VDSL 'Entertain' packages from Deutsche Telekom - Germany

The actual website address of this package from t-online has changed several times over the last year, currently it is http://entertain.eki.t-home.de/ , but I'm not here to bitch about how crap the t-online website is, I wanna know some stuff about their service. Does anyone here have one of the VDSL Entertain packages?
The packages themselves are not actually VDSL related, IE I could get some "entertain comfort" package on standard DSL...so most of the monthly cost seems to be about the TV service you get..which frankly I do not want or care about. Access to loads of German TV, or live football from the 4th best league in Europe? Woop de bloody doo.

I've got some questions, and I am not calling up some krout and being forced to lower myself to speak Gerry, so thought TT would be a good bet instead...

All I really want is the high speed porn, but there are some other bits that could be mildly interesting - you get a 160GB digital videorecorder with it, which I suppose I can link to any signal I want?
You also have to buy a media receiver from them - again, I presume I could actually find some decent purpose for this?
I can get a 25 or 50 mbps net connection, which sounds super awesome, but what is the upload speed?

One of the booking options is a "Fremdsprachen-pakete" - which made me go "ooh!", but actually looks useless. OK, I can understand them offering Turkish, but I find it obscene that Russian, Polish and Italian are offered, but not English. Now, perhaps I am being naive here, in fact I almost certainly am, but seeing as this is digital telly, is there perhaps a chance that English is not offered as a foreign langauge option, because there is already an option to watch programs in English if that was the original language? An online repository of programming with the option to disable any kind of German language would actually be of potential use.

Ta for any info anyone has.

DSL Speeds:
DSL 16plus: Downstream: 10.000-16.000 kbit/s, Upstream: 800-1.000 kbit/s
VDSL 25: Downstream: 16.704-25.064 kbit/s, Upstream: 1,6-5 Mbit/s
VDSL 50: Downstream: 27.968-51.392 kbit/s, Upstream: 2,7-10 Mbit/s

Entertain Comfort with DSL16 costs 49,95, with VDSL25 costs 59,95 and with VDSL 50 costs 64,95.

I looked at T-Home's VDSL service as well.. Except for the high speed Internet part, its useless...
If you want English language TV, then stick to the satellites... Even many of the foreign channels
have English sub-audio channels or shows in Orig. english lang..

Agreed, it's the only way for us to get > 1.6Mbps, but the premium wasn't worth it for us. They still keep ringing up, trying to flog it, I just say 'but we've got satellite TV' and they go fairly quiet after that...until the next time someone rings.

Anyone got any real experience with the "entertain" package?

I don't, but a buddy of mine has it.

Well, he sorta has it, anyhow. I'll spare you all the details, but it took well over a half a year to get it installed, and then the picture kept freezing. Turns out that DSL16 doesn't have quite enough bandwidth for reliable TV watching. I hear it works alright with the VDSL25 though.

Have a look at the T-Online website. Every channel offered for this service is listed. All are in German or Turkish
except for a handful of them.. My friend from work has it, and says that even the stations that normally broadcast
in multiple languages are limited to German Language (The other languages are stripped out).

So as mentioned already, VDSL packages are only good for internet speeds. If you looking for English channels
as well stick to Sky..

Yeah, I've got the 25Mb package at a discount through work. Just ran a few speed tests:

3.94 Mb/s down
383 Kb/s up Chicago

1.53 Mb/s down
298 Kb/s up Los Angeles

13.63 Mb/s down
2.50 Mb/s up Vienna

10.40 Mb/s down
2.54 Mb/s up Germany

No problems with ssh, putty, xwindows, etc. Ping is great within Europe. I'm not using the Speedport router, rather a Fritzbox 7170 with hacked firmware and that works fine.

The TV package is ok, quality of signal is great (using a wired lan). There's a crappy lag time between pushing a button on the remote, and anything happening on screen. The remote itself blows. The channels are all delayed by 3-4 seconds, so if you're watching a highly anticipated football match, your neighbor's yells will probably clue you in before you see the action. The video recorder works fine, and includes pause, rewind and the whole bit, though I don't know if it takes broadcast/input signals from anywhere. I think there's a few tech-head forums working on this, but I haven't tried it and don't know the progress. VOD is available, but I've never used it. They seem to mostly stock what you'd find at any DVD-automat. They have an annoying PIN based system for any content designated 16 years and older to watch. This cannot be turned off, though you can permanently, if initially tediously, change the PIN to something like "0000".

There's a beta software media player available, but only for pictures, and it requires a windows pc to serve the images; it doesn't store on it's local drive. Otherwise, they're not offering much in the value-add department.

Overall I'm happy with it, but mostly for the connectivity and the discount, not the tv. Using the Fritzbox as a least-cost router, and getting the Friends 'n Family option (5 numbers in Germany to call for free), with an ISDN line with 3 numbers allows me to have a cell phone plan, free calls (or exceedingly cheap) to anywhere, an incoming local number in the States, dial-through from cell phone to home to outgoing for free (or exceedingly cheap), fantastic internet speeds, TIVO-like features, and broadcast programming for a great price.

Never needed tech support, and the service has been fine so far.

YMMV

Hi - does anyone have the DT entertain packet with broadband, TV and phone? What are your experiences does the TV work? Are there any English channels?

Topics merged by admin

Does the Entertain Comfort packet with DT have CNN (around 70 channels) or do you have to have the Entertain Comfort Plus (over 100 channels)

I assume the speeds quoted above are megabit per second and not megabyte.

I've also considered getting it too, but the 24 month contract turns me off. I'm morally against those bastards locking me in completely unnecessarily and extending my contract for another two years if I forget to cancel at exactly the right time. Also, as far as I'm aware, there isn't anything else you can do with the 160gb recorder you get, nor is it easily hacked.

Another one I was considering was Kabel Deutschland. Not quite the same speeds, but 32mbit/s isn't bad and because it's cable, it seems likely that you'll actually get that. Also, their TV package has an add on that does indeed include a load of English TV stations. Only 12 month contract with them too, which isn't too bad.

An update on this, and a question.

This week we signed up for Premiere Film, an addition to our existing T-Com Entertain Comfort integrated phone/TV/VDSL package (which BTW I have been 100% happy with for the last year -- if you have any specific questions feel free to ask). Premiere Film offers a pretty decent selection of original-language movies on a selection of eight (nine?) channels. I'm happy with it so far, although I've noticed a couple of times a slight lag time between the audio and video. It's an easy way to get access to newer English-language films, since the standard Entertain package only offers Videoload films and that selection is NOT in OV. It's an extra €20 a month in addition to the €44,95 standard package, which is pretty good if you watch a lot of movies like we do; plus it's easy to order, you can do it online through T-com and be watching movies five minutes later -- no extra hardware, annoying customer service reps to deal with or fiddly stuff to install.

I'm also pleased that you have the option to record films via the T-com digital receiver/recorder, as randy mentioned above. Thus my question: does anyone know the easiest way to transfer the films we record to DVD? (I assume this is legal if digitally recording the films is allowed.)

There is a USB port in the receiver which I assume could be used to connect to a laptop or external hard drive, but I've tried connecting my laptop and it doesn't detect any device. Is there some sort of software that has to be installed, or has T-com purposely rigged it so that you can't transfer the data? I've looked on a few German forums but haven't yet found any concrete information, so if anybody has any advice I'd appreciate it. (Apologies in advance if this question has been asked and answered elsewhere, but I searched and couldn't locate any info. In fact I might be posting on the wrong thread altogether, but this Telecoms subforum is like a jungle to me.)

If nothing popped-up on your laptop when you plug the cable in, then the port on the box is prob. not running in USB Client mode.
AKA: Not made to be used with a computer connection.

It's unlikely you can connect a laptop OR external device. Assuming it is enabled in the first place, it's most likely you would be able to connect an external device only, such as USB hard drive or stick to enable you, for example to use it as a hard-disk recorder, to display stored images or to perform firmware updates.

Thanks for the quick replies guys. My continued digging into other (German) forums seems to suggest that there is some sort of software you have to install to fully enable the USB, but I've found nothing definitive.

YL6, I understand your point about the USB port being used to transfer data TO the hard drive; but why can't you transfer stuff FROM it? I mean, obviously the Festplatte on a digital recorder only has a very limited amount of space, so after recording just a few movies/programs, the drive will be full unless you find a way to transfer that data. But as I said before: maybe T-Com has done that intentionally?

If all else fails I suppose we can of course just call T-Com, but you know how incredibly unhelpful those people are.