How to get political shows in Taiwan for free

I’ve been researching various ways to get political news shows on Taiwan, since I spend the majority of my time in the US. I have come up with this way as being the best for me. Unlike other methods, I can basically “tivo” all the shows I want, not just political shows (although that is my primary purpose).

It requires a few easy items.

  1. A decently fast computer/laptop that is always on in Taiwan. This will be the host computer.
  2. A broadband connection for the host computer/laptop that has at least 256kbps upload.
  3. Almost any USB DVBT tuner. ($1300NT-$1800NT)
  4. Orb software at www.orb.com (Free)

Basically all you have to on the host computer/laptop is plug in the USB DVBT tuner, hook up the included antenna, download and install ORB, and then make a free account with ORB. The in the USA, or Hawaii or wherever, just go online with your other computer, and you’ll be able to choose the shows you want to watch and it’ll record them. If they’re live right now, it’ll stream them to your computer.

Also, ORB does come in Chinese Traditional. :wink:
You can also use this method to get TV programming wherever your host computer is located, for instance, the USA, or Japan.

PS: I’m not in anyway affiliated with ORB or any of the computer manufacturers, or broadband companies, just wanted to share a gem.

Li Ao 24/7/365.

They already have that here actually. He gets the much-coveted 3am slot.

Of course that’s when ABC are on their lunch breaks can catch some enlightenment from the guru himself.

IC. So are you saying that ABC’s in America can only work the graveyard shift? 3AM

Plus its not on a Chinese channel.

Also, I was born in Taiwan by the way.

Good for you, join the army and finish your mandatory 1 year military service.

Li Ao is on Phoenix TV ALL THE TIME. I mean even more than he’s on in Taiwan.

That’s an interesting way, though. Anybody willing to set up an ad hoc cooperative to share programming?

isn’t there something better to do over there, knitting, heroin, anything?

Didn’t say I was watching him, just that he’s on. :smiley: He’s on so much in Taiwan that before I realized who he was, I used to have him nicknamed “Ubiquitous Political Guy.”

I like the mainland talk shows better anyhow, becuase most of them subtitle in characters. Some of the Taiwanese ones do but not all (at least of those I’ve encountered.)

@AC Dropout:
Awww, I see you’re hurt. You don’t have to tell me what to do, I’m getting my masters, do you have one? When did you serve your time in the Taiwanese military? Hrm?

@LadyIron:
Oh yeah, Phoenix has a paid-for satellite subscription in America, which I don’t pay for so I can’t say. However for regular cable, Li Ao gets the graveyard slot.
If you have relatives in Taiwan or China or whatever, you can just use this system and set it up. I have a friend that pays electricity, bandwith, and some bonus and has his laptop over at his granny’s place just for this.

I’ve got a Master’s. Am I really cool now? Let’s compare stock portfolios next!

On the issue of watching Chinese/Taiwanese TV, no need to buy anything at all in the day and age of internet p2p TV. Chinese companies are really dominating this field, and Internet P2P TV has taken off amongst Chinese users. I’d recommend:

tvants.com/
pplive.com/
tv.net9.org/index.html

The quality of the broadcast depends on how many others are watching the same channel, but very workable for most. Taiwanese, HK, and mainland channels are all usually available.

Have you installed any of this software? Are there any, um, unexpected features involved?

I’ve installed the first two: TVAnts and PPlive. The first version of PPLive was very amateurish, but it’s getting more polished with every build. TVAnts has worked well from the get-go.

As far as hidden “features”… no, as far as I know, nothing has ever been uncovered. No pop-up ads or anything obnoxious in that sense; Chinese programmers aren’t capitalistic enough, quite yet.

EDIT: After looking through, looks like TW programming is pretty limited. I only see a few channels on TVAnts, and none on the others. If anyone in Taiwan wants to start streaming these through TVAnts, I would personally be pretty interested.

2ND EDIT: Actually, looks like I misspoke. TVAnts.com only lists a small subset of all the TVAnts broadcasts out there (like any other BT server). Here’s another site which lists a huuuuge set of Taiwanese channels and their TVAnts feeds. I haven’t tested these, but would be interested in finding out how it worked for others:

8000tv.com/html/61/

Although the IPTV sites are not bad, they never encompass all the channels available, are usually in poor quality, and are slow to stream when its “primetime”. If in anycase you have a PC TV Tuner, you can record any channel from any country, and even record specific shows in Tivo style, and of a much much greater quality.

Eh? You make it sound like only the Chinese have embraced IPTV, actually there are hundreds of free “iptv” sites now for almost all nations in almost any language in the world, they’ve been around for years now, and Google will give you a huge list of them. After all, about every few weeks yet another site makes it on the Diggnation front page, and another megasite is submitted every week. However from the beginning, most are plagued with the same problems mentioned above.

My lord.

IPTV and P2P TV are fundamentally different technologies… well, other than the fact that they’re carried by IP networks. The players I name above are BitTorrent-type technologies mated with encoded streams. Prime time + multiple viewers allows for better TV watching quality when using P2P TV, not worse.

By the way, rather than using Orb + PC + TV card, I personally would just install a Sling Player. Well, that is, if I was ignorant of what P2P TV is.

Did I mention my Master’s was from masheng ligong xueyuan?

[quote=“cctang”]My lord.

IPTV and P2P TV are fundamentally different technologies… well, other than the fact that they’re carried by IP networks. The players I name above are BitTorrent-type technologies mated with encoded streams. Prime time + multiple viewers allows for better TV watching quality when using P2P TV, not worse. [/quote]
Uhh… P2PTV falls under IPTV. lol. For those that didn’t know that. Thats like saying “No you’re wrong, 802.11x is not Wifi!”. You’re so cute and silly when you get aggressive about things you think you know fully about, especially considering you’ve said you just used it for 2 weeks.

Anyway, P2PTV is not best served via Bittorrent, but this is a bittorrent style streaming, (opposite) which sucks when its not primetime, as the less users the worse it is. Either way you have a tradeoff, and less popular shows are screwed over. If you live in America, and or if you’re not in sync with the viewing times of Beijing or Shanghai, you can be screwed.

Using ORB doesn’t share any of the difficulties with the other systems.

Hold on, let me get this straight, the Sling Player is $199USD. My solution is $40-$60USD, is in HDTV and has more features, and I can get it instantly and won’t have to wait for Bittorrent. Plus all variants of the client software is free too. Hrm. Plus its excellent for those that want good video quality versus download/streaming bandwidth, in which P2PTV(part of IPTV) suffers.

Hehe, apparently you didn’t know the definition of IPTV. I’ll repeat again, “P2PTV falls under IPTV. For those that didn’t know that. Thats like saying, ‘No you’re wrong, 802.11x is not Wifi!’”.

Its okay, NYU here =). I’m the idiot in the family, frankly, all of my cousins weren’t lazy and paid for ivy’s on their own. I should’ve went, my mother STILL compares me with my cousins all the time.

Anyone else feel like they’re being pulled back into a stereotypical 8th grade debate? You seem to care an awful lot about “winning” this “debate”, ShrimpCracker, so I’ll leave it to you to come up with some appropriate last word in this.

For the purposes of those who’re interested in this discussion for the technical merits of what’s involved, consider this:

  • ORB + PC is more than $60. And considering this is hosted on a Windows-based system, and you’ll be a couple thousand miles from your system… you better hope someone’s around to reboot the thing once in a while. And no, Orb might be broadcasting with HD wide-screen dimensions, but it is not “HD” unless you’re tied into T1 on both ends.

  • SlingPlayer is an appliance. It’s basically the single-device replacement for the above. And no, you never have to reboot it. I haven’t touched mine in 10 months.

  • P2PTV is free, and available right now. I don’t need to install a broadband pipe, a computer, or pay for cable TV access at some address a few thousand miles away from me. All I need is a PC with a fast link where I’m currently located, so that I can watch the feed that someone else encodes for me. I misspoke by the way, TVAnts is now flooded with pop-up ads… but it’s still well worth the price of $0, IMO.

WOW!
Just installed Ants…cool! I’m watching the morning news from Taiwan on ETTV, quality is pretty good, and the popups are easy enough to get rid of. Thanks for the heads-up. Now I can cancel the satellite (as soon as the darned contract runs out!)

CCtang,
To each his own.

The title of this thread is to get political shows in Taiwan for free, many of which you cannot get on P2PTV, except for those mostly leaning towards the CCP or KMT.

Anyway, I wasn’t asking for “some” channels in China, a handful of shows that air in Taiwan, or connectivity to channels already widely available in the US.

I’m asking for ALL the channels and shows in Taiwan, in HDTV to boot, wherever, and whenever I want it.

If you don’t have the ability to properly setup Windows XP/2003, don’t have a spare computer, then use the other solutions besides ORB + $40-$60 HDTV Tuner. (In my case, my grandmother uses the very same pc to browse the web and make calls, so its dual purpose for me or get a friend).

If you prefer to spend $200USD on a device, don’t care about HDTV, and don’t want the ability to TIVO your channels, and be done with it; buy Slingbox. (It won’t fail you).

Its more than $60 if you buy a brand new PC, if you have a spare, or purchase an older model, you can easily get a box for $100 . Old laptops do well too. I already mentioned this sir.
Um, T1 is only 1.5mbps. Any decent Cable or DSL connection easily handles that. You’re definitely not a computer geek hehe.
Anyway, you’re skewing the whole thing with words for effect and no actual substance, especially since you didn’t realize before that P2PTV is a subset of IPTV and that its easy to get better than T1 speeds. What next ISDN? hehe.

[quote=“cctang”]- SlingPlayer is an appliance. It’s basically the single-device replacement for the above. And no, you never have to reboot it. I haven’t touched mine in 10 months. [/quote].
A Slingbox is essentially a stripped down PC with a TV tuner and a ethernet port running a variation of linux I believe.
Its also $200. A Slingplayer is just a box that does the same thing Orb does. I don’t reboot my Windows Server 2003 machine nor my FreeBSD machine in Taiwan. If I needed to, again there’s the free logmein.com tool. Plus my grandma has no problems pressing a switch. I don’t know, that part of the argument is a bit weird, I think you wrote it for effect and not for substance.

If your XP needs regular rebooting, something is wrong with your setup. XP is based of NT5.0 which was designed to have a 99.999% uptime. Is your XP always logged in as Administrator? You could also read the manual and actually use it properly.

TVAnts also reports everything I watch. I haven’t bothered to sniff what it reports yet tho.

There are far better alternatives to TVAnts, although I’m not sure about ETTV. Anyway, I can’t seem to get FTV on any free P2PTV networks, if anyone knows, it would help my auntie in Michigan.

Anyway, as I’ve said before, my ultimate qualm with P2PTV is that it doesn’t cover all the channels nor the shows that I watch, until it does, I don’t have a choice. If you’re so happy with your IPTV solution, then why do you still have your slingbox, and pay for the bandwidth? Again, to each his own.

So could you tell what the “far better alternatives” to TVAnts are? If you could give links, I could check them out. Have you installed the software and does it come with any “surprises” (my usual question)??

I don’t really care too much WHAT I watch as long as it’s in modern Chinese – I need to hear everything anyway for my job – but naturally the more variety the better. I’m more interested in news and talk shows, though, not so much in the so-called “entertainment” or “general” shows.