Reliance Communications, Direct-to-Home (DTH) services subsidiary, Big TV has placed an order for 5 million set top boxes (STBs) with an aim to procure the same at 25 percent reduced cost as compared to the prevailing cost of procuring MPEG2 STBs. Infact Reliance will gain not only on the cost front but also on the quality of transmission as its order is for MPEG4 standard based STBs.

The company has reportedly received half of the consignment and the other half is expected in a week’s time.  The vendors for the order include Hyundai, UEC, Thomson, Hunmax, Homecast, Koship and Kaon Media.

There will be four to six models of STBs on offer to subscribers with some of the models providing an option to record the programmes.