English TV channels?

gosubmit wrote:

... Star movies, HBO, AXN in english, Football UEFA with english audio, not subtitles. Is it possible in Hungary?....Their website doesnt clearly say the language is English/Hungarian.

We've got T-Home IPTV (Family package). Some programmes are in English, usually on AXN, Discovery, National Geographic and BBC Entertainment (always in English). We can set our box to always prefer the English sound. However, if it's in English is just pot luck I'm afraid. There seems to be no consistency, forewarning or indication in the EPG what will be in English. Football doesn't really need English.

Mrs Fluffy tried to find out what would be in English and couldn't  get a sensible answer so we just took a chance as what we really wanted was higher speed Internet (and the IPTV just came with it). IPTV is not brilliant as a service and the modem they supply is basic and unconfigurable. It freezes up quite a lot. There are somethings worth watching but there's an awful lot of repeated programmes.

On technical matters, if anyone knows the modem VLAN settings for IPTV for T-Home, I'd like to know. My fancy router doesn't work with it as I don't know the right parametes. I have to use their terrible router presently.

UPDATE: For people who are technical minded, I know most of the parameters now for setting up your own fancy router/modem for IPTV in Hungary. It took me about 3 days to work out how to do it. Bizarrely, most of the answer was found on an Australian ISP web site.  I was using the very nice AVM 7390 but that turned out to be a failure for technical reasons and I returned it. Now I am using the even fancier Draytek 2850Vn VDSL2 Security Firewall and I have found a stable configuration not including VoIP.

The parameters are (for the Draytek) are to used multi-PVCs and multi-VLANs, Internet VCI/VPI 1/32 (VLAN tag 32), IPTV 1/34, (VLAN tag 34). T-Home also provide for VoIP but I do not use their service so I have not configured it. Also you need to set up a bridged Virtual WAN for IPTV on Channel 5. It seems to be a stable configuration. VDSL2 is recognised at about 24 Mbps downstream and upstream 6Mbps. Speedtest shows useable 1.5 Mbps up, 16 Mbps down.

At last the dreadful ZTE 931 modem/router is in the cupboard!

Some programmes are in English, usually on AXN, Discovery, National Geographic and BBC Entertainment (always in English). We can set our box to always prefer the English sound. However, if it's in English is just pot luck I'm afraid. There seems to be no consistency, forewarning or indication in the EPG what will be in English. Football doesn't really need English.

Thanks fluffy2560.

Today the UPC guys came to my apartment and installed the UPC connection. It was nice and i can see HBO, Filmbox, NatGeo, AXN,Discovery, BBC, CNN and some other channels in english HD.

Does anybody know that Champions league football broadcaster is  Euro Sports in Hungary?

On technical matters, if anyone knows the modem VLAN settings for IPTV for T-Home, I'd like to know. My fancy router doesn't work with it as I don't know the right parametes. I have to use their terrible router presently.

Not sure about IPTV. They gave me a cisco modem with no wifi. I just went to a computer store and purchased a wifi router, plugged to modem and wifi works like a charm. i did spend about HUF 5200 for a wifi router.

gosubmit wrote:

Today the UPC guys came to my apartment and installed the UPC connection. It was nice and i can see HBO, Filmbox, NatGeo, AXN,Discovery, BBC, CNN and some other channels in english HD.

Sounds like you get the same channels as us even though we're on IPTV (Internet Protocol TV). If you get all those consistently in English on UPC, you're doing better than us.

How much do you pay for this package? And how long took them to come to your place and install it?

Melroj wrote:

How much do you pay for this package? And how long took them to come to your place and install it?

Which? IPTV or UPC?

If IPTV from T-Home, It's about 5K HUF per month (Csaladi package=family package). Took them two weeks to install, mainly because I insisted on being there when they did it. Didn't do me any good, they didn't tell me the VLAN parameters (nothing to do with WiFi) for VDSL. The ZTE modem they supply is rubbish.

Ok, so the UPC is what you currently have for TV? or is it a single package for TV (HD English channels) + Internet. I am planning to move to Budapest in July and I am trying to calculate this type of expenses, so I wanted to know how much will be the monthly cost for that type of TV services, + internet. Also if you have an idea of how much a mobile plan (I have an unlocked iPhone)will it be, I'd appreciate the information.

Melroj wrote:

Ok, so the UPC is what you currently have for TV? or is it a single package for TV (HD English channels) + Internet. ..

No, I don't have UPC. I have some sort of analogue cable TV which seems to come as standard for the building we live in. Nothing is in English on that service and we have no choice on the channels or language.

During the Christmas period, we get digital cable TV for free. Must be a freebie during that period. Some of those channels are in English sometimes.

We get Internet from T-Home and with it comes IPTV (57 channels also some of which are in English sometimes). That costs HUF 5K a month for a 2 year contract. Speed for internet is about 15 Mb/s download and about 3 Mb/s upload. That package is just under 20 EUR per month.

Melroj wrote:

Ok, so the UPC is what you currently have for TV? or is it a single package for TV (HD English channels) + Internet. I am planning to move to Budapest in July and I am trying to calculate this type of expenses, so I wanted to know how much will be the monthly cost for that type of TV services, + internet. Also if you have an idea of how much a mobile plan (I have an unlocked iPhone)will it be, I'd appreciate the information.

Hi Melroj,
We moved here in February and regret not shopping around (we were jetlagged and a bit disoriented) but we are not necessarily unhappy with our internet + TV + mobile phones.

We went to T-Mobile and got micro-sims for the iPhones (both iPhone 4, unlocked) We didn't go onto a plan or pre-paid, it's some kind of month-by-month thing, a bit like a plan but you are not locked in long term. We pay about 3000huf per month for each. If we use more data than is included (there's not much, we use wifi at home) or we go over the call limits then we get charged a bit more. This has not happened - we don't have a huge amount of people to call here! You can move up or down in plans easily, apparently.

The guy at T-Mobile didn't speak English, so my partner who speaks OK Hungarian from his childhood here managed to negotiate it all. Their security for the mobile phone deal is that you give your credit card details and I guess if we were to not pay the bills the would take some money of the card!

At the same time we signed up for T-Home and internet. This included a wifi router, a TV box and installation. I think (but can't be sure) it was about 10000huf for that, and we pay about 7000huf per month for a landline (which we only use for incoming calls or angry calls to banks that are free calls - that's a whole other post!!), internet (unlimited but not super-fast due to our location, they can't make it go faster. It's 5 megabits) and the TV.

We went in on a Monday or Tuesday and it was set up by Thursday afternoon.

Now, the TV thing is annoying, because there are not a huge amount of English speaking channels, but we do fluke some shows in English (Grey's Anatomy season 7!) We changed something accidentally on the remote and a few channels reverted to English for some shows, I guess wherever it was not dubbed or something.

We are on the mid-range plan but we could go up to the next one if we wanted to (but I see this as another excuse for me to sit around, so I decided I could live without it!)

We get National Geographic, BBC News, BBC Entertainment and I think one other in English, plus the occasional random show on other channels.

We are in a 12 month contract for TV and internet and we will simply pay out the early exit fee when we leave in October. This was the only way we could do it. That said, it might not be the case with everyone.

Since signing up to T-Mobile, I wish we had gone to Vodafone for prepaid SIM cards as they have better deals on international SMS and data (my Aussie friend is with them. Not sure if they do micro-SIMs for iPhone 4) I would have preferred prepaid, then I don't go over the limit per month without knowing and we won't stress over the costs!

I also have been told that UPC have better deals on Internet and TV.

Worth shopping around! If you don't speak Hungarian, then just say "can I talk to someone who speaks English please?" with your nicest smile and hopefully they will find someone. We waited a LONG time at T-Mobile for our number to come up but found the service quite good.

Overall, it's affordable (compared to Australia anyway) and once set up it's fine. We can't get faster internet here because of our building - there are apparently too many apartments and not enough suitable cabling.

Good luck!

Feel free to message me if you need more info.

Melroj wrote:

How much do you pay for this package? And how long took them to come to your place and install it?

I ordered HUF 6000 package with 1 yr contract, all included and it took 5 days for the guys to arrive and install. I am enjoying UPC and its quite good.

fluffy2560 wrote:

.....Now I am using the even fancier Draytek 2850Vn VDSL2 Security Firewall and I have found a stable configuration not including VoIP.

The parameters are (for the Draytek) are to used multi-PVCs and multi-VLANs, Internet VCI/VPI 1/32 (VLAN tag 32), IPTV 1/34, (VLAN tag 34). T-Home also provide for VoIP but I do not use their service so I have not configured it. Also you need to set up a bridged Virtual WAN for IPTV on Channel 5. It seems to be a stable configuration. VDSL2 is recognised at about 24 Mbps downstream and upstream 6Mbps. Speedtest shows useable 1.5 Mbps up, 16 Mbps down.

At last the dreadful ZTE 931 modem/router is in the cupboard!

an update.....T-Com changed something in their VDSL delivery and my Draytel equipment no longer works at all.  It's as though it was cut off during an upgrade.

Other people are reporting the same issues with Draytek but as far as I know, no-one really knows what is going on with T-Com and their engineers insist everything is the same. However, resurrecting their crap ZTE modem operates as usual.   Draytek insist that it must be T-Com who have messed up.

That must be annoying!
You can probably still use their box as just a modem, and yours as just a router.

BTW can anyone here recommend a UK VPN provider for viewing BBC online?