<html><head></head><body data-blackberry-caret-color="#00a8df" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: initial;"><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Just throw on my two cents here...</div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I too torrent a number of shows. To make it wife and child friendly, I use XBMC and Sickbeard. Sickbeard is a nice web app that sits on my server, finds torrent files and hands them to my torrent client. Once downloaded, Sickbeard auto renames and moves them to a directory where XBMC picks them up. </div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;"><br></span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;">Since both sickbeard and XBMC use thetvdb.com, show descriptions, pictures and posters show up nicely. </span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;"><br></span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;">Now, if you look into sickbeard for torrents, please note there is a specific fork for torrents. Sickbeard usually is newsgroup only. </span></div> <div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br style="display:initial"></div> <div style="font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Rogers network.</div> <table width="100%" style="background-color:white;border-spacing:0px;"> <tbody><tr><td colspan="2" style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <div id="_persistentHeader" style="border-style: solid none none; border-top-color: rgb(181, 196, 223); border-top-width: 1pt; padding: 3pt 0in 0in; font-family: Tahoma, 'BB Alpha Sans', 'Slate Pro'; font-size: 10pt;"> <div><b>From: </b>CrankyOldBugger</div><div><b>Sent: </b>Monday, April 28, 2014 2:38 PM</div><div><b>To: </b>KWLUG discussion</div><div><b>Reply To: </b>KWLUG discussion</div><div><b>Subject: </b>Re: [kwlug-disc] Dropping Bell, Phase 5</div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="border-style: solid none none; border-top-color: rgb(186, 188, 209); border-top-width: 1pt; font-size: initial; text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><br><div id="_originalContent" style=""><div dir="ltr">Some good points there, but perhaps I should clarify something about my own situation..<div><br></div><div>I don't care too much about online TV services like Netflix because I have my torrent machine running nicely. I use RSS feeds to automatically download my favourite shows as soon as they're in the feed (usually an hour or so after the actual broadcast). These torrents are almost always commercial free. Only drawback is that I usually have to wait until Friday to watch Thursday's Big Bang Theory.. I can live with that.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Essentially, using torrents negates the need for a PVR, at least for "not-live" shows. Live TV is another fish altogether.</div><div><br></div><div>Now being half-deaf myself, I'm particularly fond of subtitles. Generally I go to <a href="http://opensubtitles.org">opensubtitles.org</a> or <a href="http://subscene.com">subscene.com</a> for subtitles; they're both pretty good. I have seen glimpses of programs that automatically download subtitles on-the-fly but I haven't seen one that works reliably yet. I keep one half-pooched ear on the ground for news on that..</div>
<div><br></div><div>My living room TV doesn't do a good job of offering subtitles from my media server so I'm thinking about a system where I can automatically hard-code subtitles into the shows' mkv file. Handbrake or ffmpeg might do the job.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The WD Live TV does offer live streaming services, but they're optional AFAIK. I'm just interested in making a nice menu system so my wife can watch her shows (via torrents) without having to navigate the server's FHS to find anything. Ideally a menu system similar to what we had with the Bell TV, where she just has to look at a list of shows, select Show XYZ, then select the episode. All with big thumbnails and descriptions. I could build a dedicated server to do this but that might be overkill, and a waste of real estate in the TV cabinet...</div>
<div><br></div><div>I'm trying to con the daughter's skinny boyfriend to crawl up into the attic and help me string network cables to two of the bedrooms so we don't have to rely on spotty wi-fi.</div><div><br>
</div><div>I'm waiting for the videos of Khalid's roof-walk before I decide on an antenna for live news and sports TV (would it be appropriate to say "film at 11" here?)</div><div><br></div><div>I'll keep the Roger's PAYG plan in mind, but I doubt the missus will go along with that. She hates Rogers! Still, those rates make good fodder for bartering with the other providers.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Thanks for your comments, though. Some useful stuff there. Especially the one about Canada Computers.. any reason to go there is a good one!</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 28 April 2014 13:42, unsolicited <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:unsolicited@swiz.ca" target="_blank">unsolicited@swiz.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Phone: Hands down, Roger's Pay As You Go, $100 card good for a year -> $8.33 per month. Add $0.01/minute eve & weekends. $3/month 30 txt usually covers it for me. I don't do data, but if I did, as mentioned, $10 will let you try and let you figure out your usage. The $10 more than a few times will blow your $100 for the year, but that's OK when just figuring things out. Currently my balance is in the $100 from unusage. (I don't much use it during the day, thus the $0.01/min eve & weekends.)<br>
<br>
Note: Bell typically CDMA, Rogers GSM, i.e. SIM card. If you have a SIM card in your current phone you'll be OK. Otherwise - kijiji. Especially for a phone with a keyboard, or factorydirect for a BB or something.<br>
<br>
>From my quick peek, your WD Live is just another device looking for subscription $ to the services. If I've misunderstood something about it, let us know.<br>
<br>
For TV, I'd probably think about vmedia's box <a href="http://www.vmedia.ca/vbox/" target="_blank">http://www.vmedia.ca/vbox/</a> - I assume it would be substantially equivalent. Add in TV (no antenna futzing) <a href="http://www.vmedia.ca/tv/" target="_blank">http://www.vmedia.ca/tv/</a> if you like, or not. You'd need their internet if you get their TV, but from all I've seen their internet is the best plan out there. <a href="http://www.vmedia.ca/internet/" target="_blank">http://www.vmedia.ca/internet/</a><br>
<br>
- apparently Canada Computer has these boxes up and going in store, so you can go touch it / see it / check it out.<br>
<br>
What I will most bitterly lose when I lose basic cable tv is my pvr. Give me the darned content locally on my own devices. Let me fast forward past the darned commercials. (I'm not convinced even with their TV I'll be able to fast forward past any commercials, and I assume they have commercials, as hassle free as I can with my own pvr and local content.)<br>
<br>
I contacted them not long ago, and they confirm they now have pvr (cloud) functionality. Their web site may not have caught up to that info.<br>
<br>
The other thing I will want is closed captioning and/or descriptive video. Haven't sleuthed those aspects out yet.<br>
<br>
<br>
On 14-04-28 09:37 AM, CrankyOldBugger wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Well the satellite TV is now gone (I have receivers for sale cheap!) and<br>
the home phone is in the process of being ported to Ooma, so that leaves me<br>
with only one more Bell product to dump: Wifeski's cellphone.<br>
<br>
What recommendations for non-Bell and non-Rogers cellphone providers do you<br>
guys have?<br>
<br>
She is a low-volume cellphone user, mostly just calls home like "how do I<br>
find Suchandsuch Street?" She texts a little bit as well. Data is<br>
optional, but not necessary.<br>
<br>
She'd like to keep her current cell phone as she likes the slide out<br>
keyboard.<br>
<br>
I'm on Telus myself, so there's an advantage to having her account merged<br>
in with mine, but I'm open to suggestions on a smaller provider like those<br>
guys who have kiosks in the mall if they have an unbeatable deal.<br>
<br>
I've gone through the various company websites and I'm familiar with the<br>
pricing structures, etc., but I was wondering if you guys had really good<br>
or really bad experiences with any of the smaller companies like Koodoo,<br>
Solo or Wind or whatever.<br>
<br>
By the way, now that the satellite TV is gone, I'm seriously considering<br>
Western Digital's Live TV box for Wifeski's TV. It looks pretty good, and<br>
as far as I can tell it's the best device for streaming the stuff I have<br>
already downloaded to my servers, whereas devices like Roku or Chromecast<br>
seem intent on selling you monthly subscriptions to Netflix, etc. I'll<br>
keep you guys informed as this progresses.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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