TrueVisions Launched 17 HD Channels, Blocked Pirate Users Overnight

[SuneeTH]

I would not advise buying the receiver either, rent it; you'll have to pay 2,000 baht deposit and I doubt you'll get a discount/ trade in for old receiver as you bought it (had it been rented they should simply swap them over for free). Good luck,

I disagree with this. Buying costs 3,990 baht. Renting is 155 baht or so per month. If you buy one you'll be ahead after just over 2 years. Now when you consider that renting will also entail a 1,500 baht installation fee, and a 2,000 baht deposit that is tied up for x years, buying is an absolute no brainer.

As I said in an earlier post if you choose to buy your box and True decides to change the encryption again to a format not supported by the Samsung box (you never know, providers are always trying to stay a step ahead of pirates); don't blame True if they don't change your box, heck don't be surprised if they don't even bother to notify you of upcoming changes - leaving in the dark <again> during the transition.

Edit: what installation fee (1,500 Baht) is this? I've never paid any kind of fee for installation, even though True has changed my box 3 times over the years.

I have 3 HD boxes provided by TrueVisions...have had them around 2 months. 2 of the 3 have already been replaced by TrueVisions because when turning them on from standby 2 of them began saying something along the lines of "Updating, please wait..." and you had no picture. I had to remove and reinsert the subscription card each time to make the error go away and get the picture. The 3d box didn't have this problem...all three boxes are identical models. If I left the boxes fully on all the time the boxes did have the problem, but turn them to standby and back on and the problem occurred...gets old fast removing and reinserting the subscription card.

So, we call TrueVisions...a True Tech gives us the instructions on how to do a firmware update which he said usually fixes this issue. You turn the box off, turn it back on, as soon as you see the word Booting on the box you press Exit on the remote and quickly enter the code 2485, and then a downloading/updating firmware type screen appears....you wait until the down/update process completes/reaches 100%, and autotmatically resets the box. I did this on both boxes; didn't help.

Call Center said they would replace the boxes the next day. A Tech did arrive the next day...first thing he tried was the firmware upgrade again...it didn't fix the problem as my try didn't...he then swapped out the two boxes which had the problem. Heck, we even ran the firmware upgrade process on all three boxes while he was there....all three boxes continued to work properly and still continue to work. The tech said they have had quite a few boxes with this particular problem...and the problem don't seem to appear until a few days after installation.

Wow, True Visson must be making a killing charging all these.

Yet they want the Euro 2012 rights from GMMM for FREE.

[Ferangled]

I would not advise buying the receiver either, rent it; you'll have to pay 2,000 baht deposit and I doubt you'll get a discount/ trade in for old receiver as you bought it (had it been rented they should simply swap them over for free). Good luck,

I disagree with this. Buying costs 3,990 baht. Renting is 155 baht or so per month. If you buy one you'll be ahead after just over 2 years. Now when you consider that renting will also entail a 1,500 baht installation fee, and a 2,000 baht deposit that is tied up for x years, buying is an absolute no brainer.

Each to their own but the basic maths doesn't confer the full picture. Buying basically confers you zero comeback when something goes wrong. Rented box and they will swap it out FOC if there's any hardware problem. Satellite receivers are pretty flaky as AV equipment goes, the heat and humidity in Thailand doesn't make for a perfect installation environment and given this is a fairly new product I would expect some hardware issues... indeed I have already heard of a number of customers that have had to get receivers replaced after they developed issues.

The 2,000 baht is a refundable deposit and the 1,500 bt installation fee applies to both rental and bought receivers depending on whether or not you already have a satellite dish/ cable installed. It has nothing to do with the rental status of your receiver.

As we've seen with this recent changeover, times change, technology gets made redundant and the rental customers have come out of this much better, with free upgrades to the new receivers... The AV industry likes to shake things up to generate sales so I very much doubt this will be the last sat receiver upgrade we see here.

[Ferangled]

We've been into our local branch today, and came away more confused than when we went in. We had bought our receiver, many years ago, and after reading comments on here, about exchanging new for old, (at a cost), I took it with us. At first they told us that could not sell us a new receiver, as they had none in stock, but would have stock in three days. We could however rent one, but had to pay 6 months deposit (9000 Baht), first. We decided to wait the three days. Then they discovered they did have some receivers for sale, at 3900 Baht.

We decided to buy one, as we were told to rent a receiver box was 1500 baht a month, with Gold package subscription fees of 1400 baht, on top of that. We asked to have the HD channels included, (extra cost 290 baht), and also the BBC package of Entertainment & CBBC, (a further 170 baht). after the True shop got in touch with whoever runs this joke of a company, we were told that the HD channels and BBC packages were only available to customers who rented their receivers - I thought the purpose of running a business was to make money, but it seems True can afford to turn my money away.

After I had stopped banging my head on the wall, we bought the receiver, but with only the Gold package as a subscription. It took the girls in the shop, (there was seven of them, and we were the only customers, apart from a couple of folks paying bills), over two hours to sort this out for us !

I have been a customer of this company, and UBC before it, for 12 years or so. I cannot understand why they differentiate between customers who rent their receivers, and those who buy them.

It seems they have no idea of how to treat loyal customers. Frankly I am amazed that any Thai people can afford to pay a monthly rental of 1500 baht, with additional package costs for whichever service they subscribe to, on top of that. Ridiculous way to run a business.

Sounds like a total fiasco. The receiver rental cost is 155 baht a month, platinum package 2,000 baht a month, which includes BBC Knowledge and BBC Lifestyle, Entertainment and CBeebies are extra (but I seem to get them for free).

http://www.truevisio...kage.aspx?id=39 All the monthly costs are listed here and should not vary from branch to branch. It sounds like the shop is staffed by a bunch of scammers, trying a fast one or just idiots.

I would return the receiver to the shop and call the customer service number rather than try to deal with the shop face to face http://www.truevisio.../contactus.aspx , report the local shop and order what you want over the phone. I believe you can even sign up on the website but haven't tried it.

I would not advise buying the receiver either, rent it; you'll have to pay 2,000 baht deposit and I doubt you'll get a discount/ trade in for old receiver as you bought it (had it been rented they should simply swap them over for free). Good luck,

Well my wife rang Truevisions and the chap said we should go back to the shop (Phetchabun) tomorrow and they should change us over to the rental package, using the money we paid for the deposit and to subscribe to the Gold package. He also said that the extra channels we wanted, the HD package and the BBC package are available, as a la carte extras, and the girls in the shop should know this. We'll see what happens, but either way, I'm writing to the head office to complain. How hard can it be to have people working in a shop who actually know what they are talking about? I feel that we were conned today, Disgraceful way to treat long standing customers.

I'd check the subscription costs carefully; I'm pretty sure that a Gold subscription with additional HD and BBC package will be approaching the cost of Platinum - It might even work out cheaper just going with the Platinum sub which currently includes HD & some BBC content...

It does sound like you have a bunch of scammers at the local shop and I'd try to make it clear to them that you will be checking everything they say/ do back with True head office. It's worth complaining because the more complaints they receive the more likely they will make changes to improve customer service. The bottom line is these guys are in it to make money, so if they receive a number of complaints about one particular branch they will feel compelled to shake things up there for fear of losing revenue...

All the best for today, try to remain calm in the face of adversity! The golden Thai rule of diplomacy... never show them how angry and frustrated they are making you with their incompetence!

[KarstenBoAndersen]

If you paid more thgen 3500 for the OpenBox HD you had been cheated your ass off !!

There will come a new way very soon for sure, to much money is lost by some !!

[pattayadingo]

If you paid more thgen 3500 for the OpenBox HD you had been cheated your ass off !!

There will come a new way very soon for sure, to much money is lost by some !!

Talking to a friend last night he has already been offered an alternative. He has to wait one week for his service to be re-started albeit from a different source. Cable from Vietnam & Cambodia were mentioned.

[KarstenBoAndersen]

If you paid more thgen 3500 for the OpenBox HD you had been cheated your ass off !!

There will come a new way very soon for sure, to much money is lost by some !!

Talking to a friend last night he has already been offered an alternative. He has to wait one week for his service to be re-started albeit from a different source. Cable from Vietnam & Cambodia were mentioned.

How can they send cable TV from another country ??

The pirates does not have any equipment to send anything up to the satelites, they have to takie what they can take down !!

[Bpraim1]

My open box is up and running, I lost about 8hrs of True crap tv. But I gained HD channels and SOME quality. Almost felt like I was living off the coast of Somalia the pirates worked so fast.

I LOVE THAILAND

[Bpraim1]

Forgot to say I did pay more then 3500 for my setup. But at least I still have TV.

[SuneeTH]

If you paid more thgen 3500 for the OpenBox HD you had been cheated your ass off !!

There will come a new way very soon for sure, to much money is lost by some !!

Talking to a friend last night he has already been offered an alternative. He has to wait one week for his service to be re-started albeit from a different source. Cable from Vietnam & Cambodia were mentioned.

How can they send cable TV from another country ??

The pirates does not have any equipment to send anything up to the satelites, they have to takie what they can take down !!

Never heard of space pirates?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_pirates

[KarstenBoAndersen]

Forgot to say I did pay more then 3500 for my setup. But at least I still have TV.

OK, sounds good !

Then will we be up running soon !

You did not need to re-programm the OpenBox ?

[MunterHunter]

I got an email this morning from one of the dodgy satalite services companies in thailand (who sell the dodgy boxes) saying that their supplied Dreamboxes now can be reprogrammed to use the new True service, there was a NDS update (or something) which was a program that had to be downloaded, put on a flash drive and then do a flash/firmware upgrade on the box with it and it would start working again.

I didnt buy a dreambox from these guys originally (but i did sign upto their site/emailer) so i have not/cannot/will not try this myself - just wanted to share as it would appear the Thai hackers have found a work around already

[Bpraim1]

Yes!

[taotoo]

Each to their own but the basic maths doesn't confer the full picture. Buying basically confers you zero comeback when something goes wrong. Rented box and they will swap it out FOC if there's any hardware problem. Satellite receivers are pretty flaky as AV equipment goes, the heat and humidity in Thailand doesn't make for a perfect installation environment and given this is a fairly new product I would expect some hardware issues... indeed I have already heard of a number of customers that have had to get receivers replaced after they developed issues.

My last box lasted 7.5 years just fine. I assume a new box would have a warranty - maybe one year - and I'd being willing to risk it breaking in the second year.

The 2,000 baht is a refundable deposit and the 1,500 bt installation fee applies to both rental and bought receivers depending on whether or not you already have a satellite dish/ cable installed. It has nothing to do with the rental status of your receiver.

I presume they won't let you rent a receiver without also renting the dish and hence incurring the installation fee though?

As we've seen with this recent changeover, times change, technology gets made redundant and the rental customers have come out of this much better, with free upgrades to the new receivers...

I actually would have come out of it worse if I'd rented.

The AV industry likes to shake things up to generate sales so I very much doubt this will be the last sat receiver upgrade we see here.

I think it's highly probable that a new receiver would last the two and a bit years it needs to to be economic.

[Ferangled]

My last box lasted 7.5 years just fine. I assume a new box would have a warranty - maybe one year - and I'd being willing to risk it breaking in the second year.

I presume they won't let you rent a receiver without also renting the dish and hence incurring the installation fee though?

You can use your own dish and the installation fee is waived. As to what warranty True are offering on the Samsung receivers, I believe you would be left to take it up with Samsung should your receiver fail... I am yet to successfully get a refund/ replacement for any faulty electronics in Thailand... consumers are not protected by the same laws here that we are used to in the West and most warranties appear to not be worth the paper they are written on. Have you been given any warranty with the receiver you bought?

Like I said, each to their own, buy or rent it's a personal choice. As someone working in a related industry I am fully aware that the current "HD" service is simply a stepping stone to even higher resolutions and better technology, which will be implemented in stages to increase the revenue of AV manufacturers.

As always the next big thing (actually the next few big things!) in AV is already ready to launch but as consumers we are fed the updates incrementally to keep us buying new electronics... think Apple products, carefully staged to keep people spending money. The "latest" tech seems to have a shorter and shorter shelf life these days, what's cutting edge one day is redundant the next...

[nbm47]

As regards being able to get Vietnamese cable tv or VCTV as it is known, yes it is available up here in Issan, very similar to K+ satellite programming (probably as it part financed by them). Don't ask me how it works, but I have seen it on a few screens up here as its much cheaper than Truevisions. It works via the internet same as a Dreambox, using a cable receiver , but that's all I know.

HD is also available obviously at a bigger cost .

[pattayadingo]

If you paid more thgen 3500 for the OpenBox HD you had been cheated your ass off !!

There will come a new way very soon for sure, to much money is lost by some !!

Talking to a friend last night he has already been offered an alternative. He has to wait one week for his service to be re-started albeit from a different source. Cable from Vietnam & Cambodia were mentioned.

How can they send cable TV from another country ??

The pirates does not have any equipment to send anything up to the satelites, they have to takie what they can take down !!

Really?

[Jayman]

Just fyi, I'm told there is a patch for most of the pirate boxes that will allow you to use a legit, paid for TRUE sub card in them. So all of those folks that don't steal TRUE but pay for a sub and want to use 3rd party equipment I believe there are working solutions for this.

Please be clear I am not talking about stealing from TRUE. This is for TRUE subscribers that use "pirate" boxes.

[taotoo]

You can use your own dish and the installation fee is waived.

Just picked up the box today and that was the case.

As to what warranty True are offering on the Samsung receivers, I believe you would be left to take it up with Samsung should your receiver fail... I am yet to successfully get a refund/ replacement for any faulty electronics in Thailand... consumers are not protected by the same laws here that we are used to in the West and most warranties appear to not be worth the paper they are written on. Have you been given any warranty with the receiver you bought?

I actually haven't checked what the warranty is, but my experience differs to yours - based on that I would assume they would send the box to bangkok for repair free of charge for the first year. In fact I had an older box fixed once and it cost 1,000 baht, took two weeks, and they even sent me a temporary replacement so I wouldn't be without one. That was a Samart.

Like I said, each to their own, buy or rent it's a personal choice. As someone working in a related industry I am fully aware that the current "HD" service is simply a stepping stone to even higher resolutions and better technology, which will be implemented in stages to increase the revenue of AV manufacturers.

As always the next big thing (actually the next few big things!) in AV is already ready to launch but as consumers we are fed the updates incrementally to keep us buying new electronics... think Apple products, carefully staged to keep people spending money. The "latest" tech seems to have a shorter and shorter shelf life these days, what's cutting edge one day is redundant the next...

Quite agree with all that, but I would think in this case the box is unlikely to become useless too quickly since presumably True just went out and bought tens or hundreds of thousands of them for their rental customers and will want to be doing that again too soon.

[thai4me]

So, has anyone found the crack yet?

[bkkjames]

Well, we have the new box and some new hd channels, however, true sport channels dont show except for #2? Phoned them and they said make sure the cables are plugged in tight.

Needless to say, my reply was along the lines of, Oh I see, if the plugs are loose I can watch all the channels except true sports. Normally, at this point I would get angry, throw the phone that sort of thing but I am saving it for when the True guy comes by on Sat to make sure my plugs are in tight.

[ignis]

Google it.......... As of yesterday you can download the new software to your Dreambox.. No need to change to a True set top box

[2unique]

I got an email this morning from one of the dodgy satalite services companies in thailand (who sell the dodgy boxes) saying that their supplied Dreamboxes now can be reprogrammed to use the new True service, there was a NDS update (or something) which was a program that had to be downloaded, put on a flash drive and then do a flash/firmware upgrade on the box with it and it would start working again.

I didnt buy a dreambox from these guys originally (but i did sign upto their site/emailer) so i have not/cannot/will not try this myself - just wanted to share as it would appear the Thai hackers have found a work around already

I was told that the "fix" is available but True can now see who is "stealing" the signal. A better "fix" is being produced. Not sure what box this is exactly but a neighbor pays for the knowledge and gets platinum however must be plugged into the internet.

Sent from Android, please excuse errors in type or judgement.

[ignis]

Also here 2 neighbors pays for the knowledge and gets platinum, Yes must be plugged into the internet., all arranged by the True engineer, talking to one neighbor yesterday the engineer has made an appointment to upgrade the box software on Saturday..

[Jayman]

Also here 2 neighbors pays for the knowledge and gets platinum, Yes must be plugged into the internet., all arranged by the True engineer, talking to one neighbor yesterday the engineer has made an appointment to upgrade the box software on Saturday..

Talk about great true service. You pay for the cheapest package and the true engineer comes to your house and helps you receive the works. Now I really might have to say, thank you true

[Pib]

Many of TrueVisions engineers/technicians/installers (whatever you want to call them) that show up in a truck with TrueVisions logo's on it somewhere are only contractors who work on commissions....the more installations per day they do the more money that make. And I expect some of them also make some extra money through follow-on appointments to make a little extra money on the side. TrueVisions also have other engineers/technicians/installers (whatever you want to call them) who only work on salary and are usually the one's sent out to fix repeat problems a particular customer is having.

[Jayman]

Google it.......... As of yesterday you can download the new software to your Dreambox.. No need to change to a True set top box

for true subscribers with a paid sub card this is possible.

[cloghead]

Many of TrueVisions engineers/technicians/installers (whatever you want to call them) that show up in a truck with TrueVisions logo's on it somewhere are only contractors who work on commissions....the more installations per day they do the more money that make. And I expect some of them also make some extra money through follow-on appointments to make a little extra money on the side. TrueVisions also have other engineers/technicians/installers (whatever you want to call them) who only work on salary and are usually the one's sent out to fix repeat problems a particular customer is having.

I returned to Koh Chang on Monday after a 2 month work/vacation period to find only a bunch of free channels and other stupefying crap (Knowledge/FOX???--give me a break!!!) available on my current Gold subscription. True visions--when I was finally connected to a "customer service representative" after 40 minutes on hold--told me that since I owned the dish and box they had no obligation to do anything. The girl said they would sell me the new Samsung HD box for 6500 baht and would install it 'sometime' in September. She did mention my subscription ended on 10th of August and i must pay them immediately (like yesterday) if i wanted to continue receiving their sh*it. She also said they had no HD boxes available for the near-future and i would have to pay 3500 baht for a "technician" to install it if/whenever they could get one for me...

Well...screw that sh*t!!! So I drove down to my local satellite guy and he had 6 new HD boxes and he came by one hour later and spent 5 minutes installing the receiver. When he called truevisions to link my old smartcard to the new one he must have said some 'magic words' because I now have the Platinum package. &lt;deleted&gt;??? Total cost 3500 baht with a two year warranty. on the box.

So...if you own your dish and box you are persona-non-Grata with truevisions and they don't want to hear any bitching/moaning from you. And it seems if you rent your set you just may be a bit above whale-shit as far as they are concerned...

[revar]

Brought my humax ir-h100s with smartcard both purchased from true shop back to the shop 3 days ago because all channels said no signal. Got it back today. Now normal free channels like CH-3 , CH 7,fox give smartcard failure messages. Others like TNN work.fine but anything over number70 has a no signal message. The shop is a general satalite shop. Which installs the true dishes but also other brands. No dedicated true shops within 100km around here.

Sent from my GT-S6102 using Thaivisa Connect App

[Jayman]

Brought my humax ir-h100s with smartcard both purchased from true shop back to the shop 3 days ago because all channels said no signal. Got it back today. Now normal free channels like CH-3 , CH 7,fox give smartcard failure messages. Others like TNN work.fine but anything over number70 has a no signal message. The shop is a general satalite shop. Which installs the true dishes but also other brands. No dedicated true shops within 100km around here.

Sent from my GT-S6102 using Thaivisa Connect App

The one channel you mentioned.. TNN is not encrypted. Anyone can see that one. Are you able to receive any of the channels you pay for? If not, I would be straight on the phone with TRUE to have them get you sorted.

They way they handled this whole change was very unprofessional. As I mentioned in a previous thread on this they typically make the changes in phases to minimize the impact on paying customers. As others here have noted, TRUE is getting huge volumes of calls from unhappy customers. They don't have enough equipment to handle the calls or even techs to go visit ever house of complaining customers.

So lets review here....

if you have an older true box you now have a paper weight

if you had bought a NON true box then you are watching TV right now.

[paul771]

Anyone else having any lip sync issues with the HD channels? Getting quite a delay between the audio and the visual here. Didn't have this problem before the upgrade as far as I remember...