Hi all,

I'm moving to US next month and I'll like to subscribe to an IPTV network that provide chinese dramas,news etc. Surfing the internet, I found two companies offering chinese contents to asians in US(GekTV and Kylin TV). Can anyone tell me the pros and cons of the abovementioned IPTV providers?

 

I had the same dilemma. Couldn't resist replying because no one was answering my questions before. And me and my friend had to each try both services to test it out. We both ended up with GekTV. I mean it was like a no brainer after a month. GekTV is more hong kong, taiwan including mainland china stuff. It does cantonese and mandarin very well. The hk music and news is where it really blew Kylin apart. It was no competition. KylinTV was almost strictly mainland china based. I didn't see any big names on the program that attracted me. Like if ur family is from shanghai you might like Kylin more.

How fast is your internet? Have you experienced any bandwidth issue?
I have DSL which is a little under 3M/bps. Do you think it's fast enough?

Thanks

my understanding is that kylintv requires only 700 mbps to run and gektv is almost 1.5 mbps to stream. you should know these numbers are minimum spped required for streaming. For kylintv goers, I would think you should have at least 1 mbps and no less then 2 mbps for gektv to avoid buffering. hope this help.

PS. just to be sure, you can run a speed test at different time during the day to see how fast is your internet connection. Normally the traffic is heavier (slower internet speed) at night time when more users are online. There are several sites where you can run the speed test. www.speakeasy.net is pretty easy to use.

Im in the usa east coast and the server is I believe in california somewhere.  I get 3mbps download speed stable on speakeasy.net test that you linked and I have no problems with gektv.

At the same time there are usually 2 computers in the house surfing the web continuously together while I stream gek service, and there are no slow downs ever.  I got Comcast internet. Only time network hiccups exist is when I do the 12x fast forwarding on some shows. that should be understandable tho.

kylintv is wicked CCTV and mainland-audience driven. the gektv HK and taiwan shows are way more cooler man.

How about the video and sound quality of Gek TV? Is it clear? I have tried Kylin TV, and its video quality is too bad for me.

Other than fast forwarding I never have problems with gek.  There are sprite issues noticible when the celebs are taking like thousands of camera flashes. For some reason when there is a lot of flashes on screen, the sprites get a little screwy.  That happens on the entertainment channels sometimes. I will say the gek tv quality is currently better than my analog comcast coax reception.  Once I get digital cable in 2009 I'll be able to compare the two.

My friend who tried kylin did not have the network problem you described.

When u loggin to http://www.gektv.com/en/main_index_en.html

you can see a video.  That is what you see and sound on TV. There is like no difference.

Updated: I tried GekTV for three weeks, and the service is much better than KylinTV. The video and sound quality is much better.

 

Do you know if either GekTV or KylinTV will have any channel that will broadcast the more unbiased version of the Olympics.  You know NBC's coverage will be pretty much all US atheletes.  My main purpose of getting either TV, if I do, will be to watch better Olympics.

Well, so far, I know that CCTV in Kylin will broadcast the Olympic games for sure.But the commetators in CCTV  just "suck"! (I can not use another word to describe them) I don't have any information about GekTV right now, but I will keep watching on GekTV to see if it will offer good coverages of Olympics.

can you guys confirm if i can watch gektv through on windows media player??

I want to install gektv and I'm currently using comcast cable internet. Can I connect the cable modem to the gektv receiver through a router? Because I still want to be able to use my laptop on the for the internet. How is your gektv installed?

I have VZ DSL at 3MB/s, it works fine, very rarely has hiccup problems.

zhou0750:

How about the video and sound quality of Gek TV? Is it clear? I have tried Kylin TV, and its video quality is too bad for me.

I used to have KylinTV, had been using GekTV since April, much better quality, I will not look back.