Kalkan Turkey Forum - EnjoyKalkan.com
The Owners Lounge => General Discussion => Topic started by: Christina on August 24, 2014, 04:10:18 PM
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I'm looking for advice, recommendations and information regarding which TV packages/solutions owners offer in their properties.
I am coming to the end of a 2 year contract with D-Smart where I subscribed to the 'Maxi Paket' deal. From memory this cost me around 500TL for the 2 years. This was pretty comprehensive with Turkish and English TV, movies, documentaries, news sport etc. but I was never sure whether or not guests used it to its full potential. What I do know is that the D-Smart controls and settings were quite sophisticated and temperamental, and at least 4 times every season, new guests have come in, failed to follow instructions, and impatiently started randomly stabbing at buttons - leading them into unwanted screens that they could not escape from. Cue another visit from the D-Smart engineer who charges (me!) around 20-30TL a time to come out and re-set the system.
Is Digiturk any simpler, or perhaps another provider? Or, it has been suggested to me that I simply stream English TV channels through the internet. Is this a realistic solution? What are the pitfalls? Does anyone have any sage advice to offer?
Do guests actually want to watch TV on holiday? If so, is it mainly news and sport channels - or these days do people see all they need to on their ipads?
The DVD player is fine, and well-used as I have a nice DVD library for guests to use.
Any advice, guidance and opinions welcome.
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We like to have the option of TV if we are paying for a villa...This is our 27th year visiting Kalkan and unlike our earlier years we don't go out everynight..on occasional nights we like to stay in and watch some English TV..(anyone who has flicked through Arabic etc channels will know how depressing that can be! :o)..we have stayed in accommodation with slingbox but it dropped out more often than not most times so we found it annoying starting to watch something then off it shot!! The current villa we rent has a pretty basic turk package which gives BBC news,Al Jazeera and a couple of film channels with subtitles so not brilliant...Advantage would be to be able to watch football in Euros or World cup(we always go when this is on) without going into town to scrabble for a decent view ...Mrs L likes to keep up with her soaps....doubtless there are those who think by watching TV we are bringing about the downfall of Kalkan but we are on hols and this is how we choose to relax, no one gets bothered by us doing this (if the option is there)if not we go without or watch our DVD'S from the market ;)
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We do like the occasional evening in with a DVD or a good film but make it a rule not to watch the news as it's usually depressing and you can get anything on iphone or ipad quite easily. We never watch sport either there or at home anyway. It would be quite good to be able to follow the soaps or maybe the quizzes sometimes but not really an essential for us. One of the villas we rented had English TV but not sure how she got it - she got rid of it in the end I think as it was quite expensive and they didn't really think it was worth it.
Sxx
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Really useful feedback - thanks BL. More and more guests (myself included) do seem to be enjoying 'nights in' when they simply relax at home and cook for themselves or order a takeaway. I'll bear your comments in mind.
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For the first few years of renting we used a system called monsoon lava to link back to a spare uk sky box, worked most of the time but was a bit difficult to control (time delay between hitting a button and the response) plus required good internet in Kalkan and UK. This year we have gone for the same iptv system that the hotels restaurants bars use, we also upgraded the internet to unlimited 50Mbs . Mavi Bilgisayar (Casper) got it up and running in a few mins. Many channels from around the world including most UK freeview, Sky and BT sports. Easy system to operate and local support.
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Sounds ideal Hobbo. May I ask how much per year this system costs please? I already have unlimited internet.
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PM sent..
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Hobbo, could you pm me that info too please. Also, where is Mavi Bilgisayar located? thanks
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Have to say, in the days before Internet, we always rented an apartment with tv and satellite so I could keep up to date with news more than anything else. Now I get news on my iPad so only bother with a tv to watch DVD's or the portable hard drive when we stay in. I wouldn't rent anywhere that didn't have Internet access or a tv/dvd but satellite no longer bothers us. Footie is on almost everywhere on those dreadful large TV's - even in Kleo which was hailed as large tv free zone on this forum :P. I Sky+ everything I am wanting to keep up with at home and catch-up when we get back. Simples.
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If a villa has wifi that's more important to me than tv can keep up with news and friends....hubby does like to catch up with sport.....but hey he can do without it
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totally agree that a good high speed internet connection is important but the addition of a little box that allows guests to watch UK tv in the villa seems to be appreciated by our guests.
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I'm definitely in the good wifi camp. One of the things I love about being on holiday is having no tv! We wouldn't consider accommodation without a good internet connection now.
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Hi Hobbo would you mind pm'ing me details of your TV package also? We currently pay monthly subscription to Digisat and get a mixture of English and Turkish channels inc news, movies and sport. When we are there we use a sling box linked up to our home TV package but don't leave this for guests. Many thanks.
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What is the best TV package? No TV.
But good wi-fi is absolutely essential.
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We also subscribed to IPTV (came with MagBox 250) and works with our 12mb internet speed (no VDSL in this area). We get UK channels, a couple of Irish channels, Turkish channels and a couple from Scandinavia. The UK channels are pretty much the same as you can see on filmon.org but that requires connecting a computer and viewing all the ads, IPTV much simpler.
We paid a one-time fee of TL1400. The annual yearly update is around 350 TL we were told.
All our guests said they did not want to watch TV while on holiday -- and they all did use it!!!
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Having no tv is the best package...Good wifi is essential as you say martyn.The vast majority of our guests may occasionally want to watch a dvd but most couldn't care less about tv while in Kalkan.........it's the last thing on their mind.
When we are there we never even think about tv.We are either out having a good time or outside looking at the stunning views.
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http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/rentals/kalkan/9407
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I agree mayday1. It never occured to us to try the tv. Decent wifi to access news sites, Facebook EK was all i needed!