DTH service is a better alternative to cable TV services being wireless, prepaid and no involvement of local cable tv operator.
Let’s talk about DTH operators with maximum no of Tamil Channels in both HD and SD.
Tata Sky : 52 SD tamil channels and 5 HD tamil channels
Videocon D2H : 50 SD tamil Channels and 4 HD tamil channels
Airtel DTH: 48 SD tamil channels and 4 HD tamil channels
Reliance DTH : 33 SD tamil channels and 0 HD tamil Channels
Dish Tv : 29 SD tamil channels and 3 HD tamil channels
Sun Direct : 27 SD tamil channels and 4 HD tamil channels
Ironical is Sun Direct DTH which is out Chennai has got least no of Tamil channels.
So Tata Sky got maximum no of Tamil channels among all DTH players.
While Videocon D2H got second highest and Airtel 3rd Highest.
Out of 3 I would recommend Videocon D2H first as you can select 80 favorite channels in D2H box which you can browse from channel no 1-80.
Second recommendation is Tata sky where you can select only 50 favorite channels which get numbered 900-949.
In airtel while one can select 100channels as favorite but they don’t get new numbers which makes it quite difficult to browse.