Tmn A Review

[miksguevara]

We had TMN cable installed about six months ago so I feel this is a balanced review and not just a 'rant'

The cable company offers a good choice of channels for most languages and the picture quality on about 90 percent of these is good. What ruins the service is the fact that most sports channels, bbc news , sky news and the movie channels are scrambled most of the time - in fact all of the channels that I would watch are almost allways scrambled - especially over the weekend and for sure if there are big sporting events scheduled. This isnt just a couple of times it started a few months ago and has steadily got worse. We have been in contact with the company and there is nothing they can do about it..when the channels are showinf they suffer from frequent audio and visual dropouts...

yeah I know that ' this is Thailand ' but if you are thinking about getting this service think twice..

cheers

[dabhand]

Thanks for heads-up on TMN cable.

They were doing some cabling work near my house in Soi Khao Noi the other week and I was looking into possibly changing from Sophon because of the sports channels indicated in their leaflets.

Maybe not such a good idea!!

[doctormann]

Thanks for the useful information miks.

I was seriously thinking of changing to TMN from BTV, which I presently have, as BTV continues to plumb new depths of unprofessionalism and generally awful service.

Lately, BTV seem to be having serious problems with providing the Mnet movie channels, 1 & 2, as well as Zone Reality and one or two other channels. I suspect that this is because they are ripping the feeds from whatever satellite(s) are relevant and that these channels are now scrambled. Just about every day now we get an 'apology' transmission, saying that their technicians, or what passes for technicians, are working on the problem. Well, obviously, they haven't solved it yet as MNet and Zone reality are only available sporadically. Frequent drop-out of video and/or audio when they are working as well.

In short, not a lot of use although BBC World still works, as do the 40+ Thai channels.

I'm thinking that the situation with TMN is probably going to be much the same as I expect that they will be ripping the same feeds from the same satellites, in which case it may not be really worth changing supplier. TMN do appear to provide some extra channels but I don't imagine that these will be of much interest. Are there just more Thai channels or do you get some extra movie channels - in English or with sub-titles in English? BTV are quite likely to transmit a movie in Russian with Chinese sub-titles - which might be useful to some, I suppose. They never seem to check just what's going down the cable!

In general, how is the service from TMN, apart from the problems that you mention? Do you tend to get blank screens for hours at a time or a 'stuck' scene on a movie remaining stuck because no-one is monitoring the signal? I trust that you don't get the same appallingly bad home-grown local channel that we get on BTV - embarrassing to watch but the only channel where you can be reasonably assured of watching a movie from start to finish. Provided that it's a one-disc movie of course, otherwise the second disc just might be from a different movie altogether - if they remember to change the disc at all, that is!

If TMN is actually no worse I may still change my supplier. Sign up to TMN for 2 years and get a free TV as well. Only a small one though but it would do for the bedroom!

Decisions, decisions ...

DM