Dear Dr. BDO,
All of my favourite Science Fiction television programmes are on Satellite but in these tough economic times I can't afford to pay every month for Sky. What can I do?
Cheers,
Cash-Strapped in Cardiff
Don't despair! First of all, not all great SF is on Sky in the UK. If you have a Freeview box you can watch The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Virgin1. Then there's Doctor Who on BBC of course. ITV4 showed Jericho. ITV1 had Primeval. BBC1 had Survivors. And so on. In fact Sky only has exclusive rights to a few shows, notably Lost and Battlestar Galactica. If you really want to see these shows you have a few choices: firstly wait until they come out on DVD or BluRay and watch them in a mammoth session, secondly point your very large homemade foil satellite dish into the American ether, thirdly ask a friendly American to tape it for you on VCR and post it to the UK, fourthly watch it online by circumventing any IP restriction using a collection of friendly proxies... or, you could turn off the television set and go and do something else. Like read a book. There's plenty of non-region locked science fiction novels out there.
All of my favourite Science Fiction television programmes are on Satellite but in these tough economic times I can't afford to pay every month for Sky. What can I do?
Cheers,
Cash-Strapped in Cardiff
Don't despair! First of all, not all great SF is on Sky in the UK. If you have a Freeview box you can watch The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Virgin1. Then there's Doctor Who on BBC of course. ITV4 showed Jericho. ITV1 had Primeval. BBC1 had Survivors. And so on. In fact Sky only has exclusive rights to a few shows, notably Lost and Battlestar Galactica. If you really want to see these shows you have a few choices: firstly wait until they come out on DVD or BluRay and watch them in a mammoth session, secondly point your very large homemade foil satellite dish into the American ether, thirdly ask a friendly American to tape it for you on VCR and post it to the UK, fourthly watch it online by circumventing any IP restriction using a collection of friendly proxies... or, you could turn off the television set and go and do something else. Like read a book. There's plenty of non-region locked science fiction novels out there.
Don't forget ye olde bit torrent!
I have no idea what bittorrent is. I thought that a very large satellite dish was the best option.
Well, I did like your E.T.-esque satellite dish suggestion.
Bit torrent is peer-to-peer software that allows you to download videos and other files. My suggestion is bittorrent.com.
The first rule of bittorrent club is - you do not talk about bittorrent club.
;-)