ABS-CBN's TV Plus

We purchased a TV Plus box for 1,499 yesterday and so far, it has been great. I have been able to get a lot more clear channels than our TV antenna. I wish I had known about it sooner since we have been subscribing to Sky Cable's channels for more than two years now. At an additional 600 pesos per month, I've effectively paid 14,400 for two years of cable TV. But Sky's 40+ channel line up is crappy and a lot of the channels are merely duplicates of one another, one normal channel and one high-definition (HD) version. With TV Plus, I'm effectively spending 1/10th of the two-year subscription cost. My Sky Cable TV remote broke after about a year, so if the TV plus breaks down, and I have to replace if after two years, I'm still way below the cost of a cable subscription.

With TV Plus, there are no duplicate channels. I have about 30+ channels that I can access, but all I really want to watch are clear-reception local channels. So, TV Plus is what I would consider the most effective "TV antenna" among all the antenna's I've tried to hook up to a digital TV.

The only downside I've seen so far is that there are times when I would lose access to a channel, (it would appear as a black screen but you can still hear the audio) or the channel would stutter (temporarily freeze), but other than that, the reception is really clear.

As far as installation is concerned, the only problem I had was not getting any signal since the AV jack was not properly plugged into the TV Plus box. The TV kept on saying "No Signal" despite being on Video mode and despite the box having power. I made sure that the AV jack was pushed all the way into the TV Plus box, and that no silver / shiny part was visible.

Another challenge was figuring out how to add channels as favorites. Go into MENU > FAVORITES and just remember to press the Box ID button on the remote when trying to add a list of FAVORITE channels. When I did this, a FAV1 list was added. Here, you can put a star (*) on your favorite channels and when you click on the FAVORITES button on your remote, you will have a narrowed down channel list. (Memorizing the channel number is still the fastest way of getting to a channel since it only involves pressing two buttons.)

There is also an Easy TV box that some posts say can access the "encrypted channels" in TV plus. Any inputs from users of this product would be appreciated. That could help in deciding whether or not getting that additional box is worth it.