Need Some Suggestion Before Subscribing To Ubc

[xty]

Within next few days I'd like to subscribe to UBC (probably Gold package, for Italian football and TV comedy series).

Assumed my apartment building (Lumpini Park View, Sathorn, Bangkok) has the infrastructure to put cable TV. Which one is cheaper (in investment or monthly rent), better in picture quality, and problem-free (due to bad weather, dropping signal, etc)? Satellite or cable?

Would it be better to buy/invest the equipment or just rent? If I choose to buy, should I buy myself or from UBC? Where and which brand/model is a good one? I'm wondering if it's possible to put hard-disk-based decoder to record (like TiVo?) if not expensive and available in Bangkok.

Thank you.

[gisele]

I decided against UBC,

I got the Astro package instead and I am quite happy with it.

[buadhai]

I have UBC satellite here in Korat. Cable from UBC is not available. The quality is so-so. In order to save bandwidth they compress the video. This is painfully obvious in scenes with a lot of motion. There is a loss of detail and a lot of color smearing. It's not awful, just annoying.

Sometimes live programming, like CNN or BBC is terrible; with pixelated and blurred images. I don't know if this originates with their reception of the live signal or the way they rebroadcast it.

We have had little trouble with weather-related drop-outs, in spite of some heavy rains and high winds.

Based on what I've seen of satellite, I'd get cable if it were available.

[xty]

I decided against UBC,

I got the Astro package instead and I am quite happy with it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Never heard of Astro, is that FTA?

My first concern is to be able to watch live Italian Serie A football and US TV comedy series (NBC, Paramount, etc). AFAIK no FTA provide these channels.

My second concern is that I live in apartment with narrow balcony so I can only install small dish.

Sometimes I miss to be in Indonesia with all free live football matches (WC, Euro, CL, Italian, English, Spanish, German, you name it) without sattelite dish (using only regular TV antenna)!

I could have hook to Palapa C2 satellite for these FTA Indonesian TV channels if I had my own big backyard or roof to install the dish and the channels were not scrambled

[gisele]

I decided against UBC,

I got the Astro package instead and I am quite happy with it.

Never heard of Astro, is that FTA?

My first concern is to be able to watch live Italian Serie A football and US TV comedy series (NBC, Paramount, etc). AFAIK no FTA provide these channels.

My second concern is that I live in apartment with narrow balcony so I can only install small dish.

Sometimes I miss to be in Indonesia with all free live football matches (WC, Euro, CL, Italian, English, Spanish, German, you name it) without sattelite dish (using only regular TV antenna)!

I could have hook to Palapa C2 satellite for these FTA Indonesian TV channels if I had my own big backyard or roof to install the dish and the channels were not scrambled

I got the info from a post on this forum sometime last year, this is the website of the company where I bought my Astro package

http://www.satthai.net/index_e.asp

[autonomous_unit]

The condo we rented in BKK area has the units wired with coax but it actually is split off from a roof-top satellite dish that is shared. They also have a rooftop aerial for local broadcast stations, and I think that was a separate coax network... I think they had to change the connection into our unit when we ordered UBC, so now the Thai stations are only available from the UBC set-top box. The set-top box is one of the digital satellite types.

There were some signal problems at first that the UBC tech sorted out as too many unamplified splitters. The building management sorted that out, but we do get loss of signal for up to 10 minutes at a stretch when towering thunderstorms roll past in the right place.

[xty]

My first concern is to be able to watch live Italian Serie A football and US TV comedy series (NBC, Paramount, etc). AFAIK no FTA provide these channels.

My second concern is that I live in apartment with narrow balcony so I can only install small dish.

I got the info from a post on this forum sometime last year, this is the website of the company where I bought my Astro package

http://www.satthai.net/index_e.asp

I've read that post. In conclusion, I would need a 9 to 10 feet dish (for Bangkok) 90 degrees facing South which I don't think I can install it at my small balcony (facing West), nor they would not give permission to install on the roof (there's UBC basic installed already from the building which broadcast only BBC, StarMovies, StarSports, and HBO).

So I guess there's no other choice other than UBC, isn't there?