Almost Tivo
August 4, 2008
While I commonly refer to our satellite TV service as UBC, it’s been bought out by True Corporation and is called Truevision. In Bangkok, True offers cable TV and cablemodems. Here in Korat, they offer satellite TV. All over Thailand they offer mobile phone service. They have some nice convergence packages, like TV service on your mobile phone. One of their newest offerings is a PVR.
This PVR is made by Humax, a manufacturer of the Tivo Series 2. It’s almost Tivo; the software isn’t quite advanced enough to record a program being shown at a time other than the normal schedule, or to record based on keywords. It does allow for pause during live TV, and to record a TV show every week at the same time. Improvements to the software are planned, too.
Naturally, I want one, so we went to the local True shop to get one. We ran into problems; the man running the shop had had a previous bad experience trying to get PVR service for somebody else who owned their set top box rather than renting it , and who paid for the satellite service annually instead of monthly. He did contrive a way around this. His solution was to sell us the PVR as if we were a new customer instead of an existing customer. The point we found objectionable in his plan was the part where he insisted we had to sign up for the satellite package we wanted a second time. Truevisions does not give refunds. We would be paying double for service for the rest of the year, and our Truevisions year is only about half over. He honestly expected us to go along with this plan!
I sent in a request for PVR service to True directly using their website. We shall see what transpires. A Thai friend said the shop owner was merely trying to take us for more money. My experience tells me that while this is probably true, there will be problem getting PVR service because we aren’t presently getting a monthly bill, and their system is dependent on that billing. Never mind that the PVR service fee is waived for the first year. If it doesn’t fit in their little box, they don’t know how to deal with it.
