# My wish list... Wishful thinking...



## qcpw256 (Jun 17, 2005)

I love my TIVO. I love having the ability to transfer content from one TIVO to another tivo on my network. I love watching the BBC America channel. My wish list is that I could trade video files with people from the UK so I could get a sense of what your TV shows are like. 

In theory I know it can be done. Just transfer a file from a tivo unit to a PC and then FTP it up to my website and then allow someone to pull down my .tivo ftp file so they could save it to their pc tivo recording folder. Then they could upload it to their Tivo. Just to many download and upload to do the entire process. Not to mention the legality issue... 

What a bummer... I have a lot of great programs I would like to trade with someone from the Discovery Channel, to the History Channel and the Science Channel. Or if people are out that that like regular american sitcom programs I record those as well. 

Now if someone with alot of money come up with a way to payoff the major networks so they would be happy with this new proposed idea... I would be the first to jump on the bandwagon... 

Cheers...


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## martink0646 (Feb 8, 2005)

You have PM


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

qcpw256 surely you could get a lot of the British programs you seek via BitTorrent downloads though?

What is the main reason you are such a strong Anglophile? Did you come from this country originally or did you ever spend time over here in the past?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

qcpw256 said:


> My wish list is that I could trade video files with people from the UK so I could get a sense of what your TV shows are like.


To fully appreciate British popular culture, seek out the following shows:-

Eastenders
Coronation Street
Emmerdale
Big Brother
Graham Norton
The Charlotte Church Show
I'm A Celebrity (get me out of here)
Castaway
Dog Borstal
The Wright Stuff
Hollyoaks
How Clean is Your House?

....need I go on?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

With the exception of Charlotte Church, Castaway and Graham Norton that sounds to me like a comprehensive list of programs I would go out of my way to never ever watch!


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

That's my point - hence the 'embarrassed' smiley o) in my original post


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> That's my point - hence the 'embarrassed' smiley o) in my original post


How Clean Is My House sounds like an import of an American format show to me? Not that I have ever seen it.


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## qcpw256 (Jun 17, 2005)

Pete77 said:


> qcpw256 surely you could get a lot of the British programs you seek via BitTorrent downloads though?
> 
> What is the main reason you are such a strong Anglophile? Did you come from this country originally or did you ever spend time over here in the past?


You ask why I have an interest in UK development.... I have been to London before and had a great time. My stay was short but it was interesting. I guess I want to just get to meet some people from the UK by being a buddy and sharing VIDEO content if possible. I am also a technology fan and I just want to see if it can be done... I hate the idea that I am restricted in not being able to do certain things and when I get a technology idea I like to see if I can master it... Call it a personal goal...

Chow...


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

qcpw256 said:


> You ask why I have an interest in UK development.... I have been to London before and had a great time. My stay was short but it was interesting. I guess I want to just get to meet some people from the UK by being a buddy and sharing VIDEO content if possible. I am also a technology fan and I just want to see if it can be done... I hate the idea that I am restricted in not being able to do certain things and when I get a technology idea I like to see if I can master it... Call it a personal goal.....


Sounds a reasonable thing to want to try just beacause you can, although of course strictly speaking no doubt it breaches some of those boring copyright laws, since when you transfer the recording from the original person recording a program they could watch anyway (and just wanting to see it at another time of day) to a market in which it may not have distribution rights then you clearly step over a line.

Having said that the BitTorrenters of this forum like TCM2007 seem to ignore these copyright laws all the time without worrying about the legal niceties (except of course that he gets BitTorrent stuff instead of transferring Tivo files transatlantic as you want to).

From a technical standpoint our analogue tv here is broadcast in PAL-I whereas you guys use NTSC but I get confused how that would impact a broadcast on our digital Freeview and Sky Digital satellite systems, which those tv boxes then output in PAL-I to the Tivo, but which the Tivo then MPEG encodes to record and then MPEG decodes to the PAL signal to play back on your television. I assume that even though you want to get the MPEG encoded files this is still an issue unless you have a multistandard tv that can accept the playing of PAL broadcasts. Of course if you want to watch the Tivo files only on your PC using VLC Media Player than the PAL conversion issue disappears.

I guess you want to try to persuade some of our forum members who like to do things just because they can be done and are good technically like mikerr and Colin Younger to try and work with you on such an exchange. I don't think I would be a suitable person for this enterprise.


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## jonphil (Aug 7, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> How Clean Is My House sounds like an import of an American format show to me? Not that I have ever seen it.


Surprisingly it's the other way round, we exported it to America along with the presenters Kim and Aggy. 
It's a Channel 4 show.


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## qcpw256 (Jun 17, 2005)

Pete77 said:


> Sounds a reasonable thing to want to try just beacause you can, although of course strictly speaking no doubt it breaches some of those boring copyright laws, since when you transfer the recording from the original person recording a program they could watch anyway (and just wanting to see it at another time of day) to a market in which it may not have distribution rights then you clearly step over a line.
> 
> Having said that the BitTorrenters of this forum like TCM2007 seem to ignore these copyright laws all the time without worrying about the legal niceties (except of course that he gets BitTorrent stuff instead of transferring Tivo files transatlantic as you want to).
> 
> ...


Wow lots to think about and sounds like it is all over my head... For now I will put it to rest. Thanks for all the insight... have a good day my UK friends....


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

www.uknova.com would be ideal, if you can get an account
-that's chock full of nothing but UK TV.

A standalone divx player with torrent seracher/downloader/sharer could indeed replace a cable/sky sub if there was a front end to hide the downloading/extracting.

I expect we'll see one soon enough, as there is already a router with built in HDD and torrent client, and several divx HDD players.


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## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

The PAL/NTSC/whatever issue is not an issue, IMO. TiVo stores MPEG files and leaves it to the video subsytem to convert that into 'whatever'.

The size of the files however, would be a problem.

One thing I mused about in the car on the way home the other day was whether TiVo could work as a torrent 'client' - for those with multiple TiVos in the house. I suspect our little friend's brain power is too lacking for that, though.

Look at me, throwing ideas in the air.


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

mikerr said:


> www.uknova.com would be ideal, if you can get an account
> -that's chock full of nothing but UK TV.


Only availabe to UK IP addresses. My mate in Japan has a PC at a mates house in UK to record UK TV and allow access to UKNOVA.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Really? That's surprising.. 
Can't he get away with a UK proxy?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> Really? That's surprising.. Can't he get away with a UK proxy?


A lot of people don't seem to know about using proxies to hide your real location.

My experience is that most proxies that disguise your identity at an international level are unfortunately often abominably slow, precisely because they are favoured by half the internet using citizens of China and of course by many of the worlds BitTorrent downloaders.......................


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> qcpw256 surely you could get a lot of the British programs you seek via BitTorrent downloads though?


Make up your mind Pete, in another thread you are making out Torrenting is the last refuge of the scoundrel, and here you are recommending it!


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

ColinYounger said:


> The PAL/NTSC/whatever issue is not an issue, IMO. TiVo stores MPEG files and leaves it to the video subsytem to convert that into 'whatever'.


Not sure about that; US TiVos record at a refresh rate of 60Hz, ours at 50Hz. I don't know if they can refresh rate convert or not.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

ColinYounger said:


> One thing I mused about in the car on the way home the other day was whether TiVo could work as a torrent 'client' - for those with multiple TiVos in the house. I suspect our little friend's brain power is too lacking for that, though.


Probably could work. At CeBIT I saw some external hard drives with built in BT clients which carred on working even if the PC was switched off (via Ethernet).


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> Make up your mind Pete, in another thread you are making out Torrenting is the last refuge of the scoundrel, and here you are recommending it!


That was not my reason for the use of the proxies in question.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Ahem:



Pete77 said:


> qcpw256 surely you could get a lot of the British programs you seek via BitTorrent downloads though?


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## martink0646 (Feb 8, 2005)

TCM2007 said:


> Not sure about that; US TiVos record at a refresh rate of 60Hz, ours at 50Hz. I don't know if they can refresh rate convert or not.


I'm not quite sure if I have understood this quote, excuse me if I haven't, but as a trial qcpw256 has ftp'ed me a 2 minute clip from his TiVo, converted to mpg. I have subsequently re-encoded that to DvD & it plays fine on my plasma although that may be because my screen can handle a 60Hz refresh rate.

Martin


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Any HD Ready TV can handle 50 and 60Hz - it's part of the spec.

Also A PC (assuming that's how you connected it) will refresh rate convert the source to whatever you have the output set at. 

Or your DVD writing software may re-encode at the standard UK refresh rate.

Converted video is horribly jerky to my mind, although some folks can't see it.


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## andyjenkins (Jul 29, 2001)

mikerr said:


> www.uknova.com would be ideal, if you can get an account
> -that's chock full of nothing but UK TV.


Agree with the sentiment - everyone should have a UKNova account. They're easy to generate - even if the site won't let you sign up - there are ways and means.

There's a new UKNova rival too ....... http://www.thebox.bz .. easy registration atm too.


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## Andy Leitch (Apr 30, 2005)

andyjenkins said:


> Agree with the sentiment - everyone should have a UKNova account. They're easy to generate - even if the site won't let you sign up - there are ways and means.
> 
> There's a new UKNova rival too ....... http://www.thebox.bz .. easy registration atm too.


I must have missed a meeting, as I really don't understand the fascination of using bittorrent. With Usenet you can download at *your* maximum speed, rather than the limited upload of speed of the peer. 
Point your favourite newsreader to...

alt.binaries.british.drama 
alt.binaries.multimedia.comedy.british


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Andy Leitch said:


> I must have missed a meeting, as I really don't understand the fascination of using bittorrent. With Usenet you can download at *your* maximum speed, rather than the limited upload of speed of the peer.
> Point your favourite newsreader to...
> 
> alt.binaries.british.drama
> alt.binaries.multimedia.comedy.british


And I don't understand the fascination with the whole downloading thing when my Tivo stacks up far more programs that I have legitimately paid to watch (via BBC license fee or via funding advertising through product purchases or through taxation for Channel 4) than I will ever have time to watch.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Andy Leitch said:


> I must have missed a meeting, as I really don't understand the fascination of using bittorrent. With Usenet you can download at *your* maximum speed, rather than the limited upload of speed of the peer.


 Peers, not peer. Bittorrent is a multiple source protocol, not just one peer.
Torrents generally max out my 10Mb connection

News downloading usually requires a subscription for a relaible server, and then you have the problem of missing parts etc.



Pete77 said:


> And I don't understand the fascination with the whole downloading thing when my Tivo stacks up far more programs than I will ever have time to watch.


The point of Tivo IMO is not to watch everything it records, but just to have selection of good shows available in their entirety at any one time. It does that well as we all know 

Torrents allow you to get that programme now (or nearly now!) without waiting for the schedule to show it (or repeat it). 
If you are prepared to wait months for the broadcasters to schedule your desired programme, then tivo will pick it up, and you don't need bittorrent .


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> The point of Tivo IMO is not to watch everything it records, but just to have selection of good shows available in their entirety at any one time. It does that well as we all know


I delete any of the stuff it records I don't want without watching it.



> Torrents allow you to get that programme now (or nearly now!) without waiting for the schedule to show it (or repeat it).
> If you are prepared to wait months for the broadcasters to schedule your desired programme, then tivo will pick it up, and you don't need bittorrent .


I have more good programs on my Tivo than I can seem to find the time to watch so what use would I have for yet more programs downloaded by a Torrent.


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