NEW DELHI: The country’s only free-to-air direct-to-home platform, Doordarshan’s Freedish will not be available for five hours on 30 September 2016 ‘due to technical maintenance.’

The platform, which is slated to carry out its 31st e-auction on 5 October 2016, is understood to be working on increasing its capacity to carry more channels.

A note on the DD website said: All viewers of DD Freedish may please note that from 00.30 Hrs to 05.30 Hrs on 30.09.2016 Doordarshan DTH service DD Freedish Channels will not be available due to technical maintenance.​”

Earlier last month, indiantelevision.con had reported that Freedish is increasing its capacity to carry around 104 channels within the next few months.

A senior Doordarshan official had told indiantelevision.com that the process of switching over from MPEG2 to MPEG4 had been completed and was being tested. This had already taken the headend capacity to 112.

Freedish at present carries 80 television channels including its own, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha TV, and private channels, apart from 32 channels of All-India Radio.

The official said the platform had been encrypted by adopting the Indian Conditional Access System (iCAS) developed by Design India Pvt. Ltd. of Bangalore. But, he clarified that the platform would remain free-to-air and the aim of iCAS was only to keep track of the number of households that were using Freedish and keep a check on quality of set top boxes.

(It is also learnt that Doordarshan is expected to issue an Expression of Notice within a month for manufacture of compatible STBs for Freedish.)

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