Dream Tv

[skybluestu]

Hi,

Does anyone know if it's possible to subscribe to Dream TV legally in Thailand? I have it (illegally?) at the rented home I'm in but will be moving shortly and want to get it in my new house but Dream have changed their packages today and I've lost most of the channels I mainly watch so don't really want the illegal option.

Thanks in advance

[monty]

No, not possible.

For most of the premium channels (discovery, NaGeo, HBO, Cinemax etc) True Visions holds the sole re-transmission rights for Thailand.

Which means that foreign operators are not allowed to sell their packages over here. Obviously Dream only has the rights to sell their packages in the Philippines.

It wouldn't make much sense for them to pay for re-transmission rights in a country where their satellite is very hard to receive and will suffer a lot of "rain outage".

The footprint of the Agilla Ku beam on which Dream transmits doesn't really cover Thailand, what you are picking up are "stray radio waves" !

[ignis]

Hi,

Does anyone know if it's possible to subscribe to Dream TV legally in Thailand? I have it (illegally?) at the rented home I'm in but will be moving shortly and want to get it in my new house but Dream have changed their packages today and I've lost most of the channels I mainly watch so don't really want the illegal option.

Thanks in advance

The legal card can be supplied I believe for something like 14,000 baht per year, or that was about a year ago, cannot find the web site of the supplier. No I do not have a card, but changing the dish to the Agilla Ku, the signal is VERY strong , I watch Telkom mostly or DSTV

[spirit]

Hi,

Does anyone know if it's possible to subscribe to Dream TV legally in Thailand? I have it (illegally?) at the rented home I'm in but will be moving shortly and want to get it in my new house but Dream have changed their packages today and I've lost most of the channels I mainly watch so don't really want the illegal option.

Thanks in advance

Hi,

well, I also noticed that dream TV changed something seriously with the channels from today on.

Last year I asked the philippine company which runs the dream TV if I can get their legal receiver with subscription sent to CNX! They offered me to send but then I changed my mind and went on with the way I did before, maybe I'll ask them again if I can't find another way to get all channels.

Here's the link to the company. www.philsatcorp.com/dream/index.html

I hope this was helpful for you.

Spirit

[LivinLOS]

Hi,

Does anyone know if it's possible to subscribe to Dream TV legally in Thailand? I have it (illegally?) at the rented home I'm in but will be moving shortly and want to get it in my new house but Dream have changed their packages today and I've lost most of the channels I mainly watch so don't really want the illegal option.

Thanks in advance

The legal card can be supplied I believe for something like 14,000 baht per year, or that was about a year ago, cannot find the web site of the supplier. No I do not have a card, but changing the dish to the Agilla Ku, the signal is VERY strong , I watch Telkom mostly or DSTV

You can pay for the card.. meaning your not stealing the content..

But as UBC have sole transmission rights on those channels in Thailand, theres no legal supply system..

[nonthaburial]

Oh dear just got back to Kunming after a week away. Was reading this and checked my Dream Package here, looks like dream have dropped ESPN and Star Sports ands replaced them with French and korean news channels.

Can anyone witrh Dream in Thailand support these observations or am I wrong

[bubba]

Have a look at this link:

http://www.dream.com.ph/press/promo_detail.asp?ID=49

For 8900 pesos (about 6500 baht), you get 10 months of DremTV PLUS you own the box and dish. Not bad at 650 baht/month and the English channel lineup is much better than TrueVisions Gold which costs nearly treble the DreamTV package. You can also prepay additional months using a top-up card, but you would need to have a friend in the Philippines to do that for you. You also need to produce some sort of documentation to prove you live in the Philippines, but again, if you have a friend there this wouldn't be difficult.

I'm over in Manila frequently and was thinking of going for this. My only worry is hauling a dish through Customs at the airport. Might be easier to just leave the dish there and bring the rest over in your baggage.

[spirit]

@all

These are the channels which are available since 1.5.2009 on Dream TV. I got this information from the customer care of the Dream TV company in Philippines.

Well, as you can see there are no sport channels left!!!!

e-Talk

ABS-CBN

NBN 4

TV5 (former ABC 5)

GMA 7

C/S 9 (former RPN 9)

IBC 13

Studio 23

MTV Philippines

RHTV

Living Asia

TV Maria

Cartoon Network

Nickelodeon

Star Movies

Star World

AXN

Biography Channel

Discovery Channel

CNN

RJTV/2nd Avenue

Australian Network

Crime & Investigation Channel

TCM

Premium Channel

Discovery Travel & Living

The History Channel

National Geographic

BBC World News

CNBC Asia

Deutsche Welle

I guess to buy the package is not a good idea.

Bye

Spirit

[nonthaburial]

I also contacted Dream in Manila and was told that the reasons that these channels (ESPN, Star Sports etc) have been removed is because the contract has to be renewed and they are in the process of renegotiating. The lady told me (great to talk to someone on such a topic who speaks perfect English) that their customer service numbers have been inundated with complaints.

She assures me the channels will be returned but couldnt say exactly when

[Phil Conners]

It would be pointless to bring the dish over from Philippines. Due to the signal footprint you need at least a 7 foot dish to receive Dream in Thailand.

[Prasert]

Is watching DreamTV in Thailand illegal by Thai law?

@ignis: what size dish do you use to receive their signal?

[soap]

It would be pointless to bring the dish over from Philippines. Due to the signal footprint you need at least a 7 foot dish to receive Dream in Thailand.

i am receiving dream tv in the north of thailand on a 65 centre metre dish as the footprint is very good up here.

[nonthaburial]

Same as me in Kunming with very strong signal

[bubba]

No, DreamTV in Thailand would not require anything close to a 7 foot dish. http://www.dishpointer.com/ shows it would require a 150 cm dish, but I know people who are using smaller ones than that (a TrueVisions dish actually). If you have a look at Agila 2 data (the satellite carrying DreamTV) at http://www.lyngsat-maps.com/maps/agila2_ku.html , you will see that the signal footprint for northern Thailand is stronger than that in Bangkok, and their data say that you only need a 50 cm dish for the Ku band in northern Thailand.

[ignis]

Is watching DreamTV in Thailand illegal by Thai law?

@ignis: what size dish do you use to receive their signal?

2.4 m, motorized move dish

[monty]

No, DreamTV in Thailand would not require anything close to a 7 foot dish. http://www.dishpointer.com/ shows it would require a 150 cm dish, but I know people who are using smaller ones than that (a TrueVisions dish actually). If you have a look at Agila 2 data (the satellite carrying DreamTV) at http://www.lyngsat-maps.com/maps/agila2_ku.html , you will see that the signal footprint for northern Thailand is stronger than that in Bangkok, and their data say that you only need a 50 cm dish for the Ku band in northern Thailand.

Simply depends on where you are in Thailand.

Pretty much all of North Thailand and North East Thailand falls within the footprint of the Ku band.

Bangkok is out of that footprint by several hundred KM.

In Pattaya you need a 7 ft dish, and even light clouds between you and the satellite will cause massive fade of signal.

South of Thailand has simply no reception at all unless maybe with a massive dish and a very good/expensive LNB!

[monty]

Is watching DreamTV in Thailand illegal by Thai law?

@ignis: what size dish do you use to receive their signal?

Bit of a grey area.

Nobody, apart from True visions has the right to transmit in Thailand most of those premium channels Dream carries. AXN, Discovery, NaGeo, Star movies etc.

You are not stealing the programming as you are paying for it, but are taking away revenue from Truevisions. If Dream would have sold you the subscription in Thailand, with you giving your Thai address, Dream would be solely responsible and punishable by both Thai and International law.

However, Dream will never do this, basically you are lying to Dream, giving a Philippine address, and then "smuggling" the smart card into Thailand.

Illegal, yes, risky, hard to say.

True visions seems to be very though on people nicking their own programming, but everywhere around Thailand you'll see in public places the South African Multichoice network being shown. Which is a bit the same story. And I do not know of such places being prosecuted.

[theoldgit]

Lovell5.htmlI find I can get pretty good reception from most satellites on my new dish but it does fill the garden.

Sat_dish.html

[ignis]

Bit of a grey area.

Why? I don't understand as there are around 30 satellites over Thailand, True only use one of them.... There are other satellites over Thailand that have AXN, Discovery, NaGeo, Star movies etc. on them

[monty]

Bit of a grey area.

Why? I don't understand as there are around 30 satellites over Thailand, True only use one of them.... There are other satellites over Thailand that have AXN, Discovery, NaGeo, Star movies etc. on them

Indeed, but the operators of those networks pay rights to those channel owners, and these rights define where they are allowed to resell those channels.

Hence Multichoice smart cards cannot be legally bought in Thailand, nor can Astro subscriptions or DreamTV subscriptions be had over here.

All those operators are only allowed to sell subscriptions for people living in their designated area (usually a country, Philippines for DreamTV, Malaysia for Astro etc).

Due to the nature of satellites, where it is very hard (or impossible) to limit the transmission to just one country, you can use thos cards wherever you can receive proper signal. But you will have to acquire the card by way of a bit of cheating, i.e. not disclosing that you will be using it outside the area where it is intended for...

[Phil Conners]

It would be pointless to bring the dish over from Philippines. Due to the signal footprint you need at least a 7 foot dish to receive Dream in Thailand.

i am receiving dream tv in the north of thailand on a 65 centre metre dish as the footprint is very good up here.

I stand corrected. I didn't realize the footprint was that different between Pattaya and the north of Thailand. Here in Pattaya you need at least a 7 ft dish to watch it.

[Plus]

Only True can sell you rights to watch those channels, it would be illegal for any other company. For them - Dream, Astro etc. it's black and white. It's a grey area for you if you use their subscription legally bought in their countries to use in Thailand.

I couldn't find list of channels and prices on Dream's website, you have to contact them personally for that. If it's as short as in Spirit's post, it's crap.

[ignis]

Bit of a grey area.

Why? I don't understand as there are around 30 satellites over Thailand, True only use one of them.... There are other satellites over Thailand that have AXN, Discovery, NaGeo, Star movies etc. on them

Indeed, but the operators of those networks pay rights to those channel owners, and these rights define where they are allowed to resell those channels.

Hence Multichoice smart cards cannot be legally bought in Thailand, nor can Astro subscriptions or DreamTV subscriptions be had over here.

All those operators are only allowed to sell subscriptions for people living in their designated area (usually a country, Philippines for DreamTV, Malaysia for Astro etc).

Due to the nature of satellites, where it is very hard (or impossible) to limit the transmission to just one country, you can use thos cards wherever you can receive proper signal. But you will have to acquire the card by way of a bit of cheating, i.e. not disclosing that you will be using it outside the area where it is intended for...

Sorry this info appear to be not true, as I have found the following on a number of Thai web sites

Ku (high) Band Thai Provider

Truevisions

Astro

C (low) Band Thai Provider

Multichoice

TelkomVision

Zee Network

All the other Satellite over Thailand have some FREE to view on them

[Plus]

I don't think it's illegal to buy a dish and recieve transmission from any satellite you want, and there will be some free content but you can forget about ESPN/AXN/HBO, they are encrypted and you need to be a legal, paying customer to watch them.

[monty]

Wrongly written.

They mean that those networks are visible over Thailand.

All those networks need a subscription card to watch them as they are encrypted.

ONLY True is allowed to sell subscriptions within Thailand.

You are most likely looking at websites of little shops (plenty of them around) who sell systems to watch those networks without having a legal subscription.

Which is obviously very illegal and as such cannot be discussed here!

On none of the satellites you'll find premium channels for free (i.e. un-encrypted)

[joncl]

On none of the satellites you'll find premium channels for free (i.e. un-encrypted)

Except for the Skywave network on Asiasat 4 Ku band from Hong Kong, which has been free to view for the last 10 months (so no card or hacking required) on a 75cm dish in Bangkok north.

Some of the free premium channels include;

Nat Geo Adventure (A1)

AXN

BBC World

Channel News Asia

Animax

Bloomberg

Fashion TV

etc etc

Enjoy as we have been.

[bubba]

I couldn't find list of channels and prices on Dream's website, you have to contact them personally for that. If it's as short as in Spirit's post, it's crap.

I posted this further up here (DreamTV promotion price):

http://www.dream.com.ph/press/promo_detail.asp?ID=49

And the channel list with today's programming:

http://www.dream.com.ph/programming/progra...ed.asp?npage=12

[LivinLOS]

True visions seems to be very though on people nicking their own programming, but everywhere around Thailand you'll see in public places the South African Multichoice network being shown. Which is a bit the same story. And I do not know of such places being prosecuted.

I think its fairly obvious that the amount of cable channels that have multichoice retransmission is highly unlikely to be legit.. Especially when you sometimes see the 'insert smartcard' message on some of the channels !!

[LivinLOS]

On none of the satellites you'll find premium channels for free (i.e. un-encrypted)

Except for the Skywave network on Asiasat 4 Ku band from Hong Kong, which has been free to view for the last 10 months (so no card or hacking required) on a 75cm dish in Bangkok north.

Some of the free premium channels include;

Nat Geo Adventure (A1)

AXN

BBC World

Channel News Asia

Animax

Bloomberg

Fashion TV

etc etc

Enjoy as we have been.

Superb.. will need to look into that when after I get back from my next little vacation away.. That will replace the A1 I just dumped from ubc Platinum.

[Prasert]

My Thai partner looked into the laws regarding satellite TV - having a legit smartcard for e.g. Astro and using it to watch their content is not illegal and you -as an end-user- cannot be prosecuted by Thai law.

In this case, Astro Malaysia is the culprit and they are breaking the Thai law. But I guess that Astro will say this time: This is NOT Thailand Same story goes for DreamTV / MultiChoice.

Astro is a lot cheaper than UBC, only too bad that they improved their encryption, which more or less requires one to use their receiver. The fact that TrueVisions has a monopoly in Thailand also means that they don't have to compete in service - resulting in several other TrueVisions/UBC threads. But for 200 baht per month I'm not complaining

Bubba, thanks for the link to the Agila 2 footprint. Too bad I'm in the south, way out of the DreamTV area.