What are you watching

dvds2000 said:
At the end of the day it all depends on what you like, i think newsgroups are excellent, download full speed, stick on an sd card, pop it in tv, watch, no buffering or adverts.
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Well, yes, that's certainly a definite plus-advantage.
I'll give the torrents and the newsgroups a go ................ and see how it plays out.
Many thanks for all the advice.
 
dvds2000 said:
I just tried 4 lnks on there, instantly got a load of pop ups, and it started, then started buffering :(

At the end of the day it all depends on what you like, i think newsgroups are excellent, download full speed, stick on an sd card, pop it in tv, watch, no buffering or adverts.

Having said that I know people who use torrents and people who use streaming sites, so it probably just depends what you like best :D
Click to expand...

Don't you have Adblocker? I get no pop-ups or ads and it streams quickly enough that you can start watching instantly and not stop.
 
icebreaker said:
Well, yes, that's certainly a definite plus-advantage.
I'll give the torrents and the newsgroups a go ................ and see how it plays out.
Many thanks for all the advice.
Click to expand...

very quick guide

make sure you have winrar installed and quickpar

then download and install grabit http://www.shemes.com/ (if it asks then associate file type nzb with it)

sign up for the free trial at hitnewws

enter your account information into grabit

sign up (free) to http://indexer.nzbgrab.it/register

go to tv series (or whatever) click the nzb button to the right of what you want to download, open it, if the file is associated with grabit it should start downloading. Go to the folder it has downloaded to (when its done obviously) right click one of the rar files, extract to....then it should extract the avi/mp4 whatever file ready to play, or copy to card to watch on telly

The only thing i would say is it takes a little getting used to but once you are comfortable with it its easy
 
Gareth Flynn said:
Downloading is a plus! Especially if you plan to watch on a commute or some other situation where you don't have decent broadband.
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yep, if i think im going to be bored at work i'll regulary stick a couple of programmes on my phone to watch during the day, downloaded stuff is just a case of dragging and dropping (assuming you don't use apple :) )

Plus if you want quality, you can download almost all tv shows in HD rather than SD
 
dvds2000 said:
very quick guide

make sure you have winrar installed and quickpar

then download and install grabit http://www.shemes.com/ (if it asks then associate file type nzb with it)

sign up for the free trial at hitnewws

enter your account information into grabit

sign up (free) to http://indexer.nzbgrab.it/register

go to tv series (or whatever) click the nzb button to the right of what you want to download, open it, if the file is associated with grabit it should start downloading. Go to the folder it has downloaded to (when its done obviously) right click one of the rar files, extract to....then it should extract the avi/mp4 whatever file ready to play, or copy to card to watch on telly

The only thing i would say is it takes a little getting used to but once you are comfortable with it its easy
Click to expand...
Many thanks for going to the trouble. Much appreciated.
It will be a priority on my to-do list this weekend when Cheltenham finishes.

However,a cursory glance informs me from the first line of the guide that a cost of around $19 is required for a licence for Winrar before we start on anything else.. :rolleyes:
Okay, there's a free trial, but something like this is not encouraging.
 
I bet there's a win rare torrent :) altough I have winrar trail version and it works fine -just pops up to say for all features please pay - as I don't need all features I just ignore!
 
icebreaker said:
Many thanks for going to the trouble. Much appreciated.
It will be a priority on my to-do list this weekend when Cheltenham finishes.

However,a cursory glance informs me from the first line of the guide that a cost of around $19 is required for a licence for Winrar before we start on anything else.. :rolleyes:
Okay, there's a free trial, but something like this is not encouraging.
Click to expand...

:D, winrar free trial lasts forever

h5434EC07
 
Had some spare time at work lol

go to hitnews, create a free account. Note this takes around 30 minutes to activate so do this earlier than you need to. If you are with Virgin media you get 30 days free so you dont need a usenet (hitnews) account

Download grabit

Double click to install grabit,

Make sure the box is ticked where indicated below
grabit.JPG

when setting up you will be asked for some settings, they are all in the welcome email from hitnews

Enter server information
grabit1.JPG

Enter user / pass
grabit2.jpg
grabit2.JPG

if it tells you the information is incorrect check they are right then wait a bit as it just means the account is not active
 
That's great. Thank you. I'll work on this at the weekend.

One other thing, Colin ...................
Something you said in a previous post really grabbed my attention.
You mentioned that you download to a memory card in your PC, and then slot the card into your TV to view the content.
That's cool, and I would love that functionality. But, I have checked my TV -- there is a slot called a PCMCIA card reader which seems much bigger than the card-slot on my laptop. And vice versa, the card from the laptop looks like it won't fit into the PCMCIA slot on the TV -- it's way too small.
So, are the two devices incompatible as far as memory cards go?

I've looked up the user manual for my PC (a Dell Inspiron 1750) which seems to suggest that the card-slot is for an "Express" card. There is no mention of a PCMCIA slot, nor can I see any other such slot on the machine.
 
Many thanks to all for the ongoing advice. :)
dvds2000 said:
Do you have a usb port on your tv?
what model is your tv and ill see if i can find out
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There are two USB ports on the TV .............. one labelled "USB APPS/USB HUB" and other "USB HDD". :confused:
The TV is an LG 42" Smart TV, model 42PM4700

Granger, yes, there are two HDMI slots -- "HDMI (ARC)" and "HDMI DVI"
 
That will entail me buying another laptop, because I only have the one (this one) at the moment and it will have to sit close to the TV to connect the cable. :o
It would be great if the card and card-reader was an option, but it seems the laptop and the TV use different card formats. What kind of bollox is that !!!!!

What is -- if any -- the advantage of connecting via HDMI rather than USB?
 
icebreaker said:
God yeah, that would be great -- a perfect solution if it works.
I'll get a USB stick over the weekend and see how it goes.
Click to expand...

Yeah that should work fine with your telly, i noticed today rymans have 16gb usb sicks for £9.99 if you ae wanting one from the high street. Failing that, if you have a spare memory card just get a card reader from poundland, put that in the usb slot on your tv and then use the memory card to copy the files to :) (which is what I do)

My LG which is an older model than yours plays almost everything I throw at it

Ill take a photo later when I get in to show you what I mean :)
 
Sd card in a poundland card reader, but a usb stick is just as good, if not better if you don't have an old card lying about

tv1.jpg


Menu screen (bit blurred sorry) showing whats on the card, then you just slect what you want to watch, press play and its just like watching a dvd, pause, stop, fast forward, rewind etc.

tv2.jpg


If one of your ports says USB HDD you may be able to use the usb drive to record or pause live tv too
 
That's marvellous !
Like you say, it's just like using a DVD player.

I notice you are using an 8GB card. So, a 16GB like I am considering buying should be ample capacity?
 
you will fit about 50 45 minute sd shows on a 16gb, about 10 720i hd or 7 1080i hd shows, unless you are up all night i imagine any of those will be enough, all you do is drag and drop from your pc folder to the card/usb stick so no hassle anyway. What speed internet do you have?
 
Oh, it is only around 2.5 Mbps. Ireland is far behind the European average broadband speeds, and worse, I am living in a rural area.
So, downloading overnight is far more feasible than online streaming which is erratic at best at those speeds ............ as I know from sad experience.
 
So far, so good ! :D

I've taken up a 3-month sub to Hitnews, and downloaded the Grabit utility.
I think I have managed the basics, so far. But I'm stumped as to where I should go to search for TV progs. Maybe you could recommend which Newsgroup(s) I should look in for same?
Would be ever so grateful.
 
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