mmhendrie

I've had a hard time seeing the Boro since they got relegated. The rights for the Championship have floated around a bit, I think Fox Soccer Plus had it, and then BeIN Sport was the last I heard - you're certainly looking at a premium (read additionally monthly charge around $15 per month) to get that. I never signed up, because I think they were only showing a couple of games a week, so it was a lot of extra cash to wait a couple of months for the odd boro game, and I had no interest in watching other Championship teams. I've found them very occasionally on online streaming sites - but I probably only see 2-3 games per season - I also try and catch goal highlights on youtube the following week. The Premier League gets excellent coverage though, so I'm actually feeling fairly confident about seeing them plenty of times next season! (first time since we were relegated I actually feel confident!)
-Matt

Keepersteve23

Moving to New York from London soon, and read this thread with interest as I'm a sports nut and will need my fix. Couple of questions:
1. Will my LG 42 inch TV purchased in the uk work in the US? Or should I leave it behind and buy a new one?
2. For most sports, sounds like I need to get a good cable package. Any recommendations as to which one?
3. If I want to watch Sky TV, sounds like I'll need to do a VPN workaround like DNS, is this correct? Is it pretty simple to do and is there a website that explains in more detail the steps I'd need to take?
Thanks

Bob

1- Look at the specs to see if it's dual voltage, if it is, it's feasible, but TV's are cheap here, sell it.
2- Which ever one is available in the neighbourhood you live in
3- Yes, yes, yes.

Steve_

I wouldn't even bother with cable or satellite to begin with, just get an antenna and a TiVo and plug a computer into the TV and watch stuff that way. (Although a TiVo and a smart TV can stream Netflix and Youtube).

90% of the cable channels are total crap and most of the stuff actually worth watching is a "premium" add-on like HBO. Hence the reason everyone is going to Netflix.

In Chicago there are probably a ton of OTA channels you can get with an antenna anyway.

They have BBC World News on PBS twice a day which is the only way to get actual news about what is going on in the world on TV in the US. All the cable news networks are mindless dross.

Guindalf

That's fine if you are in or near a big city, but for us rural types, there is no choice if you want news or current sports.

Almost everything can be 'found' online, but that's really not a solution for the country bumpkins who have a 3Mb down/0.5Mb up so-called high-speed internet! (I have 12 down and .75 up - the fastest available where I live, and it still sucks).

Sally Redux

'News' really is appalling. Glean what you can from BBC and Al Jazeera.

You probably won't have a choice on provider anyway.

hungryhorace

+1

Incidentally, Al Jazeera is now broadcasting here which is a quality news organisation with plentiful BBC content / broadcasters.

You can also buy a Roku and get access to Sky News's live stream. Having lived here for over a year now, when I can cut my cable cord I will. I will keep my TiVo and just use it for FTA channels. Everything else will be streamed via Roku or XBMC (iPlayer etc).

Michael

TV Listings - TV.com

Use the above link to check the different services and channels available in your area. Click on Edit at the upper right corner to set the zip code and select the service that you want to display.

penguinsix

One thing, I think, about LG televisions--the Smart TV functions of LG are region-locked to the serial number of the television, so if you want to use it in the USA you'll need a VPN/SmartDNS setup. I think...

Samsung SmartTV functions can have the regions changed, following some rather odd keystrokes on the remote. Again you would need a SmartDNS if you want another region. I have my TV set on UK so I get BBC iPlayer, Sports, ITV and 4od and 5 on the SmartTV as apps (the iPlayer quality is amazing--really looks good--as clear as over the air).

Michael

It is my understanding that AT&T is a hybrid cable system and is unlike a standard cable system that has 800+ channels running down the street by everyone's homes simultaneously and then feeds each home with a coax tap into the cable system. Instead AT&T took their existing fiber cable that was used only for phones and when someone on a street switches channels, that channel is feed down the street and homes tap into the cable system via a twisted pair.

I believe initially only about a maximum of 16-24 mbps could be handled per home because of the twisted pair (may be higher now if they found better ways to condition the twisted pair line) so it was difficult if not impossible to get two HD channels into a home simultaneously. By using twisted pairs, AT&T didn't have the expense of running coax to each home but it also limits internet speeds. By using a switched system, a much lower capacity cable system could be used than a standard cable system since it is unlikely that more than 50-100 different channels would be selected on a street simultaneously. AT&T still had to upgrade the fiber for the trunk to carry 800+ channels simultaneously but didn't have to upgrade the fiber for each street.

Version probably has the best cable system in the US since it was designed in the early 2000s for HD and high speed internet service with fiber directly to the homes but has very limited and scattered service areas. In my opinion, Comcast has the best of the standard systems with generally very high capacity in most areas (typically about 2x the capacity of UK cable systems) allowing for expansion to very high speed internet service speeds and more HD channels in the future. US cable systems became much larger in capacity than UK cable systems since originally US cable systems were designed for high bandwidth requirement analog channels (each analog channel requires 20x-40x the bandwidth as a SD digital channel and 3x-6x of a HD channel) that directly feed a TV without a STB and filters were physically placed on the line coming into the home depending on the subscription. When the US cable companies decided to add digital channels in the 1990s, they still wanted to provide analog channels to their customers plus new digital channels and upgraded the fiber and equipment to handle both and it was only recently that most cable companies eliminated 100% of the analog channels requiring all customers to have a STB. However when HD was first introduced, it was difficult for some cable systems to get enough free bandwidth with 70-80 analog channels on the system and some cable systems were upgraded even more usually with high gain amplifiers in the streets. A 720 MHz system could go to a 860 MHz system and a 860 MHz system could go to a 1 GHz system with high gain amplifiers but they could also add more amplifiers and re-space them in the streets to increase capacity even more.

The biggest weak link for standard cable is the home coax wiring since often it was installed when only analog was available and analog can work without a good signal. Therefore if someone has problems receiving cable in their homes (picture breakup on some channels or problems with on demand), get rid of the splitters in the walls for receptacles that are not used since those degrade the signals. You probably won't see any noticeable issues for internet service with old coax since retries will occur.

Also cable has a larger share of the market than SAT in the US which is the opposite from the UK.

Steve_

Well I live in Calgary, we only have four OTA channels so I do have cable, but if I lived in Chicago I wouldn't bother.

Another thing I will say is the TiVo Roamio is a really nice DVR, takes awhile to get the hang of it but it pisses on the DVRs cable/satellite companies usually give you.

Steve_

PBS evening news is okay. Fortunately in Canada we have various foreign news networks like BBC World News. Apparently you can get it on Comcast.

I watch Swiss Info on TV5. Nothing like catching up with the latest news in the cheese industry.

Steve_

Google gigabit! I want that so badly.

But anyway OTA you get all the bandwidth you want to record HD...

Michael

That my be true in Calgary and rural America but for major metropolitan areas, channels 52-69 were lost, some stations moved off the lower channels since those can cause problems with digital (they still use the same virtual channels number), and channel allocation became more critical when the US switched to digital. I don't know if there would be enough space available for 4x in major metropolitan areas especially if all the old analog stations started broadcasting in HD.

GeoffM

Two months in and we've barely watched Verizon FIOS TV. Virtually everything we watch is via the Roku, with subscriptions to Netflix and Acorn TV amongst about a dozen other free channels. We don't watch sports though.