was launched a few years ago and has been one of Dialog's unique features so far. It provide CNN, Cartoon Network, and several local channels over the GPRS and 3G networks. On GPRS it would be a waste of money to watch television, as there was hardly anything to be seen or heard. But on 3G this experience changed for the better. Television on 3G loaded fast and worked smoothly without any bumps, and it was much clearer than I would ever imagine. I could actually read the text on the newsbar of CNN (although I do not encourage you to do so; the text is small and you can damage your eyes trying to read it).

Video Calling
Soon I got hold of my old N70 and enabled Video Calling on that too. I took my first ever Video Call from me to myself (later I tried with a friend). The quality of the video transmitted was good, although not crystal clear as shown in the deceiving advertisements.But it was good enough to recognize the face and even the background. And the video was transmitted within approx. two seconds. Audio did not always synchronize with the video.

So far Dialog 3G is quite satisfactory for me. With the recent reduction of prices, 3G has only become more affordable. But with 3.5G now in the market with higher data rates from Mobitel, and Airtel coming withing the next year, it will be interesting to see what happens. Competition will work to the customers advantage, although I will not be switching to another mobile network anytime soon. I encourage you to try out 3G now if you have a compatible phone.

Windows Vista: The 256 Experience

2007-10-07T10:55:00.000+05:30

Windows Vista officially supports on 512 MB of RAM or higher. The setup itself stops you from installing without the necessary amount of RAM. But fortunately this can be bypassed using a certain crack.

I am currently working on a friend's laptop, on which he wanted Windows Vista to be installed. But its RAM and Graphics are nothing much to be spoken about. 256 MB of RAM definitely did not appeal to the Windows Vista Setup program, so I cracked the setup. Next time it did work.

Almost everything on the internet warned that using Vista on 256 MB of RAM was very foolish, and would be fruitless. But I used to run Vista with 512 MB of RAM on my own computer some time ago, and it worked very well! So I beleived that Windows Vista could run on 256 MB at a reasonable speed as well.

Setup
First I reformatted the computer and installed Windows XP. Then I copied the Vista setup files to the computer and cracked it to work with 256 MB of RAM.

The setup ran at the speed I was used to. Took about 45 minutes to complete. No problems whatsoever. I was very pleased.

First Startup
The "Welcome" screen appeared and stayed on for about 30 seconds. Next it loaded the desktop. Although the system could now be used, it was loading stuff in the background for about 5 minutes, and everything was slow. After that, everything ran smoothly and without any system errors.

Boosting the Speed
The Speed of Vista greatly depends on the Processor and RAM. The processor, in this case, was a Intel Celeron M with a 1.3 GHz clock speed. The RAM was, of course, only 256 MB. So one way to speed up was to increase the RAM.

I could not waste money on buying new RAM for the laptop. Instead, I used Vista's new and powerful feature named "Windows ReadyBoost".

What does it do? It uses a USB Flash Drive (min. 64 MB of free space) as extra RAM. So I plugged in completely empty 256 MB Flash Drive and enabled ReadyBoost. Voila! The system sped up like I never expected.

Tweaking
Actually, so far I have not done any tweaking to the computer. The current speed of Vista on the laptop is satisfactory. Maybe I will get on to it later.

Gaming
This too I have yet to test. The graphics card itself if not very powerful, but games like Grand Theft Auto used to work earlier on XP. So now I must see how it works on Vista.

I will update this blog post with my future experiences with Windows Vista on my friend's low RAM laptop. For now, I am pleasantly surprised on Vista's performance.

The Fat Green Bar

2007-09-25T19:53:00.000+05:30

Have you ever recoded or made a DVD on Windows Vista using the bundled applications (Windows Movie Maker and Windows DVD Maker)? Did the final result include a fat green bar covering the bottom half of the video? Were you using Xvid Videos?

Say hello to one big problem with Windows Vista's bundled software! A green bar coveres the bottom half of the screen and squeezes the poor video in to the top half. You get a beautiful squashed video.

This often happens to those who download Xvid encoded videos from the internet and try to burn them to a DVD or just recode them to WMV (Windows Media Video format). I, myself, sacrificed an expensive Dual Layer DVD to Windows DVD Maker when trying to burn a cool film on to DVD. The result was horrible and I beleive no movie ever deserves such treatment (OK, maybe I am wrong).

**Note that Nero 8 Ultra Edition never worked with DivX or Xvid files for me. Anyone with a solution is more than welcome to comment here and educate me. Thanks.

Solution

Download and install the Xvid Codec (Click Here). Then go to All Programs > Xvid > Configure Decoder. In the "Output" section, enable "Compatibility Renderer".

Voila! Your videos will finally get the proper treatment. No more Fat Green Bar. But still I hope Microsoft does something about this.

Digital Video Broadcasting

2007-08-18T23:24:00.000+05:30

Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is the most popular group of specifications to broadcast digital television, used all over the world through various transmission media. DVB has many standards, each suited for a specific transmission media. Each DVB standard is made in order to broadcast and receive in the most suitable and convenient way for that transmission media.

Here I will mention a few of the DVB standards and describe them briefly:-

Digital Video Broadcasting over Terrestrial networks (DVB-T)
DVB-T uses MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 (H.264) for broadcasting. This system is used worldwide for broadcasting free to air channels. It is mostly used by national broadcasters. Around the world, many countries have made it a law to upgrade national television to digital, the deadline being around 2009-2015. After the deadline, all analogue networks will be forced to shut down in these countries. The same also applies to radio networks, but those are not being discussed here.

In the U.K. (where I am now), the government has ordered the public and the broadcasts to "Switchover to Digital" by 2012. In 2012, all analogue networks will be shut down. Therefore the people are moving to services such as Freeview (also DVB-T) and Sky (pay television DVB-S) in order to avoid wasting money on a new television set or separate digital tuner.

Other countries too are making "switchovers" and moving to digital.

In Sri Lanka - Rupavahini Corporation announced a few years ago that they will go digital by 2008. But afterward, plans seemed to be cancelled and nothing seems to be upgraded. But behind the scenes, Dialog Telekom and another group called Sumathi have obtained licenses to broadcast digitally. Sumathi is already quietly broadcasting 4 channels, whilst Dialog is testing their systems with local channels. Dialog will soon launch a pay television service through DVB-T in Colombo and soon in other parts of the country, providing around 40 channels including 6 local channels (the ones already on Dialog Satellite TV). But no sign of national television broadcasters going digital themselves. Same applies for the radio broadcasters.

Digital Video Broadcasting over Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service (DVB-MC)
All right, this system is basically Microwave broadcasting using MMDS. But in digital. This system uses the UHF frequencies, and broadcasts in MPEG-2 or MPEG-4. I've mentioned it here because of its presence in Sri Lanka.

In Sri Lanka - MMDS is used by the pay television operator Comet Cable in analogue form. But the service has been planning and promising to upgrade to DVB-MC for ages now. The latest promise is to upgrade by September 2007. But nobody can really be sure this will happen, as many false promises have been given before. But we should wait and see what happens.

Digital Video Broadcasting over Satellite networks (DVB-S and DVB-S2)
This technology is used for satellite television worldwide. It can be used with MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 encoding (nothing new). The newer version of the standard, DVB-S2, provides more features and facilities to save bandwidth and give more interactivity.

In Sri Lanka - Dialog Satellite Television, TV Lanka and Srilakvahini. These are the main companies which broadcast using DVB-S in Sri Lanka. Dialog TV is possibly planning to upgrade to DVB-S2 soon (not sure though).

Digital Video Broadcasting over Cable networks (DVB-C)
This standard allows for unlimited broadcasting of channel over a cable network. There is simply no limit to the number of channels broadcasted, and the total bandwidth is only the maximum of the cable used. That means the total bandwidth can fit almost two HDTV channels simultaneously on a coxial cable. Imagine the bandwidth and possibilities with a fibre optic network!

The high bandwidth allows for the best picture quality and sound quality possible. And there is little cost in operating a cable network, resulting in a very low price of pay television on cable networks.

In Sri Lanka - The cable television network Lanka Broadband Networks (LBN) uses DVB-C in its digital network. LBN is speedily expanding their channel collection and their only limit is coverage. They are the best pay television network in Sri Lanka because of this.

Digital Video Broadcasting for Handheld devices (DVB-H)
This standard uses almost the same technology as in DVB-T. However, the DVB-H television is suited to be used on battery powered devices with limited processing power and small screens. DVB-H allows for devices such as mobile phones to view television without wasting battery power.

Many countries have already deployed DVB-H networks, and many mobile phones already support the system (including some phones in the Nokia N Series).

In Sri Lanka - Dialog is planning to launch a DVB-H network soon.

Discuss Dialog TV Here

2007-07-31T10:37:00.000+05:30

All non-racist, non-fighting, peaceful bloggers are welcome to peacefully discuss Dialog TV affairs here, in comments under this post.

This is only temporary, as the Dialog TV Forum is in a huge mess.

I will not allow any racsism and religious affairs to be discussed here. No fighting. Comments will be moderated.

I hope you all find good place to talk until the problems at Dialog TV Forum are solved.

Thank You.

Dialog TV Unofficial Website - Now Open!

2007-07-26T15:20:00.000+05:30

I have just completed the first stage of my new Unofficial Website for Dialog TV. This website provides the information Dialog takes a long time to provide, or never provides at all. Also, it is a much better alternative to the main website if you want to find the correct prices and packages according to the real name of the channel. In the Dialog TV website, TEN Sports is marked as "10 Sports". And... well, just go there and see. I hope they fix it soon.

Returning to the subject of the new website, it is the successor to a failed project named the Dialog TV Wiki. Failed means that there was no one to help maintain the wiki, whereas a wiki should be maintained by community, not one person.

Therefore this website will only be maintained by me. But of course, all are welcome to email me or post a comment in this blog about any mistakes or updates.

So I hope you all consider visitng the site. Note that you should enable ActiveX on Internet Explorer before-hand, or when asked, to access the website properly.

Dialog TV - Unofficial Website

Also note that I have no relation with Dialog TV exept that I am a mobile and pay television customer. The unofficial website is maintained by me, not Dialog. I hope Dialog has no objection to the unofficial website.