Post by thread:[OT] International Satellite Reception

Hi all, in light of the upcoming 2006 soccer world cup (and the recent start of the '05/'06 bundesliga season), this displaced German was wondering if anyone has any experience receiving european satellite TV in the US. I've done some searching online and found a decent overview of satellite information at http://www.hf.uib.no/smi/ksv/satfaq.html , but no information on receiving signals from, say, Astra1 stateside. Any ideas? - Marcel

Marcel, On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 16:12:33 -0700, Marcel Birthelmer wrote: > Hi all, > in light of the upcoming 2006 soccer world cup (and the recent start of > the '05/'06 bundesliga season), this displaced German was wondering if > anyone has any experience receiving european satellite TV in the US. > I've done some searching online and found a decent overview of satellite > information at http://www.hf.uib.no/smi/ksv/satfaq.html , but no > information on receiving signals from, say, Astra1 stateside. Any ideas? I think you'd have very little chance of success - even on the East coast of the USA you'd be *well* outside the footprint, and any signal that does go that way is going to be really weak. Have you investigated whether it would be available on the Internet? Cheers, Howard Winter St.Albans, England

Marcel Birthelmer wrote: > Hi all, > in light of the upcoming 2006 soccer world cup (and the recent start > of the '05/'06 bundesliga season), this displaced German was wondering > if anyone has any experience receiving european satellite TV in the > US. I've done some searching online and found a decent overview of > satellite information at http://www.hf.uib.no/smi/ksv/satfaq.html , > but no information on receiving signals from, say, Astra1 stateside. > Any ideas? > - Marcel I think the World Cup will be covered by Espor. As far as I know, they usually do. -- Regards Vidal

Howard Winter wrote: {Quote hidden}> Marcel, > > On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 16:12:33 -0700, Marcel Birthelmer wrote: > > >>Hi all, >>in light of the upcoming 2006 soccer world cup (and the recent start of >>the '05/'06 bundesliga season), this displaced German was wondering if >>anyone has any experience receiving european satellite TV in the US. >>I've done some searching online and found a decent overview of satellite >>information at http://www.hf.uib.no/smi/ksv/satfaq.html , but no >>information on receiving signals from, say, Astra1 stateside. Any ideas? > > > I think you'd have very little chance of success - even on the East coast of the USA you'd be *well* outside > the footprint, and any signal that does go that way is going to be really weak. Have you investigated whether > it would be available on the Internet? > > Cheers, > Howard Winter > St.Albans, England > > I would love for there to be an internet solution, but it really doesn't seem like anyone is investing in a webcast infrastructure. Also, I'm not sure if it would allow live broadcasts anyway. And I know that DirecTV and Dish do have their pay-$5000-per-month-for-this-channel european sports programs, but I don't want to commit to something like that. Thanks for the input, though. - Marcel

On Mon, 2005-08-15 at 20:07 +0200, Vidal wrote: > Vidal wrote: > > > > > Espor > > > Sorry. ESPN! It really is a shame that there isn't a "more free" way to get TV from other parts of the world. Case in point: I'm sure noone has heard of it, but the Dakar rally is a favourite of mine to watch. Until this year Speed Channel carried it, and they basically just took the British feed, which was perfect. This past year however, Speed channel didn't pick up the rally, instead Outdoor Life Network did. Instead of broadcasting the British feed they tried to do it themselves. The result? A DISASTER. They took an 18 day rally and turned it into 6 1 hour episodes, broadcast WEEKS after the rally was OVER??!?. A complete joke. On top of that the hosts were TERRIBLE and obviously had NO idea what even a rally was... Fortunately for me, I was in Europe for the first week of the rally, so I got to watch the British feed, which was even better this year then the last. Every night they had 1.5hours of show, plus two 15 minute LIVE updates (from the middle of the Sahara over sat phones) each day. For the second half of the Rally I was back in North America, happily downloading the British feed over the internet. When the OLN "version" aired I didn't even bother watching it all, it was that bad. I've researched ways of getting Eurosport over in Canada, even willing to pay for it (although it's completely free in Europe), but I've had no luck. Sorry for the rant, but I thought it might bring another perspective to the discussion. TTYL ----------------------------- Herbert's PIC Stuff: http://repatch.dyndns.org:8383/pic_stuff/

Didn't someone die in the most recent Dakar? Anyway, yes, I definitely see your point. And for my interests, it's even more specific to the region. I know DirecTV and DishNet both have "European sports" channels that might show one or two soccer games a week, but at that point you'd already be paying the base fee plus a whole bunch of other stuff, along with a 1-year contract or something like that. Plus, for more esoteric channels, you need a "SuperDish" in some cases, which is another unjustifiable expense. sigh... - Marcel {Quote hidden}> > It really is a shame that there isn't a "more free" way to get TV from > other parts of the world. > > Case in point: I'm sure noone has heard of it, but the Dakar rally is a > favourite of mine to watch. Until this year Speed Channel carried it, > and they basically just took the British feed, which was perfect. > > This past year however, Speed channel didn't pick up the rally, instead > Outdoor Life Network did. Instead of broadcasting the British feed they > tried to do it themselves. The result? A DISASTER. They took an 18 day > rally and turned it into 6 1 hour episodes, broadcast WEEKS after the > rally was OVER??!?. A complete joke. On top of that the hosts were > TERRIBLE and obviously had NO idea what even a rally was... > > Fortunately for me, I was in Europe for the first week of the rally, so > I got to watch the British feed, which was even better this year then > the last. Every night they had 1.5hours of show, plus two 15 minute LIVE > updates (from the middle of the Sahara over sat phones) each day. > > For the second half of the Rally I was back in North America, happily > downloading the British feed over the internet. > > When the OLN "version" aired I didn't even bother watching it all, it > was that bad. > > I've researched ways of getting Eurosport over in Canada, even willing > to pay for it (although it's completely free in Europe), but I've had no > luck. > > Sorry for the rant, but I thought it might bring another perspective to > the discussion. TTYL > > ----------------------------- > Herbert's PIC Stuff: > http://repatch.dyndns.org:8383/pic_stuff/

On Mon, 2005-08-15 at 17:21 -0400, spam_OUTmarcelTakeThisOuTcarrietech.com wrote: > Didn't someone die in the most recent Dakar? Unfortunately more then one, two riders at least come to mind (one being Meoni IIRC), along with a few spectators. Very sad, and although the Dakar isn't known for being 100% safe, the number of deaths this year was unusual (2004 I believe had no deaths, and 2003 had 1). Anyways, certainly looking forward to next year's Dakar, hopefully it'll have a happier ending. TTYL ----------------------------- Herbert's PIC Stuff: http://repatch.dyndns.org:8383/pic_stuff/

Herbert Graf wrote: > It really is a shame that there isn't a "more free" way to get TV from > other parts of the world. [...] > (although it's completely free in Europe), While I agree that it might be "more convenient" to get "more free" TV programs, and also agree that it would help many things if the "more light" type of information TV provides would be "more easily" available from other countries, TV is by no means "completely free" in Europe. TV production in Europe costs the same (if not more) than in the USA and other places. The "free" programs you watch there are paid for by the taxes of the residents of the place. It therefore makes a lot of sense that they -- besides their taxes -- don't pay any more for it (that's why it seems to be "free"), whereas if you watch it on a cable or satellite channel from far away, the feed is not free at all -- after all, the viewers of that feed don't pay taxes in the country where that program comes from. While you are there, you are kind of a guest and don't have to pay for watching it, even though you don't pay taxes there. There is no free lunch, not even in Europe. There's always somebody paying for it. And it seems only natural for me that European public TV would not put their feeds out for free internationally, but rather charge whatever the market price is. (That said, there are of course some free international programs. But they always have some kind of "public" objective, like promoting the originating country's culture.) Gerhard