ldobson

You know its funny, before I moved to America, I always assumed the US cable and satalite providers had hundreds of channels, the latest and greatest films and assumed that you could never ever get bored with all the choice. Well, after 9 years, it really is surprising on how bad American cable/sat TV is, it really does have hundreds of channels, but that's only so they can air every episode of every TV series that was ever produced, and very rarely is there ever any new content generally speaking.

Right from the get-go it was apparent that BBC America was aimed at an American Audience rather than ex-pats, shows such as "Are you being Served" - which by the way every American i`ve met wants to tell me how much they love it, that and Benny Hill, how embarassing!

Over time, me and the wife have found we have been watching more and more British TV from "lofty" (my mythtv tower system) than American TV. We download, EastEnders, Casualty, Doctor Who, Holby Blues, Holby City all in real time (Well as soon as we get home every day) but get to watch it on the same day. At Least British TV is original and well produced, which is why you will see a lot of "immitations" of the same shows in the US.

And what's with the name "Direct TV"? I couldnt think of a less direct way of getting TV, can you?

Steerpike

What's nice about UK TV is that there isn't too much of it and what is there is generally quite good. But I'd say there is as much good stuff on US TV as there is on UK TV - and thus, a much smaller percentage of the total!

I've found that websites such as http://www.zap2it.com/ will help you find what you are looking for quite nicely (once you figure out who your carrier is ...I live in an unincorporated area of a major met area, and there are about 10 choices for my zip code).

My mum loves it when she visits - old Perry Masons, Man From Uncle, Golden Girls, etc etc ... and she can watch wall-to-wall CSI if she wants ... It's a feature not a bug!

Having a non-UK partner probably helps get adapted to the US stuff. My Asian/American girlfriend doesn't appreciate anything British (other than Jane Austin movies) and she controls the remote in my household, so I watch whatever she watches. All I can say is ... I have learned to love a lot of it. She's also a Star Trek fan, and I have to say, I can watch TNG over and over and over ... chewing gum for the mind ...

penguinsix

As a general guideline, you might want to consider some of the 'premium' channels for better content. Some of the stuff on HBO (Sopranos, the Wire) is top notch and even rates pretty high in the UK. Some of the History Channel programming and Discovery stuff is cool (I'm in to 'Ice Road Truckers' and 'Ax Men' right now). Some stuff is truly American but entertaining (i.e. 'Pinks' on the Speed Channel if you want to get a look at a subset of American culture you probably don't see everyday). I also like 'Cops' in small doses. My father (a college professor) would show it to would-be teachers and say 'these are the parents of the kids you'll be teaching' as one women would throw a can of something at her husband screaming obscenities.

There's a lot of it and it takes awhile to sort through the crap to find the few nuggets here and there.

Bob

Primeval, can't remember where though, probably bbca though...oh well...

Life on Mars is doing the repeat rounds too.

England till I die

[QUOTE=ldobson;6557437]
Over time, me and the wife have found we have been watching more and more British TV from "lofty" (my mythtv tower system) QUOTE]

Mate help me out - how can i sign up to this MythTV and tower system?

runningbird

my husband purchased a UK proxy server for a year so we can use the bbc iplayer/channel4 OD and the itv one although this one is crap

google it - i have no idea how you set it up - All i am told is which buttons to press on the PC to get it to work

i'm sure good old google and a bit of a read will help you out - BUT i guess you need to be IT savy

Bob

mythtv is a linux distro for sorting out a media type machine, you just have a computer with a tv card type jobby, plugged in with internet access...it's a bit much effort for someone who hasn't a clue....your better off figuring out torrents and searching the forums.

snowbunny

I'm American and still haven't adapted to the US stuff. My husband is Dutch, so is better acquainted with UK telly than US. I'm in the middle of watching the entire Spooks catalogue in preparation for the new series. I'd watched the first couple of series as MI-5 on American television, where it had been edited to allow for adverts, so I decided to watch the original British versions.

mayhemuk

Thing that I find tedious for the internet solutions is watching on the laptop.
I tried the Sentana Sport for the 6 Nations and attempting to watch a jumpy match on a 3 inch square box was ridiculous. Would rather live without.

So what do people actually watch the final prog on? Burn it to DVD or upload to DVR? Run a cable from the laptop to the TV?

Longy

I don't do live stuff online for that exact reason, I don't really like watching things on TV. I used to burn them to DVD - there are a fair few cheap DVD players out there that will play them.

Now I have a wireless media player that can play files from my computer. Its more expensive, but much better as I don't have burn a DVD everytime I want to watch a new program.

Oh, one other thing, Setanta is about to be available on Verizon Fios in the next few weeks, so there will now be another option for this. I switched to them in April so this will be great!

ldobson

In my case the MythTV server outputs the video in .mpg (mpeg) files, those files are then automatically downloaded to my home network in the US, and are streamed over my TiVo. The result is all the UK shows, are available on the Tivo and are watched on my 52' widescreen TV.

snowbunny

USB stick.... a lot of DVDs have USB inputs.

penguinsix

I hooked up a spare computer to the widescreen tv. Set the resolution for the TV to something like 800x600 and then stream stuff live via a variety of sources, such as Sopcast, TVAnts, Joost, or just regular streams. For some the picture quality is similar to over the air. BBC World streamed from a server in Taiwan is good enough to be able to read the 'ticker' text at the bottom of the screen. Others are a bit more choppy, but i can 'see the ball' on football matches.

You don't need a huge machine--just an old one. See if there is a computer 'dump' or recycling center near you. Sometimes you can just walk out with one from the 'incoming' trash pile and make it work for you.

Steerpike

When I first came to the US, 25 years ago, they were showing endless re-runs on PBS of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Back then, in UK, there were only 4 channels and you never got to see the 'old stuff'. It was heavenly. Then they showed Fawlty Towers, and also, Black Adder .... In today's world you just buy the DVD box set, but back then, I was incredibly grateful for the reruns!

I still think, to this day, that nothing has surpassed Monty Python in terms of humor. Black Adder is a close second ...

One Hung Lo

Been in the US just over 3 years now. I get to see all the UK shows I want, with no commercials, using a decent nzb site, a premium news service and a decent broadband connection. I pay $4 every 8 weeks for the nzb site and $15 a month for the premium news service. It's as simple running the nzb file or downloading directly from the newsgroups (when there is no nzb available) - no p2p, no uploading and no need to peer or share. I probably can't go into more detail here but there are plenty of online guides on how to set yourself up. And most shows appear to be HD versions converted to divx so the quality is top notch. Newsgroups are definitely the way to go.