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As of right now, most of the Star TV channels are working on Dialog TV - These channels include Star World, Star Vijay, Star Movies and Star Plus.

If you don’t get the channels yet, just re-scan and you will pick them up.

This is wonderful news for DTV subscribers as they will be able to watch some of the latest US TV shows on Star World, and bad news for Comet Cable (the company), as the Star package was the one thing they had that DTV didn’t

In other news, Comet promises an ‘exciting’ new digital system with 60+ channels. This will be nice, if Comet pays their bills and customers can actually watch all these channels (Comet has a habit of ‘renegotiating’ their channels with their providers once a year which usually means popular channels vanish, for weeks or months, with no warning or refund for customers who pay for them).

A few quick tips and tricks for anyone with DTV:

Install the dish in an easily accessible location (pre installation)
Remember, you don’t have to install it high up, so ask the installation team to instal it in a low location for easy access. Remember that you should have a good view of the Western sky (at least 45 degrees or better, and no trees blocking your view).

Upgrading the dish
If the signal is weak or you experience rain fade, you can upgrade the dish: note: using a dish not supplied by DTV may void your warranty, or they may refuse to help if you have problems..

Ensure you get a good signal before the installers leave
When the system is installed, ensure they fine tune it to get maximum signal strength. Often the installation team is in a hurry to get out and if they get even a slight signal, they will be satisfied. Ask them to tweak the dish till they get the best signal strength.

Ideally, pick a day with clear sky and no clouds/rain as this tends to distort/reduce signals

Change channel order: The existing channel order (with CNN as first channel) is a pain. You can thankfully reorder the channels according to your preference as follows:

1. Click Menu -> Installation
2. Enter password 1234
3. Press no 4 for channel edit
4. Select the channel you want to move, click the green button (labled Audio on your remote) to move
5. Use up/down arrows to move the channel where you want it to be
6. Press green button once more to confirm move
7. Repeat this process to move other channels

Rescan for new channels
Dialog is currently adding new channels. You can view these channels as they are being tested. For example, HBO Family and HBO Hitz are now in testing phase: HITZ is mostly operational whereas HBO Family is intermittently on/off.

To receive these channels, you may have to perform a manual scan as follows:

1. Click Menu -> Installation -> Enter Password
2. Press 1 - channel search
3. Press the blue button for “Manual Scan”
4. A new window will open with Transponder 1 (TP1) selected: Press down arrow to highlight “Start scan”, then click OK (Warning: this will erase the channel order if you have customized it, and reset it to default)
5. After channels are detected, you can press exit. You will be asked to press OK to save channels, do so

Reset Decoder:
The decoder used is a cheap chinese decoder, which occasionally gets stuck: for example, in a rain storm, if the signal is lost, the decoder sometimes gets stuck with an error instead of resuming operation once the signal is back. To fix this, just turn off the decoder, and turn it back on.

So, do you have any tips? List them here as a comment

For those of you who’d like to get Satellite TV but don’t fancy paying monthly subscriptions, the good news is there are some interesting FTA (Free to air) TV Channels available in Sri Lanka. Some of the channels listed here such as FTV and Al Jazeera, aren’t even available via local satellite operators, yet you can watch them for free, via Asiasat 3.

To receive Asiasat 3, you need a large C band dish (6 feet or more), and a decoder. Again, as these channels are FTA channels, you don’t have to pay any monthly fee to view them.

Here’s a sampling of the free channels available on Asiasat 3:

FTV
FTV is documentary channel, however, unlike National Geographic, they don’t document the lives of wildebeest: FTV instead focuses on hot models engaging in activities such as:

pillow fights…

..talking.. (yes, some of them actually can talk)…

..FTV also helps you learn photography too…

FTV was available on domestic cable a while back until someone decided to ban it..

NOW
NZ TV channel, sports, outdoors, game reviews and other stuff that NZ people are into.

ARIRANG TV Korea
Korean TV Channel with stuff in English/Arabic (?), subtitled in Arabic/English

(Do those kids look Sri Lankan? Yes they are: it’s a Korean documentary about Sri Lanka.)

CNAI (Channel News Asia)
News and a few documentaries

Bloomberg
Stocks, business news, etc..

Al Jazeera
News, views, documentaries, and more: Like BBC, just better

Actually, Al Jazeera is a brilliant TV channel. They are significantly better than BBC or CNN, in that they actually cover stories of interest, without the usual slanted view the first world employs when talking about third world countries. They also have a channel on Youtube, where you can find interesting stuff like this.

XING Kong
Hong Kong TV Channel with english movies (Chinese subtitles, english audio), and odd reality shows like this:

They do occationally show popular Hollywood movies.

TV5
French TV channel which occationally has french movies subtitled in English

DW-TV
German TV channel with excellent news, documentaries, etc (English/German content)

On DW-TV, all programs are broadcast in English and German, with alternate time slots. The programming is a mix of news, and documentaries with the documentaries covering many aspects of German life, as well as international content.

VH1
Chinese VH1, has a mix of Chinese and English music videos:

Norah Jones singing the blues..

These are just a few of the 100+ free channels you can view via Asiasat. For the full list, go to:
http://www.lyngsat.com/asia3s.html

Asiasat 3 also has many Chinese channels like this one:

..apparently, when bored, girls there get together in their underwear, and start touching each other.

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