tv online- Illegal content being distributed on the net( No illegal links)

WoollyRedHat

This is a follow-up on the thread of tv online. It is not to distribute links which contain copyrighted content but to debate why it is so widespread.

The moment tv channels start to get serious and realise that releasing their shows on the internet for a certain fee that would allow you to keep and watch the show ( not some of this rubbish where you buy it, it's streamed then it disappears off your computer)

There is a few doing this at the moment but not enough. A big distrubution by Hulu is happening, U.s shows will be accesible for free on www.hulu.com but I think this is only available to the states at the moment and also just clips, but that's free. Of course there are also things like 40D and Iplayer, but this needs to be vastly improved if it is to be recognised as a decent tool to watch your favourite television programmes online.

That is why illegal sites offering these shows are so popular.. because legal viewing content being offered is rather weak, imo.

aidan_walsh

The moment tv channels start to get serious and realise that releasing their shows on the internet for a certain fee that would allow you to keep and watch the show ( not some of this rubbish were you buy it, it's streamed then it goes)

And the incentive to kill lucrative inter-network distribution and broadcast deals and syndication rights comes from where?

WoollyRedHat

I would think it would benefit both. People have laptops these days, want to watch their shows on the go. I wouldn't see a downfall on making shows also available on the net for a certain price, like I said it's already happening, but needs improvements if it's to be recognised.

AlmightyCushion

The moment tv channels start to get serious and realise that releasing their shows on the internet for a certain fee that would allow you to keep and watch the show

Digital distribution won't stop illegal sites. Some people will still want to watch it for free.

WoollyRedHat

Granted, but it would certainly help. I will admit, I use these websites, they're not even that great, it would be much easier to use a legal, trustworthy site, that has links that work etc.

Most of the links illegally can often be poor, broken etc.

An example of were tv is being offered on the net quite succesfully ( in the form of their respective channels in this case) is www.liveuktv.com

You can get a various ammount of channels offered to you on your computer with a subscription, accesible to everyone, and flexible for different timezones such as Austrailia and so on.

JC 2K3

Bittorrent ftw.

deise_boi

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Bittorrent ftw.

What he said

No but seriously, I think it would help. It would appeal to those people who feel obliged to pay for things (ie. Those who download legally with Itunes instead of taking the free P2P route).

Honestly, I'll continue to download movies etc as long as DVD prices remain ridiculously overpriced

aidan_walsh

Honestly, I'll continue to download movies etc as long as DVD prices remain ridiculously overpriced

As a matter of interest, what would those who download consider a fair enough price to make them consider another route?

Holsten

Wouldnt matter if you could get good stuff by paying.

You'll always get it for free anyway.

WoollyRedHat

But my point is at the moment, there is a lack of quality on the free front.

JC 2K3

Not if you use Bittorrent...

WoollyRedHat

Perhaps, but I prefer to stream, Bittorrent may give results, but you have to know what you want beforehand.

Orion

JC_2K3: You're missing the point. We all know about Bittorrent. But thanks for pointing it out ... twice.

But back to the OP. The main reason I download is because I hate the amount of ads - particularly on the Satellite and commercial terrestial channels. It's not the ads I hate - it's the amount of them. A couple of years ago the first ep of 24 (can't remember which series) was 1:10 on Sky - yet it was 1 hour in the US - that's 10 minutes more ads on Sky than on a US channel for a season premiere! And people say the commercialism in the States is bad? Another reason is that some shows (e.g. Torchwood) are on at a time inconvenient for me and I don't have a video/dvd/hdd recorder.

Then for older shows the DVD prices are ridiculous. €50 for half of a season of Lost? Get a grip!

Naikon

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Not if you use Bittorrent...

Rapidshare is where its at.

Jesus Wept

Apparently 4 major Japanese ISP's have agreed to start banning people who use torrents.

Linkeh

Caliden

I'm using a program that routes my connection through a US proxy and allows me to view Hulu. It's awesome as I can watch Arrested Developement when I want.

AlmightyCushion

The-Rigger wrote: »

Apparently 4 major Japanese ISP's have agreed to start banning people who use torrents.

Linkeh

I think using a program like peer guardian will stop their way of tracking people. I don't use torrents though so I might be miles off.

Jesus Wept

.

Wook

Love the channel 4 free tv online application...love it

Ghost Train

Thing is i like to have a file in a format that I can use on my laptop, pc, dvd player or pda. Having a divx or xvid avi file lets me do that, thats why I wouldnt be into watching stuff in a flash player or something through a website. Having decent quality or a HD file available can be a plus. Also if shows are shown within a day or two on this side of the atlantic then it's easier just to watch stuff on the tv, like prision break and lost on rte 2. Well done to rte for recognising that. If I have to wait a week or a few months for a show and avoid spoilers then I'm going to prefer downloading it.

Dvd of shows are priced a bit too high, pay for a boxset for one season of a tv show can nearly costs as much a tv licence. If the dvds of episodes were released before they aired on tv for a few euro then it might be something worth buying.

robinph

I like the idea of the BBC iplayer, and would happily pay a subscription to be able to access that outside of the UK, but to only have 7 days after the initial broadcast to watch stuff is a bit short. Itunes is about twice the price in Europe as in the US so that would put you off right away from downloading video from it, although that the videos will not die after a fixed time is a plus it would cost the same to get a whole series via itunes as it would to just buy the DVD so they are not really providing any major incentive to pursuade anyone to buy from them rather than using other sources.

The amount of advertisements put me off watching anything on TV.

4Xcut

For me its two things. Ads and having to set aside that specific time once a week. I know that sounds petty but in all honesty if you miss an episode of things like lost its pointless after that really. And the fact that you have to sit through nearly twenty minutes of ads per hour of television is taking the mick.

Duggy747

Some DVD boxsets are through the roof on prices and are brutal slow with keeping up with the present timeline of the show. I recently got the 1st 5 seasons of Top Gear (current format) and have been enjoying myself to death with them this week. I find it one of the hardest things to download on the net as they're always taken down in a nanosecond.

Top Gear, funnily enough, is actually one of the most pirated TV shows in the world! Now, you learn something new everyday!

Oh, Rapidshare all the way!

seamus

They need to rethink their revenue model really. At the moment, most TV networks make little or no money from their viewers. This is why they advertise and rely on stupid text-in things.
People like Sky and NTL make money from their subscribers and they in turn pay the channels for the subs, but it's a tiny amount of revenue for the channels.
The people who watch shows online are those who don't/can't wait until they appear on the syndicate networks. So they just need to target those people.

If the networks that produce the shows realise that they could have people subscribe directly to get the shows immediately then they could make serious money providing a good quality video to those who want to see the show now. You could even subscribe to a whole season for like €40 and then you get sent a DVD boxset at the end.

Cuddlesworth

I don't think we have the infrastructure to support a legal content distribution. Look what the BBC iplayer has done to Britain's ISP's.

robinph

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I don't think we have the infrastructure to support a legal content distribution. Look what the BBC iplayer has done to Britain's ISP's.

El Reg

They would need to do a similar thing with movies though. It would be great if Film4 had a service where you could watch all their movies online for a set fee. It is the worst thing to watch it on the television. There's nothing worse than getting to a good part only for it to be stopped by either the lottery/news or some stupid ring-tone pimping ad.

Neamhshuntasach

i pay a television license and i also pay for sky tv. It doesn't suit me to watch a lot of the shows i want to watch because i don't be at home. I don't see much of a difference between me sticking a tape/disc in the VCR/dvd player or downloading it from the net. It's just a matter of convenience for me. Sky charge as much as they do for their subscription because they are paying TV networks for the right to show certain shows. So if i'm already incurring the costs for the right to watch tv shows should it really matter what the medium is? And why should i have to pay again for them online? It's not like i'm selling them.

Ponster

OP

I've been living in France now for 10 years and while I speak French fluently, the quality of most French TV is quite poor when compared to the BBC.
I got rid of my TV last year as saw no point in paying for a licence when I pay €30 per month for my 25M Internet access which I use to download tv shows via bittorrent.

I agree that a lot of (warez/sharing) sites are difficult to use and links can often go down resulting in having to search for a new source just when you expected to sit down and watch the latest episode of Stargate

I have set up uTorrent to automatically download about 10 shows that I follow (BS-G, Stargate, The Simpsons, etc...). Some I can't get in France and others I can see but in French which isn't cool when it's The Simpsons. It's fast and it's easy and when an episode is down I've set up a service that sends me a text to let me know that the latest episode of X is ready. I watch what I want to watch, when I want to watch it, but miss out of some great stuff I guess due to not hearing about it.

I honestly believe that if this same service was offered to me, but cost me € then I would really consider it as opposed to getting content for free as I am at the moment.

I *used* to download movies, so many I couldn't possible watch them all. Then almost all the cinemas in Paris brought in a card which costs €18 a month for unlimited film viewing. Since then I haven't seen the need to download anything as I go about 5 times a month at less than €4 per entry on average.

Cork Exile

Check out www.Babelgum.com. Based in Dublin and endorsed by Spike Lee.
There aren't too many mainstream shows available on ityet but the content is growing. There's a lot os sports coverage, especially Serie A games. And for the kid in you, old He-man cartoons....for those Saturday mornings lol

Wertz

The way I've always looked at it WRT downloading ripped TV, is that I'm paying both RTÉ and Sky several hundred euro per year in fees so they can buy the rights to this stuff on mine and other viewer's behalf...but I'm not of the persuasion to want to have to wait weeks or sometimes months to see the latest shows (in fact it could be argued that d/ling has decreased the times non-US audiences need to wait to see those shows), or the adbreaks they're peppered with so I go and d/l them, watch them once and usually just delete them. Where I have saved them to disc, it's unusual that I would watch them more than twice.
Producers could argue that my actions hurt DVD sales but for the most part I wouldn't be a big buyer of DVD boxsets even if I didn't have access to ripped shows; you've seen a show once, why would you want to see it again (and again ad infinitum).
Streaming is bullsh*t...quality is poorer than proper divx rips, depends on connection speeds and in the event of disconnect you have to cache the whole thing again to watch it from the point where your connection dropped.