ColinChapman

Many thanks for the directions, much appreciated.

Hi Everyone, OP here!

Thanks for all the help. Sorry that Starbeams is closing, had some excellent food there. My wife loves the Steak Bomb sandwich (for breakfast on one occasion!). We shall be in Surin this weekend, so will try for one final visit.

So, please can someone give directions to find these other places? I don't really know Surin, I know the railway station, Starbeams, FC and not much else.

Lorenzinos

Haka Zhou

Sydney Seasons

Thanks again.

There is a very nice Swiss restaurant. Quite near big c in the Same road as the private dentist

Thanks for the advice but I don't know Surin at all. Do you have a street name or soi number that I can use in my sat nav or even a restaurant name I can Google? Sounds nice and I'd like to try it ifi can find it.

Can anyone recommend any good western restaurants or pubs in Surin town?

My Garmin Nuvi 2465 is excellent at navigation, but its assumptions of average speeds in Bangkok are ridiculously high. I can't find anywhere in the settings where I can change them - am I missing something?

This has two annoying consequences - firstly the predicted journey time is wildly underestimated and secondly the route selections are heavily biased towards the shortest distance rather than the shortest time. I have set the option to pick the route with fastest time, but the speed estimates are so wrong that this has no effect.

For example, I did a trip today from Bangna to Ratchapruek Road. The way I would do this is to get on Route 9, the outer ring road and drive round the outside of Bangkok. The Nuvi plots basically a straight line through the middle of Bangkok via Srinakarin, Rama 9 amd the Krung Thon bridge. It correctly measures the distance as 36km, but estimates the journey time as 35 minutes, i.e. it assumes an average speed of 60kmh through the middle of Bangkok! I followed the suggested route and it actually took 1h45m with an average speed of 20kmh. The traffic was not too bad, in rush hour or if it were raining I could easily envisage the journey taking three hours. I returned via the ring road taking 56 minutes to do 62km at an average of 65kmh.

Is there any way I can tell it to use, say, 15kmh as the average speed in the city?

Thanks to everyone for their helpfull suggestions. Here's what I have done so far:

I tried the Sygic app on my Galaxy S3. It is certainly unbeatable at the price. Outside Bangkok, away from complex expresway junctions, it is excellent. You do have to look at the map, as sometimes the voice is misleading, e.g. tells you to turn left when map clearly shows to go straight over junction. In Bangkok, it didn't give me the detail I wanted at expressway junctions and when to move from frontage road to main road and back (but a more confident driver, especially one who can read Thai signposts would probably be OK).

If you have a navigator (human) to operate the software, this is fine, but I think it would be a bit dodgy doing it yourself while driving, especially getting back to the map after receiving a phonecall. Again, if you're more confident and don't need reading glasses, this would be less of a problem.

There is a 7 day, fully functional free trial. Definitely worth trying.

I then went to to the GPS Society office / shop near Chong Nongsi BTS. They were very helpful, had a guy who spoke English and a more technical woman who he translated for. Having showed me the various options, they left me for as long as I wanted to play with the demo unit, simulate driving routes, etc. I bought the Nuvi 2465 which was the cheapest unit that includes lifetime map updates. The more expensive units have no extra navigating functionality.

I've been very pleased with it so far. An added bonus that I was unaware of is that it connects to my phone via Bluetooth and acts as a handsfree unit, this also works very well. It has an option to use voice control that I haven't played with yet, but looks quite useful.

UK maps are available on a microSD card, but very expensive at 3,300 baht and no lifetime updates, junction view or lane assist. I might just buy a cheap UK sat nav.

Thanks again for the help.

Thanks for that suggestion, I already have a Samsung phone so I'm downloading the 7 day free trial of the Sygic Thailand map, even if the screen is too small for longterm use, I can evaluate the software on the phone.

Many thanks.

I want to buy a GPS for use in the UK and Thailand. Would I be better buying in the UK or Thailand? I assume I can have two sets of maps in one GPS unit? Does anyone have any recommendations for what to buy and/or shops / web-sites to buy from - doesn't need to be anything fancy, but a large screen and junction view would be nice.

I just bought a pack of frozen chicken breasts in Makro. When I opened the pack I found that the chicken breasts are frozen together as one large slab. I will have to thaw them, separate them and refreeze them, so I might as well just buy fresh ones and freeze them. When I buy frozen chicken breasts in the UK, they are separate inside the pack, not individually wrapped, but loose so that you can take out one or two as required.

Does anyone know if this style is available in Thailand?

Hi All,

Time for a progress update, in summary, it works. Details for those interested:

I finally braved the True Visions call centre again and asked about the problems with the PVR (see posting above, basically it would record only if you didn't watch anything else). They sent a technician the next day. He did a quick test and the problem did not arise. I showed him a faulty recording I had made earlier and gave him chapter and verse on the problems. He said he would have to ask someone else and left. The very next day he came back with another guy who downloaded a software uodate to the box (he changed the menus to Thai so I couldn't see how he did it, but an English message popped up during the upgrade). After several days testing it now works fine. The only problem that still occurs is that occasionally when playing back a recording, the screen goes black for several seconds and then resumes further on in the recording. If I press the rewind button as soon as the screen goes black, it skips back to before the problem and then plays normally. I can cope with this and as it is unduplicateable and unrecordable I'm not going to try to get True to fix it.

My (new) Receiver Software Version is 2.1.1.001 Mar 8 2012.

This also includes the ability to make timed recordings and to repeat them.

Another feature I have noticed is that you can rewind a program you are watching, even if you are not recording it, this is very useful.

A couple of questions:

1/ Has anyone found a way to advance to a specific time in a recorded programme, rather than having to fast forward through the entire recording?

2/ What use are the two buttons to the left and right of the Stop and Record buttions? The one to the left (an anticlockwise circular arrow) skips back 10 seconds; the one to the right (a solid right arrow and vertical bar) skips forward 30 seconds. Is there a way of configuring them to skip for different time periods?

and to make matters worse my DVD recorder which I have been using for nearly five years on the second box apparently cannot be connected to the HD box

Hi Peter,

It might be worth trying this again. Being something of a Luddite, I still have a VHS VCR and I can successfully record the composite output (red and white audio, yellow video phono plugs) from the HD box.

Hi Folks,

And they all lived happily ever after - well, reasonably contentedly anyway.

The True technician phoned on Thursday morning to confirm and again about an hour before the appointment. Despite having been a customer on yearly contracts for more than eight years, I was told to prepare a copy of my condo rental agreement and my passport. In the event, only the passport copy was required.

He arrived and installed the HDD - interestingly, a message came up saying it was not one of the approved ones and listing the three approved ones, but he just ignored this. He then phoned True and they activated the function, he recorded a few minutes and played it back and also checked the live pause feature. I paid the 4,780 baht (cash only, exact money only), signed about six times and off he went. I will post again when the bill for the PVR service arrives.

I've now had a chance to test it more thoroughly, and it has basically two functions that work reliably: it will make a recording, either in the future by selecting from the EPG or immediately by selecting the desired channel and pressing record; and it will pause and resume a live broadcast. Recordings, including those of HD channels, are the same quality as watching them live. There is no way of manually programming a recording, so if the EPG is blank, which it often seems to be, there is no way to set a future recording.

I recorded a Funeral in Berlin early this morning and it played OK, there was one point where the screen went black for a few seconds and when it resumed it had skipped forwards about ten minutes, but I rewound and played again and it was OK. I paused it a few times and rewound to catch dialogue I had missed and this all worked.

It will let you record one channel whilst watching another, but it doesn't really work. You can watch your desired channel successfully but the recording is no good. I have tried it three times, twice the recording played back for a few minutes and then the picture froze while the sound continued and once the picture continued but with no sound. No amount of stopping, starting, fast forwarding or rewinding would fix the problem.

The HDD gets very hot - uncomfortable to touch. Originally, the technician installed it laid on its side on the top of the STB, but as this obscured about 25% of the air vents in the top of the STB, I moved it to stand upright next to the STB, so its two large sides are exposed to the air.

The STB does not switch the power on and off - the HDD is on all the time even when the STB is on standby - not very green and not prresumably very good for the life of the HDD.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Please feel free to ask about any points I have missed. Thanks to everyone for all the information.

I'm that way about smelly old grease fried insects, Haggis, dog stew, "sweetbreads", Pizza Company pizza, and a bunch of other stuff, so maybe they're just being human ...

I didn't mean to imply that I like all food, but that I decide whether or not I like something by eating it. It wouldn't occur to me to say that I don't like something that I've never eaten, I would instead respond that I've never tried it. I've tried a few things that look unappetising to me like fried bugs and scorpions or feel unappetising because of my cultural background like grilled rat and sun dried dog (but I do draw the line at haggis and Pizza Company). Having tried them, I then know whether I like the taste. (FYI - farm fresh bugs fried in chilli and garlic, yes; scorpion, yes; rat, yes; dog, no.)

Hi Everyone,

My wife has just phoned True again (4th time) and complained about being given the runaround. They promptly said that a technician will come next Thursday, bringing the disk drive, and set it all up! No need to wait for the PVR team to check our port (she wisely didn't ask why). And no need to go into Bangkok and buy the HDD. Cost is 3,590 baht for the HDD and 1,190 baht for the eSATA case (as both items are essential, I don't know why they are not priced as a unit). I'm not sure if VAT will be added to this.

Also, we are eligible for the 99 baht promotion, because we contacted True before it expired - the exact opposite of what they told her last time.

Just for information, we live in a condo on the edge of Bangkok (just inside the Bangkok boundary) which has one large True satellite dish on the roof and the signal is then cabled to each unit as required.

I will keep you updated.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to document their experiences here. I thought I should add to the confusion!

As I was worried that the 99 baht promotion expires at the end of March, I thought I would go ahead and apply for it and sort out the HDD later. My wife phoned True last Monday and verified that the the PVR functionality can be cancelled at any time, you do not have to sign up for one year or anything like that, so I figured the worst that could happen is that I waste a couple of hundred baht if I can't get it working in two months. She then asked them to go ahead and switch on the PVR functionality. The call centre operative told her that she couldn't do that herself, she would pass the request to the PVR team who would call us.

Having heard nothing by Sunday 25th, my wife phoned again. The operative said that our request for service activation had been passed to the PVR team, but that they are very busy because many customers are interested and they are working through the waiting list. My wife then asked what happens if they don't call us before 31st March - do we still get the promotional price because their records show we applied two weeks before it expired and the delay is caused by True Visions? Based on Old Man River's experience above, you can probably guess the answer? The promotion expires 31st March, if they don't call us by then, we do not get the promotion price and they can't tell us what the full price will be.

The operative also suggested that not everyone could have PVR functionality - the PVR team have to "check your port" to see if it is suitable! Can I ask if the people who have the PVR functionality working are cable or satellite customers, as I know that satellite customers have only a restricted subset of HD channels and I wonder if there are some PVR restrictions as well?

Do these new HD receivers True forces us to use, have a decoder card? Maybe inside the box?

Mine has a card about the size of credit card sticking out of the front of the box - is this what you are talking about? It is mostly inside the box (inserted lengthways), with about 5mm sticking out. The slot is described in the User Guide as "Card Slot - Slot for smartcard".

Hi CaninBKK,

Thanks very much for the info, exactly what I wanted to know. Could I ask a few more questions:

Does your drive have a separate power supply - I have been unable to find one with a socket that matches the outlet on the back of the box?

Do you have to leave it switched on all the time, or just switch it on before you switch on the set-top box?

What capacity drive and how long (roughly!) does it record for?

If you don't mind, about how much did it cost?

Thank you again.

Peter,

Many thanks for all the information. I nearly bought one of those PVRs but IIRC they were 16,000 baht, which was just too much for me. Your experience makes me really glad I didn't. This being Thailand and True, I don't suppose they refunded any of your money merely because it didn't work?

Keep us posted if you manage to find a disk. Another thing that seems strange is that it is a Samsung box, but they don't recomend any Samsung disks. Maybe Samsung don't make DVR style disks.

Good hunting!

Has the board deleted your reply - all I can see is a your quote of my post with nothing added?

Peter,

Sounds like this is more complicated than I was expecting - I should have known it was too good to be true. You say "They took away one PVR and one standard box" - does this mean you already had an operational PVR with an internal HDD? Like a Skybox in th UK which is my only experience of a PVR?

I have never had a PVR or requested one. True came and changed my set-top box for an HD set-top box at their instigation, PVRs were never mentioned. I did get excited when I found the PVR menus, but as the functions were all disabled, I did not investigate any further, so I never saw the section of the User Guide you refer to. I have read it now! Then, I saw the magazine page and posted on here to see if anyone has got it working before I buy an eSATA HDD.

I have never seen an external HDD with a power input socket like the one on the back of the set-top box; all the ones I have seen have a separate power supply that is plugged into the mains. Perhaps this is a feature of 2.5" HDDs (presumably designed for laptops); all the ones I have used have been 3.5".

I have Googled the three HDDs specified in the user guide, the only result I could find in Bangkok is http://www.shop4thai.../product/24359/ for the Seagate one which says "This product is obsoleted".

You have obviously looked into this in more detail than I have, do you know the minimum contract period for the PVR service? If I can have it switched on for one month for 99 baht I will try it with an old 3.5" SATA HDD and my eSATA docking station, but I am reluctant to either spend 4,000 baht on a eSATA HDD (if I could find one) or to pay for a year's PVR service which might not work.

The True Visions magazine for March 2012 contains this page (attached) which says, if I have translated it correctly, that you can convert the new HD set-top box to a PVR by connecting it via eSATA to an external hard disk and paying THB99 per month.

The small print at the bottom both recommends and specifies as compulsory a 2.5” Seagate or Western Digital drive between 500GB and 1TB.

Have I translated correctly?

Has anyone got this working?

Are these specific drives compulsory or would a (cheaper) 3.5” eSATA HDD do the job?

Do you have to format the drive as EXT3 or does it work with NTFS? Or does it format the drive itself at first use?

Sorry guys, it was so quiet on here that I already arranged to go to Beercamp instead.

Hi Guys,

Sorry I missed the meeting, I didn't get a notification of new messages on the thread, despite having set to follow it. Anyway, I have selected to follow it again, so hope to see you next time.

I thought the national symbol was a panda?