What's on telly tonight

[PattayaPete 530]

I've always been a media junkie. I worked in radio for many years and also had some affiliations with the local TV stations. One of the things I thought I'd miss from farangland when I settled here in Pattaya, was the wide variety of media I could get back home.

 

As it turns out, I now have access to the very best in the world in stunning quality on my almost huge 50 inch plasma screen and state of the art 7.1 audio system. The key to this is the internet. I am convinced that within 10 years all the media outlets we presently use will basically fade away and the internet will become the major delivery vehicle for movies, TV, news, radio, newspapers, CDs, DVD, HD-DVD and any other media you can think of. The good news is that the internet can basically deliver it all right now, it's just not very user friendly at the moment.

 

I've been tinkering with this stuff for years. What I have now in Pattaya really is more than even I thought would be possible. I listen to true CD quality or better music in my car, office, lounge or bedroom. I have every song I want and can access every one of them in all those locations. I watch the best TV programs in the world, usually in high definition and with dolby digital multi-channel audio. If it plays in the USA or England or Australia or New Zealand today, I can watch it in Pattaya tomorrow. I have a library of hundreds of movies, many in stunning High Definition accessible at the push of a button.

 

When I'm feeling nostalgic I can watch my old favorite TV programs from the 60s, 70s and 80s. If I want the news I can read virtually any newspaper in the world the moment it is printed, I can watch BBC News, CNN, Fox News, TVNZ news, ABC (Australia), MSNBC and heaps more, live on my TV. I can listen to thousands of radio stations although my favorites are the ones I program myself. I am listening as I type this to Peter's Smooth Jazz.

 

So feeling fairly smug about all this I thought I'd share my setup with you. Anyone can do this provided you have access to a reasonably fast internet connection. Once you have that you can be anywhere in the world and your access will remain the same. You can spend as much or as little as you like. The best setup at the moment is a fast computer with a good video card, a widescreen plasma or LCD TV and a good home theater audio system. If that's too rich for you then a normal TV and stereo and a basic computer will still get you up and running.

 

Here's a pic of my main system.

 

 

The screen, amp, and dvd player are all Pioneer. The speakers are Enery Connoisseurs with an extra two surround and two back speakers, not shown. The computer, just to the right of the left speaker has a core 2 duo processor and an nVida GeForce 7600GT video card and 2 gigs of memory and two terabytes of disk space. The reason the computer is so highly speced is to play the latest BBC and Sky high definition content which is encoded in H264 and to store all my High Definition movies. The H264 stuff really takes a grunty machine to play. American high def content is in mpeg2 TS streams and does not require as much processing muscle. Ordinary SD (standard definition) content would run OK on an old Windows 95 machine.

 

So how does it all come together and where do I get all the content from. Read on.

 

Actually before I get into that there is one more piece of equipment which although not essential really makes the system hum. Here it is -

 

 

It's a Philips Pronto programmable universal remote control. It allows the whole system to be controlled from your seat and because it has macros makes things easy for the wife and son to use. One button labeled Watch TV turns on the TV, the amplifier, UBC and switches all the inputs correctly so it just works. To change to a DVD or to use the computer also just requires one button push. Any universal remote will do but having macros makes it easy for non-techy people. This was the only bit of kit I could not buy in Thailand. I had to get it mail order from the States.

 

OK so with all the gear where does the content come from.

 

Well my number one source of movies and TV programs is Usenet, also known as Newsgroups. This is just am amazing place to get digital content and it's all free (sort of). The problem with usenet is that it is not very user friendly. There is a steep learning curve to understand where the content you want is and how to get it. This is such an important source of content that I am going to go into some detail.

 

The first thing you need is access to the newsgroups and a program to sort it out for you. Your own ISP probably provides some sort of access but if it exists at all it will be next to useless. The three most important things you need is good speed, good retention and a full list of groups. No ISP provides that so a subscription service is the answer. Giganews is by far the best. You can read about their service at www.giganews.com. You will have to pay for it though. Packages start from $7.99 a month for 2 gigs of downloads up to $24 a month for unlimited downloads.

 

You’ll need a good client program to find, organize and download your selections. For this I’d recommend Newsleecher with a subscription to Supersearch. You can read about it and get it here www.newsleecher.com. It costs $29 a year.

 

So what do you get for this. Well access to thousands of movies, porn, TV programs, and music tracks. There are millions of new posts every day. This is where I get virtually all my High Definition Content including the latest programs and movies to air anywhere around the world.

 

I have recently been watching Prison Break, Grey’s Anatomy, Boston Legal and Lost from the States, Dr Who, Bleak House and Planet Earth from England and many more. They usually pop up on usenet within hours of being broadcast and you can choose what level of quality you want from stupid little windowed video right up to full high definition versions. I usually get the middle versions which work out at about 700 megs per hour. With my 1 meg connection it takes about an hour to download an hour. For movies and special programs like the very excellent BBC Planet Earth I grab the full high definition versions which can take up to 24 hours for 1 hour of program but the quality is mind blowing. I should say that even the middle version content is far superior to the quality of UBC and generally comes with full Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.

 

There is also a full selection of porn, DVDs and old stuff. I recently grabbed all four seasons of WKRP in Cincinnati a favorite from the late 70s and all four seasons of Coupling from the BBC.

 

The thing that is great about usenet is that the content is all on the giganews server so downloads come as fast as you connection will allow. The variety of content available is just mind boggling.

 

The downside of uesnet is that most stuff is only retained for three months so it can be hard to find some of the older stuff. That’s where bit torrents come into play. I don’t like torrents much because they can be slow and rely on users being online for the content to be available. However there is some stuff you can’t get anywhere else and it’s all free. Get yourself a good torrent client, I use utorrent, free from http://www.utorrent.com. Then go to a good torrent search site like http://torrentscan.com/ and start searching for the good stuff.

 

For live TV I use the TVU player available from http://www.tvunetworks.com. This will give you live feeds of NBC CBS ABC CNN Fox 5, Fox News, ESPN, Star Sports and many many more international channels. The quality is not great but it is live and free.

 

I hate mp3s. The quality just is not there, so all my music is in lossless format. I choose to use apple lossless as it is compatible with my iPod which I use in the car. As most music services do not provide apple lossless format (with the obvious exception of the iTunes Store (not available in Thailand), I download music generally in ape or flac format and use dbPowerAmp to convert them. As all these formats are lossless you lose nothing during the conversion and the music retains the full CD quality.

 

You can find lots of lossless music on usenet and in torrents but it is disorganized and hard to find. I use http://www.alltunes.com/en-index.shtml the most to download music as they have an extensive collection, it’s available to Thailand and it’s charges are considerably less than all the other music stores and it is well organized.

 

For radio I like to listen to http://www.pandora.com/. This free service allows you to design your own radio station. You can actually have up to 100 personal stations. I have just 5 which is enough for me. When you first go there you start your first station by entering a song or artist that you like. Just one is enough to get you going. It then delivers a station based on that one selection. As you go along you can refine it by adding new artists or songs but from just the one choice it will assemble many different artist and songs. Giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to a song refines your stations.

 

I also listen to some of the stations from home. You can find thousands of stations on the net. Just use google. The thing that radio stations add is exposure to new music which you might otherwise be unaware of. When I discover a new artist I like then it’s off to alltunes to download a few selections.

 

All this content comes together on my Home Theater PC running Media Portal. Media Portal is a 10 foot interface. That just means an interface that you can read from your lounge chair so all the writing is very large and it is totally controllable from the pronto remote. It organizes all the music and movie files into an easy browse point and click and play system. It’s available free from http://www.team-mediaportal.com.

 

Well this post has gone on long enough for now. Is anyone interested in this stuff? I know I am a bit of a nut but I really enjoy messing around with this. It took a long time to get it all set up the way I like it and in a form that the family can use easily. Now that it all works it is pretty care free and feeding it new content is probably a 20 minute job each day. I can’t keep up with all the good content I have but it’s all there waiting for me when I want to watch or listen to something good.

 

If anyone wants to know more just ask. If you are in Pattaya and would like to see it in action drop me a PM. If you need help setting up your own system I can give some pointers and maybe a bit of practical help if you are in Pattaya. Let me know but be warned it does get a bit techy at times.

[wacmedia 277]

Hi,

 

Interesting post and you are more advanced than most people in the hardware you have available. Agree there is big changes ahead in the future and big players like Murdoch and the major TV channels may lose out as they will find it very hard to control the direction of the media. I think the main problem is download speeds and mp3's are a products of this compromise. I think you have more or less arrived at the place people want to go, but lots of progress has to be made to make the vision a reality for the mass market.

[LocalYokul 214]

looks likes profits are high

[PattayaPete 530]

looks likes profits are high

Profits? What profits - I am unemployed. That's why I have enough time to play with all this stuff.

 

Seriously though you could get a slightly more modest system up and running for less than 100,000 baht. Not a huge amount compared to the amount of enjoyment you can get from such a system.

[csm 4]

Thanks for that great info Pete, I was recently thinking about how little good TV there is in Thailand for someone from another country and wondering how to get around that, what other options are available to view the homegrown tv. I will be playing with your suggestions over the next few weeks and see if I can get a good system going like you have.

[jm49er1 0]

I'm impressed - i am not that much of a techie but i do miss the TIVO setup i had when i lived in Los Angeles - too bad that this type of service is not offered here in LOS - for those of you not familiar with TIVO, this basicly allows you to enter a keyword into a search engine and then the DVR would record any program that contained that keyword - example - type in James Bond and the DVR would automatically record any program with James Bond be it a movie, talk show etc - the programs to be recorded in the future could be looked at and then edited down to the ones you want to see - You can then view the programs at your leisure and fast forward through any of the commercials -

[FatherMojo 2]

With my 1 meg connection it takes about an hour to download an hour.

 

 

How did you get a 1meg connection? I have read many BM posts complaining about dud connections so I was surprised at the 1meg or is the 1meg related to the newsgroups you subscribe.

 

 

 

Thanks,

FatherMojo

[LocalYokul 214]

well, when we can get streaming video at DVD or better quality, all over the World, then the possibility of distributing media that way would be more attractive

 

most likely it will get developed as such in the West first as there are many hi-speed connections available

[AllenBlue 5]

Absolutely GREAT post Pete.

 

I'm a bit of a techie - work on Windows and some unix servers all day - but at home I love my new Apple MacBook Pro laptop. I'll have to check out some of those sites - see if I can get to work some of that magic using my Mac (though I'm running Windows XP via a program called Parallels - since the mac runs an intel processor - suppose I could go that way too).

 

Really thanks - I enjoyed it - as I was reading along I kept hoping you would go into detail - and you did - though I could take a little more.

 

AllenBlue

[Rex7777 0]

I left all my stereo and video components in storage, back in the states. But if I ever buy a place here, a new home theater setup will be one of the first things I buy. Anyway, the system looks great. Can you imagine how things will change over the next five years. Hell, it's only been about 10 years since DVDs first came out. Same with the widespread use of the internet.

 

Rex

[PattayaPete 530]

How did you get a 1meg connection? I have read many BM posts complaining about dud connections so I was surprised at the 1meg or is the 1meg related to the newsgroups you subscribe.

Thanks,

FatherMojo

 

Ahh, that's one megaBIT or 1024/512 if you like. Readily available in most of Pattaya.

[csm 4]

Pete,

 

What type of cables do you use to connect your pc to your tv, (i.e. hdmi, component, s-video etc.) do these run off the geforce video card or do you also have a tv card.

 

Sorry one other thing, do you need special codecs to run the H264 content. I have downloaded some porn in that format and have been unable to play them in any of my media players.

Edited November 30, 2006 by csm

[Eneukman 1]

One major problem I would have is TOT's fucking shit awful broadband service. It's been down at least once a day this week and I'm currently downloading a file at a mere 8kbs on a (supposed) 512/256 modem.

 

Alan

[PattayaPete 530]

Pete,

 

What type of cables do you use to connect your pc to your tv, (i.e. hdmi, component, s-video etc.) do these run off the geforce video card or do you also have a tv card.

 

Sorry one other thing, do you need special codecs to run the H264 content. I have downloaded some porn in that format and have been unable to play them in any of my media players.

 

I use component cables, directly off the video card. As all my videos are downloaded I have no use for a tuner card. I'd like to use hdmi but as yet have not found a reasonable video card with hdmi outputs. I know they are coming. As for H264, yes you do need special codec, a compatible player and a fair bit of processor grunt if the video is of a reasonable size. The easiest way to get them going is to install a copy of PowerDVD 7 which has all the needed bits. I am using nVidia Pure Video to decode all my videos and it works for H264 as well. This may be because I have installed PowerDVD 7 and its using the codec that came with that program though.

 

One major problem I would have is TOT's fucking shit awful broadband service. It's been down at least once a day this week and I'm currently downloading a file at a mere 8kbs on a (supposed) 512/256 modem.

 

Alan

 

Alan, I have two services. Ji-Net through TT&T which is reliable and always runs at the rated speed. It's a bit pricey though at 2,000 baht a month for 512/256k but it's great for surfing the web. I also have a TOT 1024/512 service which is cheap (for Thailand) at 1,000 baht a month. As you say the TOT service is crap and surfing the internet rarely provides speeds over 200k. The strange thing though is that with the usenet service it runs pretty well. I usually see speeds of around 700-900k during the day and a solid 1005k at night. I am not sure why that is the case but it would appear that somehow traffic on the usenet port escapes the TOT throttling which affects everything else. I use it exclusively for usenet access so I am pretty happy with it.

[Eneukman 1]

I've downloaded the TVU Player though most of the channels seem to be crap. Some just won't load (probably down to TOT) though Nickleodeon and Star Sports seemed to be OK.

 

The volume on my laptop is crap but it's OK when I use headphones.

 

I'll read your original post again in the morning when I'm a bit more sober.

 

Alan

[csm 4]

Pete,

 

Another question, what sound card do you have and does it output directly to your stereo system or through the TV and what connection type does that use. This is the last piece of info I need (I think) before buying my new computer.

 

Thanks for all your info on this subject. I wish I were still in town so I could see your setup firsthand.

 

Scott

[bob2005 0]

Very interesting, thank you. The main thing we don't know is Where do we get the videos, and the main answer you seem to have is Newsgroups (they've been a major source of entertainment to me before) though I didn't know they did films and TV programmes - can you list a few of the ng's that have this stuff please?

 

How best to play the dl stuff is a bit secondary to me, illustrated by the fact that I didn't know MP3's were crap!

[PattayaPete 530]

Pete,

 

Another question, what sound card do you have and does it output directly to your stereo system or through the TV and what connection type does that use. This is the last piece of info I need (I think) before buying my new computer.

 

Thanks for all your info on this subject. I wish I were still in town so I could see your setup firsthand.

 

Scott

I have a creative sfx sound card. Hooking it us is a bit tricky. The easiest way is to use the S/PDIF output. That's a single coaxial cable that runs to the S/PDIF input on your multichannel amp. It can be quite hard to get everything configured correctly. The new soundcards like the sfx are much easier than earlier cards like the audigy but still can be troublesome.

 

The reason I don't connect this way is because it causes problems with stereo output when listening to music and it will not properly decode wmv multi channel audio or SACD or DVD Audio. For that reason I wire each channel direct to the amp, so that is 8 wires for 7.1 audio. Doing it like this creates extra problems as well. There is a nice free utility called ac3filter which is a big help with this. It is free to download and does solve a lot of audio problems. This is a BIG subject and getting it right can be difficult but it will work with all multi-channel sound cards. The audio specs for the sfx cards are excellent and the price is incredibly reasonable as well.

 

Very interesting, thank you. The main thing we don't know is Where do we get the videos, and the main answer you seem to have is Newsgroups (they've been a major source of entertainment to me before) though I didn't know they did films and TV programmes - can you list a few of the ng's that have this stuff please?

 

How best to play the dl stuff is a bit secondary to me, illustrated by the fact that I didn't know MP3's were crap!

 

Newsgroups of interest would be alt.binaries.hdtv and alt.binaries.hdtv.reposts for Hi Def movies and TV shows. For SD movies and programs there are many groups, they all start with alt.binaries. and then movies.divx, multimedia, erotica, dvd, boneless, dvd.image, and classic.tv.shows to name just a few. One of the huge advantages of newsleecher is that it enables you to search all newsgroups for a title in less than 30 seconds. You can download from the search engine, so most of the time I pay little attention to which group something I want is actually in. Just the hdtv groups will have over 4 million posts at any one time so downloading all the headers is tedious and takes ages. Newsleecher really makes the process much more friendly.

[toopach 0]

Check out slingbox.com. Hooks up to your cable or satellite at home and then you can access it anywhere around the world on your laptop. I was just checking it out and thought it was a great idea.

[woody4 0]

That's why I have enough time to play with all this stuff.

 

I would think its a full time job just to get that up and more to the point keep on running

 

I use very tech stuff but not in that direction and try not to spend much time in front of "the drug of a nation"

 

No offense but too passive

 

Still a super set up, that I'd love to have.

[soi6 0]

Hi Pete,

 

Wonderful post, thanks for sharing - didn't know you were a media junky!

 

I can picture your wife loving to do Kareoke to all the latest Thai/Lao favorites on that baby!!

 

Take Care,

 

 

Shane

[vidman 2]

hi pete

 

Im another media junky. I stayed in spain for 5 years and the first purchase over there was a 1.5 metre sat dish and a sky decoder box. Majorca being on the edge of the astra footprint made lining up a little tricky (i lost ch4 around 6pm for a few hours but apart from that the quality was perfect).

 

Im not obviously as lucky as that here tho!

 

Currently i listen to the uk radio stations via the net. BBC dont do the url to feed into a net radio recorder however a double mini jack coming from the speaker out into the mic socket means i can record net radio and transfer it to my ipod for listening on th beach!!!

 

 

Ok so thats the radio no prob......TV is a bigger problem.

 

I subscribe to ubc , primarily for the bbc prime (now called entertainment), but i find the programming too limited and lack any "normal" stuff.

 

So my question is : How do i managed to get ITV (uk station)

 

I have been hunting around some of these net tv software but they either get a bad write up or are asking for a 1 off fee (which make my scam alarm in my brain to go off).

 

 

My net connection aint that good at the moment anyhow but if the tv channels were there i would get the high speed one for sure.

[chris_heaton 4]

Granada TV from the UK (called UKTV) is available free of charge in LOS on the Satellite that used to be called LMI. It strange watching the latest episode of Coronation Street starting at Midnight here.

Chris

[lv2play 0]

Another great informative and unigue post.

 

One private question...did you get laid lately?

[monsterman 0]

Pattaya Pete u are an early adopter of this technology, i feel it is the way of the future for TV programmes to be distributed on the web, we need decent TV here in LOS ,

I want to follow , but will wait until the system is a bit more unified and user friendly, probably 2 years or so.

 

Monstorman CEO Pattaya Industrial Fucking Corporation