Slashdot Mirror
Aussie TV Networks Fight BitTorrent
An anonymous reader writes "It seems impatient TV viewers have discovered BitTorrent in Australia mainly because the networks there are so slow; programs are at times behind by up to 8 months! According to an independent study, it takes an average of four months to watch the latest episodes of top-rated shows like Lost and Desperate Housewives. There are now calls for TV networks to consider offering episodes for download at a small cost."
New Zealand has the exact same problem. There are shows I've heard about that were on in the US 3-4 years ago that will never show here...
Ah, television - teacher, mother, secret lover. Why must you treat me so badly?
There are a number of articles that describe a process known as "broadcatching." Basically it uses RSS feeds from certan TV torrent sites and a BitTorrent client. EnGadget has an article describing this, and how to do it. It's what I do and I don't even live outside of the US! Shows usually come out an hour or two before they broadcast in my local area, which means, for example, I can download the HDTV version of my favorite show (without commercials) and finish watching it even before it starts in my time zone. Amazing!
Movies too. Some of the most interesting movies get released at the same time world-wide, but for others we're up to six months behind the northern hemisphere - I'm in NZ, not Australia, but the problem is similar.
In the case of NZ, though, there is an extra obstacle in the form of a telecommunications monopoly keeping a stranglehold on all ISPs so that all broadband accounts are capped -- usually at 10 GB per month -- though some allow downloads beyond that limit, only at dial-up speeds. This means that downloading isn't quite as viable an option here as it is in Australia.
I stopped watching television on air about three years ago, because it was too hard trying to keep up with what the networks were doing to it.
Futurama was shown completely out of order, Farscape was tossed around from one timeslot to another before finally being shown consistantly in an afternoon spot and Buffy and Angel were never in sync due to things being shuffled around for sports or other 'specials' one night of the week, so crossovers would never match up.
A great example just recently was that Channel 7 stopped showing Desperate Housewives (and Lost?) for three weeks 'because of Easter'. I don't know anyone who took three weeks off for easter (even the schools stayed open save for the public holidays) so I'm not sure why they would do this.
It's so much easier to just download things (and later buy them on DVD) than to try and figure out what's going on with the show you want to watch. Make it easier for us (either show it on tv in good time or let us download it for a fee) and maybe more people will watch tv.
Australia actually gets US shows unedited (well, bits cut out to fit more ads in, but we learn your "cultural" terms).
Its actually happens the other way around - some lines in "Crocodile Dundee" were changed for Americans - I think 'stickybeak' became 'busybody' or something obscure - but that whole movie is a stereotype anyway. In "The Castle", 'rissoles' became 'meatloaf'.
- Chuq
SF television programs have never been treated seriously by the television stations here in Australia. Babylon 5 was initially shown *out* *of* *order* and the "Footy Show" would routinely displace following SF shows by up to half an hour because the show was running over time. When I was a kid, it took several summer holidays to *never* see the entire television adaptation of "The Tripods" because the station would just pull the series when regular programming returned. Even now, any SF series that do screen are on late at night, and delays of more than a season are common (i.e. Buffy, Ange, X-Files). This delay means the Internet is loaded with spoilers.
For these reasons, we would originally get friends to send video tapes from the USA. For these reasons, a lot of people now use the file transfer technology du-jour (Napseter, BitTorrent, Direct Connect, whatever) to grab shows.
As the networks have for a very long time shown that they do not value SF programming, they have absolutely no sympathy from me. If the shows had screened in a timely manner, not been relegated to graveyard slots and not been chopped and changed, people would have not bothered with all this effort and just watched live to air. And I'd get cable TV if it was any good, try getting a cable package that *doesn't* include sport and a bunch of other junk I don't want). If we got to keep SBS and ABC, I'd gladly sacrifice the lot to the FTA as I am bloody well sick of lifestyle and reality shows.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
This is a complete non-surprise to anyone in Australia that a) wants to watch TV and b) is aware of this Internet thingo and c) has heard of BitTorrent.
Not only do we often have to wait months, if not years to actually GET a series (assuming its not exclusive to one of the cable TV services, which STILL aren't available in many areas), they often find ways to screw them up.
Examples:
- Season one of Scrubs was shown by one of the networks. Season two started - six episodes into the season, if I recall correctly.
- Desperate Housewives just returned last night, after a three week break because there was something else on the networks wanted to cover
When you can download the entire season (probably in HDTV) and watch it without ads and without having to wait weeks for the networks to get their shit together (and without having to pay AU$60/month on cable, if you can even get it, which I can't, whine!), its not surprising.
(Add me to the list of people that would happily, ecstatically, and joyfully shell out money to buy fairly priced xvid/divx versions of US TV shows that I simply can't watch over here - shit, I'd probably then go and buy them on DVD as well)
Not too sure what you mean here. Amazon has the DVDs available already. You can buy them from the US, and play them on your multi-zone player.
All perfectly legal, all perfectly legit.
The trade practices act of 1974 and the copyright ammendments come together to make the zoning of DVDs illegal in Australia. All that's needed is a court decision to make it law.
Any thing that restricts choice is illegal(Trade Practices) and we are allowed to parallel import(Copyright amendment). To the best of my knowledge neither have been negated by the further amendments.
The reason we download TV shows here is simple - the networks don't have their shit together!
The world according to Networks Australia:
The TV guides are just that - a rough guide to what we think we might be airing, but don't take it as gospel, we will alter it at a moments notice and air your favorite programs at 3 in the morning when we suddenly discover every other crap has been played 4 times already.
When we do play a season, we will constantly move its time slot and play them back to back to finish it when the footy season starts.
Once we discover a program that earns good ratings we will repeat it at every opportunity and buy all the spins offs and flog them to death until you are sick of it. See CSI as a good example.
We will try new program material at 11pm when nobody is watching. When it starts to build a following we will move it to 4:15am every time the planets align. When you find it again we'll axe it citing poor ratings.
I am sick of trying to find my favorite programs (what the fuck happened to West Wing?) and decided to download them and watch them whenever I have the time or inclination. (side note - we have Tivo type technology that will automatically record shows I like whenever they are on - dammit).
Stop bitching about the customer and give them what they want!
I don't make predictions, and I never will.
Canada has a population nearing 30 million, and a land mass significantly larger than the US. Yet, we have two Satellite television providers. In the province I live in (Saskatchewan) anyone in a city with a population of around 1000 people has access to high speed internet. The local telco has also started offering wireless which means anyone living within I believe about 30Km of selected spots, will also have high speed available.
The thing is, around here, a lot of money was invested in the infrastructure for many years. If the copyright holders would begin to allow us to download our favourite shows (for a fee) then we certainly have the infrastructure to support it.
As for Austrailia, if the government can (and has the money to) get involved, there are a lot of new technologies coming out such as WiMax that can begin to offer high speed internet without the infrastructure costs normally associated with something like expanding DSL to a new area.