Am I Dreaming?

[jbowman1993]

I came very close last year to buying a DVR, but I held off. I just did not want a glorified vcr, with no menu option.

This afternoon, I recieved my new UBC truevisions magazine. On the inside front cover, they have an annoucement that there is a new UBC reciever box available, that has DVR features, including the monthly channel guide so you can schedule shows, interactive menu, pause live tv, record, etc..

I must be dreaming. UBC is starting to catch up with the real world!

Woohoo!

[Firefoxx]

Nah, you're probably just dreaming.

Seriously, I wish that they would improve on the signal quality of their service. Some channels are OK, others are bad. The consistancy is also bad with regards to sound and picture (aspect ratio, etc). Their English to Thai subtitles are also a joke (utterly bad, as if no one had actually watched the program and had done a very literal translation of the script). It's expensive, yet the service is bad and they're losing money.

[solo siam]

My signal quality is pretty good, as is my picture.

I saw the advert as well, it was underneath the advert for their IPTV service but a DVR would actually be harder to implement on their IPTV service than their satellite service, which make me ehink it is coming to satellite. Perhaps the reason for all the messing about with the channels recently. Now if they just add a couple of HD channels I will gladly pay extra!

[DaveBKK]

My picture quality is fine, but my sound is crazy. For some channels, I have to turn the volume way up to hear, and then I switch to the next channel, I get blasted out of my seat. Crazy.

Anyone know any pricing info on the DVR they are advertising?

[Firefoxx]

The DVR is said to be "coming soon" (written in Thai), so no pricing yet. If they could just support Tivo...

[samtam]

Is anyone having the same problem with the channel menu...whereby later programmes in the day are not yet shown on the menu screen, but the current ones are, thereby negating the "reserve" channel feature? Have been trying to get through to UBC, but as a number of people have commented, no one seems to be answering their customer "service" "hotline".

[toptuan]

My picture quality is fine, but my sound is crazy. For some channels, I have to turn the volume way up to hear, and then I switch to the next channel, I get blasted out of my seat. Crazy.

Same problem here.

In addition, despite setting the univerisal audio language setting to English, I still get a lot of Thai sound tracks, and have to manually switch over to English for specific channels. Arghhh! (I know, I could just learn Thai. Well, with the lapses in UBC service, I certainly have the time to do it now!)

[mouse]

If they add a TIVO like recording capability they have got my attention. I know it will costs but what the heck...if you want it you pay. I always miss the good shows!

[dominique355]

Picture quality is bad, very bad even. Have you never noticed all these squares when the picture is rapidly changing, such a fire?

Sound is even worse. Often not synchronized, often the English language disappears in the middle of the show. Dolby Digital? Never heard of!

EPG? A joke. Not only content but also that they show only the actual and the next program.

Seems to be another example of bad service when you have a monopoly.

[astral]

Read carefully.

Here in the Malaysia the Astro Max box looks like a DVR but it NOT.

There is a hard disk, a measley 60Gb and NO DVD player or recorder.

Buy the DVR it will work in any country and is not network provider dependant.

The only downside is two boxes to set up.

[Upcountry]

Hi folks,

Some of you may have seen the DVR thread related to DVR’s

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...267&hl=DVDR

- hope that link works, but the current ThaiVisa search system makes it hard to get a generic URL)

I’m here to spout about my Philips DVR.:-)

It really is worth the cost for me. The model I got is the Philips DVDR3360h.

First of all, it does a nice job of buffering the current UBC and other channels (cable, etc.). Not only that, but I can select segments to mark and “record” for later viewing without setting a timer ahead of time. The other “unexpected” thing is that I can be watching a recorded program, and the DVR will be buffering the channel it’s set to (i.e., I can be watching a recording while it buffers BBC, or whatever, and then back up to catch the part I want later. I also verified recently that I can set a timer for just a minute or so ahead to begin a recording.

It does a nice job of capturing timed recordings whether or not the unit is on, with three “exceptions”.

1. If the unit is off before it wakes up to record, it will shut off , even if I’m started watching something else pre-recorded.

2. If a timed recording is ready to start, it’ll interrupt any pre-recorded or buffered program I’m watching.

3. I’m not yet sure (haven’t gotten around to checking), but if I’ve started a recording, it may be hard to back up and start watching as if it was just buffered. I think it’s just a matter of selecting “source” while recording (as I must do if a recording that started while the machine was on has stopped – it stays in “stopped” mode and won’t buffer till I select “source”.

These are small issues, overall. I’ve found a remote control to time channel changes on UBC independently (pain, but doable), so I can get the job done as necessary. I’ve also made a small hobby out of figuring out the schedule of pre-programmed movies for HBO, etc., via their web pages, so I can guess ahead on the best time to record.

Probably, my biggest “complaint” is that I now have to be more selective due to possible hard-drive cramming and time. I have more to do than watch TV in the evening, and so on, so it’s a mixed blessing.

Bottom line, I would love to see a UBC DVR, but not until they get their act together and provide true HD programming. Let’s face it, the quality is much less than DVD now, and the cost of a UBC supplied DVR box would be pretty high, I’m sure. Note, they don’t mention the price.

[Jimjim]

Read carefully.

Here in the Malaysia the Astro Max box looks like a DVR but it NOT.

There is a hard disk, a measley 60Gb and NO DVD player or recorder.

Buy the DVR it will work in any country and is not network provider dependant.

The only downside is two boxes to set up.

What are you talking about? Perhaps you misspoke?

I've never seen a DVR that plays DVDs. Buy a DVD player.

[Upcountry]

What are you talking about? Perhaps you misspoke?

I've never seen a DVR that plays DVDs. Buy a DVD player.

Jimjim, many DVR's come with both a hard drive and a DVD player/recorder. Many come without a hard drive in fact, so you record directly to DVD. A DVR that has a hard drive, but no DVD in fact sounds more unusual. My unit has both. Incidentally, I would not go with anything less than 160gb.

[Firefoxx]

The thing about a DVR coming from True themselves is that it will actually have a TV schedule (that it recognizes and can program accordingly) and that it can change channels on its own. With a separate DVR, you'd need to look in the paper (or internet) program guide and program times accordingly, also needing to change to the correct channel accordingly (or do some weird hack). This is one of the features advertised in the new mag (in Thai).

Yes, the DVR from True will probably have problems (what doesn't, coming from True?), and some will like the separate version, but now at least you'll have a choice (albeit limited and with compromises all around).

[solo siam]

Yes the DVR from True should be a simple case of finding the show on the EPG, hitting record and leaving it to do its thing, you can simply scroll through the days listings and tell it to record what you want, no punching in times, flashing the channels etc...

If they can bring this out and get into gear with the HD shows I will be impressed (specially if this can record HD programs).

[Upcountry]

You know what they say about 'careful what you wish for'.

I would expect that a DVR box from True that did all the want would be rather expensive. I'm not ready to give these guys more money until they really offer me more for my money, and convince me to upgrade to and HDTV, etc.!

But HBO, etc. aren't offering anything like that are they? That means movie downloads, which are coming, but who wants to pay a London/Boston box-office ticket price to download an HD movie?

It's gonna take a few years for the dust to settle and the next thing since sliced color TV to become standard. We might as well be patient.

For what it's worth, I offer this "web page" that contains HBO, CM, SM, MH and Hallmark in five frames. Actually, the zip file contains three pages, two of which are called by the main one, called "moviepages.html".

Just put them in the same place on your hard drive and open moviepages.html in your browser. It will give you a quick view of today's movie listings, and if you are creative you can poke ahead to find listings in the future. I use this technique to try to find the best time to record. Go figure... Learn Thai instead, maybe?

-- edit -- ran out of space, couldn't upload the zip. Please PM me if you are interested in it.

[solo siam]

Most TV channels in the US have a HD variant, you can do it by satellite.

I have just recently bought a HD-DVD player and the picture is pretty stunning, I'd ove to get CSI Miami etc... in high def and would be willing to pay for it, give me 3 or 4 good high def channels on teh platinum package and I'd scrape to 4,000 baht a month for it.

[LivinLOS]

Dont know if you have spotted but national geographic are running ads for 'get ready get HD ready.. Nat Geo HD' etc..

Count me as another one happy to pay for HD channels..

[Firefoxx]

I doubt it would be in HD... that would be asking for too much. Of course I would pay for it, anything would be better than the quality I get now.

My HBO channel recently got its sound jinxed... its volume is way lower than the other channels. AXN is still too loud as ever. Fix the <deleted> sound consistancy, will ya??

The US is going over to all-digital broadcasting soon, so even normal TV will be able to be broadcast in HD. Currently I just download the HD content and play it by computer in full 1920x1080. I did see some HD-DVD titles (legit ones) being sold in Chinatown for around 1,500 each. Not a huge selection, but it's a start. Wait for it to become widely pirated and for the media to become cheap, and *then* it will take off. Give it a couple years.

UBC called me to ask me whether I would be interested in "activities", stuff like family day (yeah, like, I'm so excited about "activities" from my cable company). I just told them to improve their current service, since it stinks, and they could take their activities and put it where the sun don't shine.

[Old Man River]

Yes the DVR from True should be a simple case of finding the show on the EPG, hitting record and leaving it to do its thing, you can simply scroll through the days listings and tell it to record what you want, no punching in times, flashing the channels etc...

If they can bring this out and get into gear with the HD shows I will be impressed (specially if this can record HD programs).

Ben, I was thinking of buying a DVD recorder, but now not so sure. If a TIVO service comes available in Bangkok from True, would there be any benefit in also owning a DVD recorder as well? I already have DVD players.

Thanks

[Jimjim]

What are you talking about? Perhaps you misspoke?

I've never seen a DVR that plays DVDs. Buy a DVD player.

Jimjim, many DVR's come with both a hard drive and a DVD player/recorder. Many come without a hard drive in fact, so you record directly to DVD. A DVR that has a hard drive, but no DVD in fact sounds more unusual. My unit has both. Incidentally, I would not go with anything less than 160gb.

In the U.S. I've never seen a DVR that has a DVD player/recorder added to it. I've never even seen one advertised. Of course, that'd be nice if you wanted to record something to DVD and take it with you, but I personally wouldn't care about that. So, no, a DVR with no DVD recorder does not sound unusual, but one with a DVD player/recorder sounds highly unusual to me. So, if you add our comments together, I guess neither is unusual.

Added later: Also, DVRs that only recorded to DVD would not be that great in my opinion. DVRs are very convenient. No hardware to pop in when you want to watch the program, it's already right there on the hard drive. Just load up your list and play the program you want. Very convenient. It has revolutionised live television for the better. It's so easy, whereas constantly having to pop DVDs in and out would not be very convenient. Basically a glorified VCR with the better original picture.

[Old Man River]

What are you talking about? Perhaps you misspoke?

I've never seen a DVR that plays DVDs. Buy a DVD player.

Jimjim, many DVR's come with both a hard drive and a DVD player/recorder. Many come without a hard drive in fact, so you record directly to DVD. A DVR that has a hard drive, but no DVD in fact sounds more unusual. My unit has both. Incidentally, I would not go with anything less than 160gb.

In the U.S. I've never seen a DVR that has a DVD player/recorder added to it. I've never even seen one advertised. Of course, that'd be nice if you wanted to record something to DVD and take it with you, but I personally wouldn't care about that. So, no, a DVR with no DVD recorder does not sound unusual, but one with a DVD player/recorder sounds highly unusual to me. So, if you add our comments together, I guess neither is unusual.

Added later: Also, DVRs that only recorded to DVD would not be that great in my opinion. DVRs are very convenient. No hardware to pop in when you want to watch the program, it's already right there on the hard drive. Just load up your list and play the program you want. Very convenient. It has revolutionised live television for the better. It's so easy, whereas constantly having to pop DVDs in and out would not be very convenient. Basically a glorified VCR with the better original picture.

Thanks Jimjim. From what I gather from your comments, the DVR can record TV on a hard disc and then you would erase that and record something else. Depending on the size of the hard disc that True would have on its DVR, I would imagine that if I wanted to keep something I could leave it on the hard disc (i.e. not record over it), and then record subsequent shows on the parts of the hard disc where I haven't stored any TV programs. Is this correct?

If the above is correct, then I would imagine the benefit of a DVD recorder with a hard disc over the DVR with a hard disc would be that if I wanted to keep a number of things that I had recorded, I could record it on a blank DVD and then keep the entire hard disc free from anything saved (i.e. not have to store anything on the hard disc).

Please let me know if the above makes sense or do I have everything backwards?

[Jimjim]

What are you talking about? Perhaps you misspoke?

I've never seen a DVR that plays DVDs. Buy a DVD player.

Jimjim, many DVR's come with both a hard drive and a DVD player/recorder. Many come without a hard drive in fact, so you record directly to DVD. A DVR that has a hard drive, but no DVD in fact sounds more unusual. My unit has both. Incidentally, I would not go with anything less than 160gb.

In the U.S. I've never seen a DVR that has a DVD player/recorder added to it. I've never even seen one advertised. Of course, that'd be nice if you wanted to record something to DVD and take it with you, but I personally wouldn't care about that. So, no, a DVR with no DVD recorder does not sound unusual, but one with a DVD player/recorder sounds highly unusual to me. So, if you add our comments together, I guess neither is unusual.

Added later: Also, DVRs that only recorded to DVD would not be that great in my opinion. DVRs are very convenient. No hardware to pop in when you want to watch the program, it's already right there on the hard drive. Just load up your list and play the program you want. Very convenient. It has revolutionised live television for the better. It's so easy, whereas constantly having to pop DVDs in and out would not be very convenient. Basically a glorified VCR with the better original picture.

Thanks Jimjim. From what I gather from your comments, the DVR can record TV on a hard disc and then you would erase that and record something else. Depending on the size of the hard disc that True would have on its DVR, I would imagine that if I wanted to keep something I could leave it on the hard disc (i.e. not record over it), and then record subsequent shows on the parts of the hard disc where I haven't stored any TV programs. Is this correct?

If the above is correct, then I would imagine the benefit of a DVD recorder with a hard disc over the DVR with a hard disc would be that if I wanted to keep a number of things that I had recorded, I could record it on a blank DVD and then keep the entire hard disc free from anything saved (i.e. not have to store anything on the hard disc).

Please let me know if the above makes sense or do I have everything backwards?

On my DVR if you don't want a program to be deleted after a certain amount of time, you go into the menu for that program and you can tell the DVR not to delete it. If you ever want to delete it, you can do it manually. If you don't do change this option however, the program would eventually be deleted as the hard drive needs space to record new programs. And, of course, if you keep it set to manual delete, it will mean there is less memory available to record and other programs will be deleted more quickly. So, yeah, if you wanted to save tons of programs, movies, sports events, etc. then the DVR/DVD recorder combo would be useful.

[Old Man River]

What are you talking about? Perhaps you misspoke?

I've never seen a DVR that plays DVDs. Buy a DVD player.

Jimjim, many DVR's come with both a hard drive and a DVD player/recorder. Many come without a hard drive in fact, so you record directly to DVD. A DVR that has a hard drive, but no DVD in fact sounds more unusual. My unit has both. Incidentally, I would not go with anything less than 160gb.

In the U.S. I've never seen a DVR that has a DVD player/recorder added to it. I've never even seen one advertised. Of course, that'd be nice if you wanted to record something to DVD and take it with you, but I personally wouldn't care about that. So, no, a DVR with no DVD recorder does not sound unusual, but one with a DVD player/recorder sounds highly unusual to me. So, if you add our comments together, I guess neither is unusual.

Added later: Also, DVRs that only recorded to DVD would not be that great in my opinion. DVRs are very convenient. No hardware to pop in when you want to watch the program, it's already right there on the hard drive. Just load up your list and play the program you want. Very convenient. It has revolutionised live television for the better. It's so easy, whereas constantly having to pop DVDs in and out would not be very convenient. Basically a glorified VCR with the better original picture.

Thanks Jimjim. From what I gather from your comments, the DVR can record TV on a hard disc and then you would erase that and record something else. Depending on the size of the hard disc that True would have on its DVR, I would imagine that if I wanted to keep something I could leave it on the hard disc (i.e. not record over it), and then record subsequent shows on the parts of the hard disc where I haven't stored any TV programs. Is this correct?

If the above is correct, then I would imagine the benefit of a DVD recorder with a hard disc over the DVR with a hard disc would be that if I wanted to keep a number of things that I had recorded, I could record it on a blank DVD and then keep the entire hard disc free from anything saved (i.e. not have to store anything on the hard disc).

Please let me know if the above makes sense or do I have everything backwards?

On my DVR if you don't want a program to be deleted after a certain amount of time, you go into the menu for that program and you can tell the DVR not to delete it. If you ever want to delete it, you can do it manually. If you don't do change this option however, the program would eventually be deleted as the hard drive needs space to record new programs. And, of course, if you keep it set to manual delete, it will mean there is less memory available to record and other programs will be deleted more quickly. So, yeah, if you wanted to save tons of programs, movies, sports events, etc. then the DVR/DVD recorder combo would be useful.

Thanks. I will wait to see how big the hard disc is on True's DVR when we ultimately get it in Bangkok.

[Upcountry]

So, yeah, if you wanted to save tons of programs, movies, sports events, etc. then the DVR/DVD recorder combo would be useful.

Tell me about it. Another nice feature is to be able to edit/spit a program. I have to use the magazine or web schedule to figure the start/stop my recordings. Naturally this means promo/gargage at the beginning/end of the program. This adds up, so being able to cut out the kruft reduces the used up space, and also helps if it's time to dump to DVD. Keep in mind that in order for a full-length movie to fit on a DVD, the you'd probably have to record at a lower quality. I use SP+ (2nd highest and optimzed compression) rather than "HQ", the best.

Regarding units in the US, I found out that my Philips unit can run on 110/60 or 220/50 and can be set to NTSC as well as PAL, etc., so it's compatible in Thailand or the US. Good thing.

[touch]

After calling True and sending e-mail asking for details to no avail, (surprise)

I went to my local True office and asked them to find out if the DVR was for Satellite or IPTV.

A couple of hours later they got back to me and said. "It is for DIGITAL only and cannot be used with the satellite service"

Hmmm

//t