Forums > Specific Focus > Technical Mexico

olalla

Oct 14, 2006, 12:40 PM

Post #1 of 8 (4439 views)

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satellite tv on pc

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Does anyone have any information on software with or without hardware to get satellite TV on a personal computer? There are ads on the internet, but I don't know how good it is. We would like to get aware from using our TV set. We currently have a Dish dish, but our subscription has lapsed, and we would rather not spend $800 USD per year for a lot of channels we don't want.

Papirex

Oct 14, 2006, 2:22 PM

Post #2 of 8 (4430 views)

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Re: [olalla] satellite tv on pc

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Four posts down from this one, look at the post titled “Vidoo” If you have a fast Internet connection, download that program. The video isn’t great, but it is OK. I have found that if I push my Tablemate table with my laptop on it, about four feet away from me instead of having it right in my lap the video looks better.

It will never be a good substitute for cable or satellite TV, but it is better than nothing. I downloaded it out of curiosity, but I will keep it for possible use when we are traveling, and in case our cable TV goes out like it did a couple of months ago for two days. We still had cable Internet that time.

You won’t be able to channel surf like you can on a regular TV. I takes a couple of minutes for a channel to load. There is a crude sort of TV guide, all times are GMT, and it seems to be inaccurate.

The faster your download speed is, the better. When I downloaded it I had a 512 KBPS download speed. It was OK, but there was an occasional 2 or 3 second delay. I think it was buffering the image. The buffering delays were so short that it was not too annoying.

About four days ago, my Internet connection seemed to be acting strangely. I was sometimes getting as high as 700 KBPS or more download speeds, followed by the usual 450 KBPS speeds. For the past two days, I have been consistently getting over 1100 KBPS download speeds. I don’t know if this condition is a permanent upgrade or if Cablemas has just made a temporary mistake. I’m not going to pay them any more than I am now. 512 is just fine with me for most of the things I do online.

I just watched part of a football game, and Animal Planet, to see if there was much of an improvement at the higher speeds I am getting now. The higher download speed made a great difference. No buffering delays at all. The video is still OK, but not great.

This program is not bad, not great, but it might convince you to go ahead and pay the $800 Bucks a year to keep using satellite TV Smile

Rex

"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved" - Victor Hugo

Rolly

Oct 14, 2006, 2:42 PM

Post #3 of 8 (4426 views)

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Re: [RexC] satellite tv on pc

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Another somewhat similar service is http://www.tvunetworks.com/

Rolly Pirate

Papirex

Oct 14, 2006, 3:10 PM

Post #4 of 8 (4419 views)

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Re: [Rolly] satellite tv on pc

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Rolley, The TV Tunenetworks link leads you to download the same player that Vidoo does. They both use the TVU player. I have put an icon on my desktop for the player and Vidoo. The Vidoo site has the TV Guide on it. One of these days maybe the TV Guide times will be nearly accurate.

Rex
"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved" - Victor Hugo

Rolly

Oct 14, 2006, 3:19 PM

Post #5 of 8 (4417 views)

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Re: [RexC] satellite tv on pc

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Yes, same player, same company, some overlapping content, some different. Viidoo is better, but the other one has some semi-interesting stuff, including Al Jazeera for those who speak Arabic.

Rolly Pirate

johanson / Moderator

Oct 14, 2006, 6:04 PM

Post #6 of 8 (4400 views)

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Re: [olalla] satellite tv on pc

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Olalla, You could have gotten a great package for less than $50 per month perhaps even less than $40 to include your home town TV stations. Star Choice offers standard definition feeds of Channels 4,5,7,9, & 13 from Seattle and simulcasts channels 5, 7, & 13 in HD. And instead of needing at least a 1.4 meter dish for part of the DISH programming and another larger 2 meter dish for the remainder of the DISH 500 programs, you only need one smaller .7 by .9 meter (36 by 26 inch) elliptical dish (the 75E not the even smaller 60E) to pick up programs from the two Star Choice satellites.

Ollala: Did you watch the OSU WA football game? Sadly that wasn't on Star Choice, but it is on DISH Network's FSN Northwest. I 've got it on right now. I would hate to have to watch it on my computer via internet especially considering how slow the supposed broadband speed is in this part of the world.

In your part of the world, Seattle, I have Comcasts slowest connection which is advertised at 6 megs down by 384 kb/sec up and pay $49 US per month for it. At the Speak Easy Cafe speed test site i would consistently get 7,800 kb/sec down and 311 up. With that speed I could get reasonable internet TV, but there was no point in trying, Comcast also provides cable TV.

My Prodigy kind-of-sort-of high speed internet connection here in Ajijic which is rated at 1 meg over 128 normally gives me 400 to 700 down by 60 to 70 kb/sec up ($401 pesos per month). That's about 1/12th download speed of the cheapest Comcast broadband internet connection offered in Seattle. The relatively slow internet connections offered here just don't provide sufficent bandwidth to offer high quality audio and video.

olalla

Oct 14, 2006, 6:08 PM

Post #7 of 8 (4399 views)

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Re: [Rolly] satellite tv on pc

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I've now downloaded TVU player. At this time (8:00PM Oct 14), download speed is at 379KBPS (quality of service 21%) on a 512 DSL service. Needless to say, there is a lot of breakup. For the moment this is better than nothing, but Star Choice may be in our future. We're not in a position to bring down a Start Choice receiver. Roughly what does installation cost, and what does monthly service cost?

johanson / Moderator

Oct 15, 2006, 7:53 AM

Post #8 of 8 (4372 views)

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Re: [olalla] satellite tv on pc

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I am not sure what Star Choice costs in Mexico. I picked mine up 4 or 5 years ago. It wasn't very expensive, but then again I am in BC part of every year, and picked up my equipment while up there. Go to www.starchoice.com and look at the package options. You can choose which package you want. If you decide you want Star Choice, give me a ring and I can give you an honest satellite dealer's name and telephone #