AKICILJ: Songbird wants to watch satellite TV in Kenya. On what?

[thatcrazycajun]

Okay, here's the deal: My sweet Songbird, as most of y'all know by now, is gonna be living in Nairobi, Kenya for an extended stretch starting next month. Since she won't have a car for the first few months at least, and getting out on her own at night in that town is hideously expensive and risky, she's gonna be spending a lot of time in the evenings watching TV. She'd like to be able to watch more than just the US-made DVDs and homemade VHS cassettes she brings with her. And Nairobi offers not much in the way of cable TV, she tells me, nor are there that many local channels that carry the US and UK shows she wants to watch.

She deputized me last week, while she was traveling in Ireland, to find out whether she needs to buy multi-system TV, DVD and/or VCR equipment or can make do with what she has now and just a transformer for the current. She has to order these things within the next two or three days at the absolute outside, to be shipped here and then sent along with her sea container, or she can't have them over there when she needs them without paying extortionate duty fees (essentially 100% of purchase price) to the Kenyan government (and you thought we had severely protectionist tariffs!). I tried to sort out from the plethora of websites offering multi-system gear what to recommend her, but after two or three websites and one 800-line phone call to a salesperson (who said she'd need at least two other externals to use her current US equipment and would be better off buying new stuff with these things built-in—quelle surprise), I too became confused and overwhelmed and gave up.

So I'm asking anyone out there who has had the experience of having to move from the US to overseas and adapt their TV watching to new local electrical current, satellite setups, etc., if you can help us figure out what she really will need to buy, or not (a brand recommendation or three would be helpful, too). She's looking to avoid spending more than $500 on any one of the two or three devices she needs, and it must be shippable to Atlanta, GA, USA for arrival by May 29th (day after Memorial Day here) as that is when the movers come to start packing her stuff up. telynor and khaosworks, you got any insights? Anyone else?

Comments

[the-gwenzilliad.livejournal.com]

While I'm not sure you ought to be "frantic" and "desperate" over television equipment that could probably as easily be procured over there as in the US, I'll put filceolaire on the case. Stay tuned.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! We have to be frantic and desperate because the APO that controls what is shipped to her won't allow anything big enough to be a TV or DVD/VCR, so anything she wants to have without paying that gouging duty must be shipped to her via the movers' sea container within the first 90 days of her arrival. After that, she must either buy locally (more $$$) or order shipped from overseas and pay the tariff (WAY more $$$). And we can't, it seems, just zip on over to the local Best Buy and get this kind of stuff; only websites and mail-order firms sell it to US citizens.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Oh, and did I mention the clock/calendar is ticking? We have precisely two weeks from TODAY before the movers come, and the info I have so far seems to indicate at least four business (not calendar) days must be allowed for shipping.

[filceolaire.livejournal.com]

Any equipment she buys neeeds to be 240V 50 Hz.
DVD players need to be multi-region so she can play her US DVDs and local DVDs and DVDs borrowed from colleagues who will come from all over the world. I believe multi-region DVD players may be illegal in the USA.
TV sets must be multi standard - playing NTSC and PAL tv shows, since her videos she brings will be NTSC but local TV will be PAL (I think Kenya is PAL).

A laptop with the right software may be her best bet.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

The laptop option is fine for just playing DVDs, but she also wants to watch local satellile TV, in which case I am not sure the converter box their firms issue can be hooked to a laptop.

[bardling.livejournal.com]

I've pointed a friend with some experience of Kenya here.

[hrrunka]

Yep, Kenya import duty is quite scary on some things. Local TV uses PAL (not NTSC), and the sound modulation's not the same as the UK. There is satellite TV available on some sort of subscription, with most of the programming coming out of (I think) South Africa.

I'll see whether I can dig up any more info.

Oh, mains power is nominal 240V 50Hz. Good over-voltage protection is highly recommended, but should be fairly easily obtainable in Kenya. A UPS is pretty much essential for computers.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much to everyone who has posted so far. I have a better idea of what technically is needed; now I need some brand and/or vendor recommendations. Anyone bought some of this stuff from a maker and/or seller they liked dealing with...or didn't? Keep in mind that anything Songbird is to have shipped from the United States to her Kenya address will be required by law to go through the military APO, as she is a U.S. Government employee, and that they basically will NOT ship her anything bigger than a breadbox from here. (She can have anything she wants shipped from any other country, without the size restrictions...but there's that obscene Kenyan duty fee again.) So to avoid the size limit and the duty, she has to buy it either from a US firm or an overseas one that ships to the US *before* the movers come, so it can go in her sea container.