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North Korea Unveils Netflix-Like Streaming Service Called 'Manbang' (bbc.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the manbang-and-chill dept.

North Korea has unveiled a set-top box that offers video-on demand services similar to Netflix. The service is called Manbang, which translates to "everywhere" in Korean, and allows consumers to stream documentaries about Kim Jong Un and other "educational" programs, as well as five live TV channels. "If a viewer wants to watch, for instance, an animal movie and sends a request to the equipment, it will show the relevant video to the viewer [...] this is two-way communications," according to NK News. It reportedly works by plugging the set-top box into an internet modem, then connecting an HDMI cable from the cable box to the TV. A very small number of North Koreans will actually be able to use the device as "only a few thousand [...] have access to the state-sanctioned internet, in a nation of 25 million people," reports New York Daily News.

27 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. The name says it all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Enough said.

    1. Re:The name says it all... by sittingnut · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "The name says it all... Enough said."

      more like enough said about quality of /. comments when most of the comments here are about a foreign word mispronounced and mistranslated.

    2. Re:The name says it all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Different AC here. Yeah, but you knew it was cumming.

    3. Re:The name says it all... by Dahamma · · Score: 5, Funny

      I would have given you that if it was an isolated incident. But... Taepodong? For a missile? Kim Jong-un knows Western culture, I think he's punking us.

      Manbang and chill, dude.

    4. Re:The name says it all... by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well, it depends on the size of the Taepodong you use.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re:The name says it all... by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 2

      It's not mispronounced; the first screenshot in this article shows that the menu item (third from the left) is in fact spelled "manbang" and pronounced (using X-SAMPA) as /man.baN/, equivalent to how a conservative English accent would say "man bang" (with open front unrounded A) Here's the Wikipedia article on Korean phonology if you want to analyse it yourself.

      ...Is it possible you're salty because someone forgot to invite you to participate in Manbang?

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
    6. Re:The name says it all... by jofas · · Score: 2

      Anything is a Taepodong if you're brave enough...

  2. manbanging by iggymanz · · Score: 5, Funny

    So in a manbanging film would kim jung un be a bear, or a fat twink or what?

    1. Re:manbanging by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Informative

      What part of 2-way was hard to understand!?

      Kimmy kims is gonna get center stage, both ways!
      While his fangirls cheer!

    2. Re:manbanging by wickerprints · · Score: 5, Funny

      Too old (and fat) to be a twink, too smooth (I presume, judging from lack of facial hair) to be a bear.

      In gay male social circles, the most fitting animal subculture would be "manatee," but that's a horrible thing to say about actual manatees.

  3. Manbang? by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    NAMBLA. wants to be on Manbang.

    1. Re:Manbang? by Mashiki · · Score: 2

      I thought NAMBLA would like a Boybang, aren't men a bit out of their age range? Or are they going for "best double team evar!"

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  4. Uh, what? by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

    "Everywhere" in Korean is not "manbang". Where do these journalists come up with this crap?

    1. Re:Uh, what? by Stormwatch · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm hesitant to search for 'korean manbang' on Google.

      --
      Circumcision is child abuse.
    2. Re:Uh, what? by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      "Womenbang". Go look it up on Google (preferably at work).

    3. Re:Uh, what? by Zanadou · · Score: 4, Informative

      A somewhat more laborious interpretation might be "in each and all places": http://endic.naver.com/krenEnt...

    4. Re:Uh, what? by AK+Marc · · Score: 5, Funny

      There are many times when translating a word, then translating it back, won't result in the same word returned, but it would still be the "correct" middle translation. "in each and all places" sounds close enough to "everwhere" I can't see how that's an incorrect translation, even if a bit awkward. Though "universal" sounds a bit more like a "to everyone in all places", but universal would be a stupid name for a media company.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    5. Re:Uh, what? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

      Chinese, Japanese and Korean seem to be the most common languages for translation failure based memes. I think a lot of people assume it's just them being "weird" or something, but it's usually the western translator screwing it up. Two much over-used examples:

      Do not want: This was from the English subtitles on a Chinese bootleg copy of Star Wars III. Vader screams "noooooo", but there is no word for "no" in Chinese. You can say things like "do not [do that]" or "is not [that]", or "do not want [that]". So the Chinese translator correctly translated it into Chinese, retaining the original meaning (do not want my wife and child to be dead) but the machine translator that converted it back into English couldn't understand the context.

      Lack of context is a really common problem when translating Chinese, and to a lesser extent Japanese. In Japanese, for example, newspaper headlines often come out as "I went to some event" or "I found a large data outflow on the dark web", because the machine assumes talking in the first person and the word for "leak" becomes "outflow" because it can be used in that sort of context. For reference better translations would be "Visiting some event" and "Huge data leak found on dark web".

      Over 9000: This is from an episode of Dragon Ball Z. A character called Vegita can't believe that his opponent Goku's fighting power level is over 9000 points, when most humans are in the single digits. In the original it was actually "over 8000". 8000 has special meaning in Japanese, it's kinda like the English "zillion", not always intended as a precise number but rather just some really unbelievably large amount.

      The way the episode presents it, Guku starts off with a low power level and builds it up slowly. Vegita is counting it up, over 5000, over 6000, 7000.... It's a joke, a sort of pun maybe. So interestingly the western translator got it wrong, kinda, because they re-worded it a bit to fit the mouth movements on-screen with English voices and somehow ended up at 9000 in the count, but it became a joke unintentionally anyway. By chance and the skill of the voice actor hamming it up, the untranslatable joke was substituted with another.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  5. best name ever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    manbang and chill

  6. Classic NK marketing! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    With Manbang, one can watch as North Korean Taepodongs deploy their payloads prematurely shortly after takeoff.

  7. Bad news by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 2, Informative

    I refuse to support the N. Korean regime at any level. Any growth in their GDP will be redirected to their military. Purchasing the Manbang it tantamount to putting a down payment on a noose; one thread at a time.

    I have some bad news for you.

  8. Manbang&Chill by BurnTim · · Score: 2

    'Can I invite you over for Manbang and Chill' You decide which of the two is the sexual portion.

  9. Re:Will not support, or buy from N. Korea by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

    Well, you may get more interesting content in NK, compared to Netflix-per-country-restricted-new-VPN-policy.

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    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  10. A few thousand viewers... by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 3, Informative

    Note that NK IPv4 address space is made of one /22 and two /24, i.e. ~1500 addresses... (See NK observer)

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    1. Re:A few thousand viewers... by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      You really think that they're not NATing, if for no other reason then to prevent the dear party members from offering content to the outside of the country?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:A few thousand viewers... by Place+a+name+here · · Score: 2

      North Korea works like a corporate intranet on steroids. There's an outwards facing internet presence (the ~15000 addresses) and then there's a national intranet. The two components are, for the most part, airgapped. If you're on the intranet side and want access to the internet, there are two options:

      - If you're very well off or part of the elite, you use a separate computer.
      - If you're not, but you're well enough off that you have intranet access, you can request material from the internet (usually research articles or whatever). This will be processed through the censors and copied over to the intranet side if it's found harmless.

      So the point of the thing is that just because there are only ~15000 addresses, that doesn't mean that the intranet side is particularly limited. It runs on (at least) the whole 10.* space as the NK Tech article shows.

  11. From the people who brought you ... by PvtVoid · · Score: 2

    ... the No Dong.