I canceled my Taiwan cable because it was basically crap. Then a friend told me that he has a box from his cable company that offers a lot more channels. He couldn’t tell me where he got it as his ex had organised it for him, and apparently the cable options are limited to specific areas.
I live in Hsin Tien, and I’ve heard some horror stories about the satellite dishes being installed up here on the mountain.
How can I get that magically special box from the cable company? I went on the website of the cable company that used to be set up in my house but they seem to be only listing one deal. I’m interested in getting as many foreign music channels as I can…MTV, MTV2, channel V, etc.
My friend actually has cool MTV!
What are my options?
Sounds like a digital cable box. Mine doesn’t have a lot of shows on it. But if you pay more, you can get more. There are radio stations too, but I hardly watch it or listen to it. I know there’s about 5 different kinds of HBO on it, but everything costs extra.
So you pretty much just find out where the cable company in your area is, and ask them for the most expensive digital box? Can you compare different companies or is there basically just one that serves an area?
I think you’re stuck with your area. I haven’t looked at mine for awhile. I’ll have to check and see what’s on it. I haven’t paid for any premium channels and the interface is all in Chinese so it’s hard for me to tell for sure.
If Shindian is Taipei city and not county then your cable carrier is obligated to provide the decoding box for 160 nt per month (or you can buy it (2000nt when I got it 3 or 4 years ago)). Outside of Taipei city it is a bit more hit and miss. I have it because it has the Australian TV network. It also has a French carrier and maybe German. Like Dr. McCoy said it offers a lot more if you wish to pay more. I don’t think the extra subscriptions are too expensive.
There’s such a thing? Wow.
Digital set to boxes come with a fixed basic set of (mainly news) channels, and then you must buy an additional channel package for each box you have in the house. packages include something like 6-8 extra channels, all in movies, or music, or documentary, or sports, or even ‘adult’ (I have no idea, but i guess they’re the usual soft-core rubbish). each additional package costs extra, you choose how many you want.
We paid for one package for six months two years ago, and still have the box and the basic news channel reception for free since then, though the movie package access died a long time ago. Not really interested in the HBO family channel, so i can’t complain.
Twonavels, I think I saw a flyer in my mailbox recently, regarding digital cable -they also do Internet, if I remember correctly. There is a big ad close to Xindian City Hall, with the phone number and stuff, too.
Does anyone have a link to any of this stuff you’re talking about? Asked the wife, reply was one of slack-jawed incomprehension.
Sounds similar to what they offer in HK, so prepare for more crap, sorry, choice and poor quality.
MTV Asia is definetely an improvment over MTV Taiwan. VJ Taya anyone? 
I just installed a 1.8m dish for a South African Construction Engineering Manager for the MRT who lives in that estate area called The Village. The Engineer was very happy with my workmanship and all was installed to his instructions.
I dont know what you mean by horror stories.
We have a few MTV’s available inluding MTV UK EUROPE which is probably the best one. However you also get satellite radio as well that plays uninterupted music with no DJ hosts or adverts.
But apart from MTV what other content do you want?
If you dont want a dish we also have an IPTV option.
This is the crap that Kbro offers with their new digital service
apply.kbro.com.tw/productDetail2.asp?lv=1&id=28
It’s not as if it’s a lot of extra stuff, the only thing really worth having was BBC news and Star World until Star World ended up on the analog cable. I guess DW and TV5 are great if you’re German or French.
A load of crap imho and not worth the money. We’ve cancelled out box, the only nice thing is that it has HDMI, but they use so much compression that it doesn’t matter, the quality is still shit, loads of digital artifacts instead of the analog snow you normally get.
Satellite TV: Horror stories…mostly with the reception not working and then not getting it fixed easily, one typhoon blowing it into the road case, and then also buildings refusing to allow the dishes. Don’t know it this has anything to do with your satellites.
What is IPTV? We’re looking for MTV2…it has the more non-mainstream music. I also like shows like Seinfeld. I’m not really interested in the Sports channels. I did flip through DSTV tonight at a friend’s house. It looks pretty nice.
How expensive is IPTV and how does it work? I’ll check out your website.
Is it on the side of a building?
However, looking at the replies here it seems that digital also sucks, and the satellites are the only good options?
With the IPTV stuff, SatelliteTV is getting the channels through his dishes and then pipes them over the internet here to a box that you hook up to your TV. That way you can mix and match from most of this channels afaik.
That sounds like a good deal. Does anybody here have that service?
If you want to see the MPEG4 system in action go to Carnegies, that way you can see it on their TV’s.
If you want the IPTV box then we need to make a time so I can demo that to you.
The MPEG4 is streamed to a computer then to the TV’s. IPTV means having the choice of computer viewing when travelling or an IPTV box at the home that hooks straight to the TV’s AC lines, but requires an ADSL cable as well. But no computer.
I havent had much time to change prices on my site but will do so next week.
Just give me a call on 0930 750 441. I will probaly not wake up untill mid day as I am doing my the night shift today. We provide 24 hour services everyday of the year as we have clients worldwide.
The best solution is a proper install. Like the ones I do.
If you really want to knwo how well they are done ion Hsindian I can put you in contact with the South African construction Engineer I have just installed for. He needed a job done so that the cabling was hidden as much as possible the dish rock solid.
If my dishes were flying off rooftops then I wouldn’t be in business with all the commercial clients I have around Taiwan, China, HK, Macau, and the Philippines. Unlike others, I do not outsource my work to Chinese companies that take short cuts, and do the installs myself.
What’s your pricing for the IPTV stuff anyhow?
I know you have different deals, but what’s a basic package?
Does the Xin Dian digital cable TV (kbro) service include the ones you used to get with analogue cable or do you just get the digital channels, and therefore lose some channels?
The digital stuff doesn’t include the analogue ones, as they stay analogue…
You only get a selection of extra channels with really bad digital compression artefacts.
It really wasn’t worth the extra money, but supposedly they’ve improved the quality now, as their website is touting 1080p content, but I haven’t tried that.