Increase in Truevision monthly rental

[lopburi3]

Get IPM

Pay one time setup including box-HD. Have several english movies and 3 english news channels.

For the thai wife plenty of movies in thai, and lots of cartoons for the kids.

Also have all local channels. Great buy.

What's IPM and how do you get it?

http://www.ipmtv.tv

This is one of the Sat direct to home providers - along with DTV and GMMZ. Believe they all allow free access to the basic mix of about 220 channels available on C band or 70 on Ku band. Good for normal usage and some offers of additional pay channels. Believe GMMZ now has about 21 channels of FOX available but cost after preview month has not been set.

[HardenedSoul]

Get IPM

Pay one time setup including box-HD. Have several english movies and 3 english news channels.

For the thai wife plenty of movies in thai, and lots of cartoons for the kids.

Also have all local channels. Great buy.

What's IPM and how do you get it?

http://www.ipmtv.tv

Yeah . . . all in Thai plus the site tries to run some mickey mouse software on your PC.

Move on - nothing to see here

[Suradit69]

"I have just received by monthly bill from Truevision. Not only have they stopped broadcasting the ELP but they've increased my monthly rental by Bht 282.48. (Gold package, two set top boxes)."

Are we talking about cable and/or satellite?

I've got the Gold satellite package that I pay for annually, so it's still 6 months 'til I would see an increase, I assume, but lately I've wondered whether renewing next year made sense. Some of the History, Discovery, National Geographic stuff is interesting, but other than that, whenever I do turn on the TV I spend 5 minutes checking what's on ... usually in vain.

My building gives us Sophon cable for Baht 200 a month. It's pretty horrible, but Baht 200 a month for horrible is better than about Baht 1500 a month for horrible. I realize True has little control over content of those channels they offer, but most of the movies and series seem to be little more than soap operas or police over-the-top dramas that hinge to a large extent on vampires or guns or vampires with guns, none of which appeals to me.

I agree that the Discovery, History and Nat Geog channels have some interesting programming, but more than half of it is mediocre or worse, and when you are watching the good, intelligent stuff, you get interruptions every six or seven minutes for the most utterly gross trailing of future programmes, an ugly and loud sequence of rapid images aimed at mentally deficient teenagers.

Once I got myself an internet-enabled TV with a specific YouTube facility and discovered the vast number of excellent documentaries -- far better than almost all of what you might get on truevisions -- on it, I dumped the Gold package and switched to a cheap package that gives me TV5Monde, the Sundance channel, TCM, the concerts channel and a few other things worth watching for 590 baht a month. That is OK.

I just bought a new Samsung TV , but passed on the offer of Internet capability because I assumed it was still a fairly new concept here and anything bought now would quickly be out of date.

Could you explain in the most basic terms what's involved? If you have an Internet connection with wifi, does the TV act like a computer monitor that you can use to view YouTube or whatever? If you have iTunes TV shows & movies or other videos on your PC can those somehow be watched on the TV? Assuming Netflix or Amazon movies can be viewed/subscribed to here will you be able to watch those without more hardware?

Thanks for the info. Dropping or downgrading True and using the money saved to buy a TV with those capabilities might be well worth it.

You do not need an internet capable TV. Any TV with HDMI cable connections works fine. If you want to watch youtube programs, after your TV is hooked to your computer, just play you tube on your computer and it will then be playing on your TV set.

Download Utorrent onto your computer. Then download VLC movie player onto your computer. Both programs are free. Then connect your computer to your TV set , which acts as a external monitor. So set the display option on your computer as duplicate displays. On your TV select the HDMI jack for the cable you plugged in from your computer. Then go to Pirate Bay site on the internet, which has endless movies, TV series, documentaries, Thai movies, etc. You name it, and it is there.

Click on a movie you like, which will start downloading. Once it is downloaded to your computer, right click on it and play it with VLC movie player. VLC will play any format of movie, so that is why everybody uses it. And voila, the movie will now be playing on your TV screen.

This system makes watching cable TV look like something out of the 80s. The concept of sitting down at your TV at 9 at night, turning on HBO and praying that a movie will be on you have not seen before is absurd. I have a collection of about 1000 movies I have not seen before. So I sit down when I want, and watch the movie I want. Also the selection of movies is boggling. If you missed some great movie from the 90s, no problem. Just click and download it.

A few of my favorites

1. Finest documentary ever made is Human Planet by BBC.

2. Breaking Bad is a fantastic American TV series

I used to have UBC satellite . They were under the illustration I was a captive audience, and would keep jacking up their rates. They found out they were wrong when I canceled the service. If your girlfriend/wife loves lakorn, no worries as that is freely available on the internet as well.

The process is simple. With cable TV, a programmer somewhere is deciding what you watch, and when you can watch it. With internet based media, you decide what you watch and when you watch it......

There are a lot of Thai movies on Pirate Bay that also have English subtitles, so you can watch together with your wife......

Thanks for all the information.

Is Pirate Bay like Megaupload and Rapidshare? I used both in the past to download & watch movies on the computer monitor, but both are pretty much dead now.

The cable from your PC to the HDMI jack on your TV, does it have some length restrictions before quality deteriorates?

[EyesWideOpen]

Endless sites to download lakorn from. No need for a set top box like ipm.

Here is a torrent site.

http://kickass.to/search/thai%20lakorn/

[EyesWideOpen]

Quote:

"The cable from your PC to the HDMI jack on your TV, does it have some length restrictions before quality deteriorates?"

I think the maximum cable length for HDMI is about 8 meters. And no the signal does not deteriorate. If your main computer is too far away, you could think about buying a second cheap desktop computer, place it near the computer, and use it as a dedicated torrent/ media computer. There are other options such AppleTV or Chromecast which stream wirelessly to your TV using WIFI.

A bit tricky to set up , I have not used them. Or you can buy a product such as WDTV, which is a small box you place next to your TV. It plugs into your TV using a HDMI cable. You then take a external hard drive full of movies and plug it with usb into the WDTV. You then play direct off of the WDTV, with no computer connection. I took a 100 gig external hard drive full of kiddie movies for my daughter ,and used a WDTV to play them for her. That way I can use my computer to do my work while she is watching movies. I use a 8 meter HDMI cable for my set up, and use a wireless mouse to control the computer screen which is now on the TV.

Quote:

"Is Pirate Bay like Megaupload and Rapidshare? I used both in the past to download & watch movies on the computer monitor, but both are pretty much dead now."

Haha yeah the media companies are working hard to close torrent sites down. Megaupload was shut down,

as well as a few other sites such as Demonoid....But Pirate Bay seems to be

pretty tough as they are still operating, and seem to keep moving their servers around... :-)

I use Pirate bay and Kickass for almost all of my movies.

[Bonefish]

When you cancel True TV cable, can you still get the True cable internet connection? Thanks!

[AnotherOneAmerican]

GMMZ needs a big dish.

IPM and DTV use a small 60cm dish.

I think, gonna get either DTV or IPM for my new house, need channel 7 lakorn.

DO IPM and DTV look at the same sat as True (I think so but not entirely sure)?

[Daffy D]

Another free site for latest programs including Discovery and History channels - http://eztv.it/

You can even direct download without need for a Torrent client (like uTorrent)

[jko]

I was one of TRUE's very first customers something like 16 years ago when I signed up for their opening offer. At that time they were known as UBC.

Over years that followed, I grew steadily weary of the endless interruptions, the constant Americanised hype, and steady rate increases, so I wrote to them about four years ago pointing out my decade-plus of customer loyalty, asking why a now hefty subscription was still riddled with inane and infuriating commercials, and suggesting that as a long-term member, would they perhaps consider a free upgrade from Gold to Platinum?

No reply.

I cancelled the subscription forthwith, and it was the BEST thing I have ever cancelled. As many have already mentioned here, there are numerous alternatives, and at those prices, and with that kind of annoying content, it is simply not worth the money. I cringe now to see it if I visit a friend's house when it is on screen.

Moral: If you are unhappy with it - get rid of it.

[Krataiboy]

Truevision and all television just gets in the way of watching what YOU want to watch. Get rid of all these packages and enjoy the freedom of picking and choosing on the lines suggested by all the other savvy posters. Why pay all that money for cr-;p?

[apetley]

GMMZ needs a big dish.

IPM and DTV use a small 60cm dish.

I think, gonna get either DTV or IPM for my new house, need channel 7 lakorn.

DO IPM and DTV look at the same sat as True (I think so but not entirely sure)?

I get GMMZ through a 60cm dish and the pic is excellent with less rain fade than True.

Sent from my GT-I9003 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[MaiDong]

Get IPM

Pay one time setup including box-HD. Have several english movies and 3 english news channels.

For the thai wife plenty of movies in thai, and lots of cartoons for the kids.

Also have all local channels. Great buy.

I think that's what we have, we haven't paid a bill in a couple of years, lots of cartoons for my boy, lots and lots of US series and movies in Thai for my wife, screw True. Bloody expensive <deleted>.

Sent from my GT-N7000B

[colind88]

Just had CTH installed - Say goodbye to Truevisions tomorrow.

[personchester]

True offer a deal if you have 4 set top boxes. 2800 Baht a month. So if you have 3 friends in the same amphur you can give them the 3 boxes and cut the costs. Works out at 700 Baht a month each for the Platinum package.

I have a True-Vision Platinum package with 2 top boxes, I pay them annually and the annual cost including VAT is 31,113.36. - (the net cost is 29,077.91, and VAT is 2,035.45)

Due to paying them annually they offer a 1 month bonus, thus the annual cost of 31,113.36 is for 13 months (not 12 months) and the monthly charge is 2,393.35

Like most fellows I am very disappointed that EPL football is no longer available within True, and has gone 100% over to CTH. unfortunately CTH are presently not well organised, many have contacted them but got no results, those that got connected got a poor setup.

We have to wait and see how matters develop in the future with CTH, if they get positive then we might join them and say good bye to True.

[Bonefish]

When you get your internet connection via the True cable, do you need the True TV subscription to stay connected to the internet, or are these two separated services?

IOW: if you cancel your shitty True TV subscription, are you still able to get the True cable internet service?

[Griffo63]

I had CTH installed last week (for EPL). Phoned True and asked what I needed to do to cancel their service. Cutting a long story short they reduced my contract by the same amount I'm paying to CTH.

[tigermonkey]

Quote:

"The cable from your PC to the HDMI jack on your TV, does it have some length restrictions before quality deteriorates?"

I think the maximum cable length for HDMI is about 8 meters. And no the signal does not deteriorate. If your main computer is too far away, you could think about buying a second cheap desktop computer, place it near the computer, and use it as a dedicated torrent/ media computer. There are other options such AppleTV or Chromecast which stream wirelessly to your TV using WIFI.

A bit tricky to set up , I have not used them. Or you can buy a product such as WDTV, which is a small box you place next to your TV. It plugs into your TV using a HDMI cable. You then take a external hard drive full of movies and plug it with usb into the WDTV. You then play direct off of the WDTV, with no computer connection. I took a 100 gig external hard drive full of kiddie movies for my daughter ,and used a WDTV to play them for her. That way I can use my computer to do my work while she is watching movies. I use a 8 meter HDMI cable for my set up, and use a wireless mouse to control the computer screen which is now on the TV.

Quote:

"Is Pirate Bay like Megaupload and Rapidshare? I used both in the past to download & watch movies on the computer monitor, but both are pretty much dead now."

Haha yeah the media companies are working hard to close torrent sites down. Megaupload was shut down,

as well as a few other sites such as Demonoid....But Pirate Bay seems to be

pretty tough as they are still operating, and seem to keep moving their servers around... :-)

I use Pirate bay and Kickass for almost all of my movies.

I've never bothered to try any of these options, since I assumed that our TOT ADSL would never be up to the task here in our village. Am I right about this? Current download reading is 306 kbps or 35.6 KB transfer rate. It is normally much less ( half) than this.

Incidentally, after we cancelled our TrueVision satellite, it was 8 months ( and many visits/phone calls) before we received the refund of our 2,000 Baht deposit.

[EyesWideOpen]

Quote:

"The cable from your PC to the HDMI jack on your TV, does it have some length restrictions before quality deteriorates?"

I think the maximum cable length for HDMI is about 8 meters. And no the signal does not deteriorate. If your main computer is too far away, you could think about buying a second cheap desktop computer, place it near the computer, and use it as a dedicated torrent/ media computer. There are other options such AppleTV or Chromecast which stream wirelessly to your TV using WIFI.

A bit tricky to set up , I have not used them. Or you can buy a product such as WDTV, which is a small box you place next to your TV. It plugs into your TV using a HDMI cable. You then take a external hard drive full of movies and plug it with usb into the WDTV. You then play direct off of the WDTV, with no computer connection. I took a 100 gig external hard drive full of kiddie movies for my daughter ,and used a WDTV to play them for her. That way I can use my computer to do my work while she is watching movies. I use a 8 meter HDMI cable for my set up, and use a wireless mouse to control the computer screen which is now on the TV.

Quote:

"Is Pirate Bay like Megaupload and Rapidshare? I used both in the past to download & watch movies on the computer monitor, but both are pretty much dead now."

Haha yeah the media companies are working hard to close torrent sites down. Megaupload was shut down,

as well as a few other sites such as Demonoid....But Pirate Bay seems to be

pretty tough as they are still operating, and seem to keep moving their servers around... :-)

I use Pirate bay and Kickass for almost all of my movies.

I've never bothered to try any of these options, since I assumed that our TOT ADSL would never be up to the task here in our village. Am I right about this? Current download reading is 306 kbps or 35.6 KB transfer rate. It is normally much less ( half) than this.

Incidentally, after we cancelled our TrueVision satellite, it was 8 months ( and many visits/phone calls) before we received the refund of our 2,000 Baht deposit.

You have ADSL that is slower than a dial up modem ?? Ouch. Normally if the connection is slow, the movies just take longer to download.

With a fast connection ( relatively) of about 5 mb and a reasonable amount of seeders for the movies, I can load a bunch of movies into Utorrent

and most of them will be fully downloaded by the next morning. If you have a really really slow connection it may take simply too long to download a movie, maybe weeks. In any event just download and install Utorrent, go to Pirate Bay,download some movies, and see how long it takes.

Also with a thousand movies on a 1 terabyte external drive, it now becomes easy to swap movies among your friends that also have large movie collections. I do not own a single DVD or CD disc, with the exception of some old disks that came with hardware drivers. So this system works better if your movies are on a external drive, so now very easy to move movies around.

[EyesWideOpen]

When you get your internet connection via the True cable, do you need the True TV subscription to stay connected to the internet, or are these two separated services?

IOW: if you cancel your shitty True TV subscription, are you still able to get the True cable internet service?

Yes I had true TV , as well as true cable internet in Chiang Mai. I canceled true tv service only and it did not affect the internet service. They are separate services.

[jacko45k]

"I have just received by monthly bill from Truevision. Not only have they stopped broadcasting the ELP but they've increased my monthly rental by Bht 282.48. (Gold package, two set top boxes)."

Are we talking about cable and/or satellite?

I've got the Gold satellite package that I pay for annually, so it's still 6 months 'til I would see an increase, I assume, but lately I've wondered whether renewing next year made sense. Some of the History, Discovery, National Geographic stuff is interesting, but other than that, whenever I do turn on the TV I spend 5 minutes checking what's on ... usually in vain.

My building gives us Sophon cable for Baht 200 a month. It's pretty horrible, but Baht 200 a month for horrible is better than about Baht 1500 a month for horrible. I realize True has little control over content of those channels they offer, but most of the movies and series seem to be little more than soap operas or police over-the-top dramas that hinge to a large extent on vampires or guns or vampires with guns, none of which appeals to me.

Take the sophon and for everything else use torrents and internet. Sophon is okay for the Thai soaps for the wife and news channels for me. Sure the rest is junk but you catch the odd good film. I only pay 3000/ year. Can't understand people using True, particularly if you need multiple boxes. For the football, perhaps an excuse to go out!

[StefanBBK]

Raspberry Pi.....

XBMC is THW way to go. I cut NY gold package years show for Theorie billing practices.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[chris2004]

I had CTH installed last week (for EPL). Phoned True and asked what I needed to do to cancel their service. Cutting a long story short they reduced my contract by the same amount I'm paying to CTH.

I intend to ditch Truevisions Gold and get CTH. Does this mean True are giving you a service 900 baht a month cheaper. If so i might stay with them.

[lopburi3]

GMMZ needs a big dish.

IPM and DTV use a small 60cm dish.

I think, gonna get either DTV or IPM for my new house, need channel 7 lakorn.

DO IPM and DTV look at the same sat as True (I think so but not entirely sure)?

As stated GMMZ does not require C band dish - but to get 300 channels it would - for normal Thai and subscription mix of 70 plus channels only the Ku 60-75cm dish is required (in fact it is designed to directly replace a True receiver with no change in dish required).

[AnotherOneAmerican]

GMMZ needs a big dish.

IPM and DTV use a small 60cm dish.

I think, gonna get either DTV or IPM for my new house, need channel 7 lakorn.

DO IPM and DTV look at the same sat as True (I think so but not entirely sure)?

As stated GMMZ does not require C band dish - but to get 300 channels it would - for normal Thai and subscription mix of 70 plus channels only the Ku 60-75cm dish is required (in fact it is designed to directly replace a True receiver with no change in dish required).

Thanks,

I might try a GMM Z mini, at 550bht it sounds a good deal then.

I only need Thai channels 3,5,7 and already have a True dish and LNB on the house.

[lopburi3]

Direct replacement for True receiver - but would recommend the next grade receiver as some channels can not be turned with the mini and do not believe it will tune new channels as they become available (from reading - do not have). The HD receiver might be a good option if you want to plug USB media and playback on the TV as it supports most formats - I note 9Sat sells it with one year full subscription package making it about the same cost as normal tuner and subscription. But if all you want is the basic Thai channels the mini should work fine and not much cost.

[AnotherOneAmerican]

Direct replacement for True receiver - but would recommend the next grade receiver as some channels can not be turned with the mini and do not believe it will tune new channels as they become available (from reading - do not have). The HD receiver might be a good option if you want to plug USB media and playback on the TV as it supports most formats - I note 9Sat sells it with one year full subscription package making it about the same cost as normal tuner and subscription. But if all you want is the basic Thai channels the mini should work fine and not much cost.

Ordered it from 9sat, arrived next day (567bht delivered).

Plugged it in to the true dish in the garden, and box worked but no $ channels worked, phoned the GMM call center, gave them my name, OTA update happened while on the phone, 3,5,7 and a load of other channels now working.

How did GMM call center know my name ???????

[lopburi3]

gave them my name

Suspect 9Sat records you as buyer?

[AnotherOneAmerican]

gave them my name

Suspect 9Sat records you as buyer?

That seems scarily efficient for Thailand!

Only comp video out of the box, but seems good enough for 500bht.

[kristophon]

I forgot to add that there is almost everything on YouTube and if you are English and a sad person like me you can even keep up with Coronation Street

I`m sorry chap, but that has to be one of the saddest comments I have ever read... I`d have kept that one to myself if I was you...

[kristophon]

http://livetv.ru/en/

I use the above to watch live sports - free.

do you put this through your TV? is it in HD, interested to know... think I will try this....