Anyone know the options available on Lamma these days for satellite tv?

The best option and the ONLY choice for any high-definition TV on Lamma, besides TVB and ATV's Chin. digital HD channels:

Dish HD Asia, featuring American and international channels, plus loads of sports, including all the channels not available from NOW TV. It's not cheap, comparable to NOW TV but much wider choice of channels and many of them in Blu-ray-like HD.

It's all legal, unlike all the dodgy & illegal, often crappy, unstable, usually very low-quality (much worse than regular TV) and short-lived Asian satellite options out there over the last few years. We've tried several and given up on them.

Dish HD is what some of the restaurants use as well these days (Island Bar just got it), besides the standard-quality Thai satellite that's been common in Lamma restaurants for years, but way too expensive for regular home viewers.

It works very similar to a regular digital TV set top box, including recording any programmes on a cheap external hard disk.

http://www.dishhdasia.com/en/packages.html

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The website only provides contact information for Taiwan and pricing is in NTD, not HKD.

Are you sure this is the right site?

EDIT: Actually I just called them and they said that they only service Taiwan and if someone here in Hong Kong is using their service that it must be a reseller.

I guess that's the info we need! Help us out here, Lamma-Gung!

There's a company in Wanchai, A&C Technology - actech116@yahoo.com.hk - which is also a reseller, but they're quite expensive, especially for the installation of the small satellite antennae, the cabling, set top box and (Chinese) remote control.

They quoted me $8,500 for everything for the first year, just 1 year ago, but it has come down to $6,500 by now as more people are getting it installed now. There are around a dozen installations on Lamma so far, including several bars. Still way too expensive for us.

Contact Andy, Lamma's computer & satellite goto guy:
andy@cmcomputer.com.hk
Andy is charging less as he lives here, so installation and support is much easier and quicker for him than for a Wanchai-based company and his shop/office is in his parents' place, half way up to Tai Peng.

DISH HD It is a joint company, based in Taiwan, by the DISH TV (owning the Channels ) and ASIA SATELLITE (owning the satellite ). See the detailed channel list:;
64 video + 31 music channels, broadcasting since June 2010.
The size of the dish is 45cm to 60cm and reception direction is South.

Your old, former Philippine satellite dish might do fine, but a new one is just a few hundreds $s.

You need to prepay the first year, including the monthly subscription, depending on what additional channels you're choosing, like 5 (!) dedicated English Premier League channels, extra sports, adult channels, more movies ... but it's much less from the 2nd year for subscription only.

The selection of TV channels in the (highly recommended) Upgrade Deluxe package far surpasses anything available on Lamma and many of them are in Blu-ray-like, true HD quality. Once you start watching documentaries, HBO or sports in HD, there's no way back; regular digital TV, downloads or even DVDs just look all really blurry in comparison....

OK, I got a rented-by-mail Blu-ray disk and some recorded HD TV to watch on this rainy day, right after publishing my (almost) daily Lamma-zine story....

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Click here for Lamma-zine stories and recent Lamma Spotlights of the Week:
Photo, Video, Person, Wildlife, Bird, Artwork.

This is great Lamma-Gung, thanks for the info.

I have the latest Thai sat Truevisions with the HD package (1920 x 1080 resolution).

Check:
http://truevisions.truecorp.co.th/?ln=en

The solution with a lot lower price is to buy a Slingbox, (Slingbox.com), ship it to a friend or family member in the US or UK or elsewhere. A Slingbox is a "placeshifter." It is 100% legal anywhere in the world. It can be hooked up in 30 minutes with little effort. Once installed you log in with a password and you can watch as many cable channels that you are willing to pay for under your friend's or family members account. You can even be gracious enough and pay for the service. There are no other fees. As long as you have an adequate internet connection on Lamma and in the other location you will be able to view the channels in high quality or HD.. You will have HD channels on your TV set. I have over 200 channels from the US with a DVR and using CSL 4G internet service on Lamma. I pay US$40.00 for the cable service from the US. It is the most reasonable solution with little aggravation after the initial purchase and set-up.

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Reuben L Sushman

If you have WI-FI in your house, an Android TV box plugged into your big HDMI TV will give you thousands of TV apps.
CNN, BBC news, Sky news, CNBC, NHK and Thousands of free movies.
Available from computer centres for about $500hkd+
Needs a special remote that has a mouse and mini keyboard on. for about $100hkd more.

Techgear movie box or
http://www.geniatech.com/pa/android-tv.asp

Can you please let me know where I can get this?

Many thanks.

A quick question about the Dish-HD, for those channels with subtitles, can the subtitles be turned off?

I ask because for the NowTV subscription, (rant mode on) they cannot be turned off! In spite of there being a subtitles button on the remote. I called and confirmed this was the case ("oh sorry, we will mention it to our management...." good luck with that in other words). Pathetic.

Rant mode off; thanks if anyone can confirm.
GM