On June 9 the World Cup starts. 90% of this country could care less. There's about 10% of us that are truly interested in watching the games. I won't get into an argument about watching soccer on television. It's like baseball - some people get it, some people don't. I can understand if you're one of the people don't - but there are another 3 billion people in this world who do, so trust me, YOU are the one in the minority. You can laugh and snigger all you want, but I'm not the one watching 30 cars make left hand turns for 3 hours.
In any event. It's a simple request. I want to watch the games of the world's most popular sporting event. It's only held once every four years. It shouldn't be out of the realm of possibility. But, here's the problem. I don't have cable. ABC is only showing like 11 games - my guess is the 4 US games, then semi-finals and finals games, and possibly a few Mexico or other random games. ESPN and ESPN2 are showing the remaining 53 games. So, I won't get to see any of those.
I called to check on just subscribing to ESPN and ESPN2 (and OLN just for kicks so I can watch the Tour de France). See, I subscribe to "local" cable - as I think I've mentioned before. I get ABC/CBS/NBC/WB/UPN/PBS/WGN and also CSPAN a few shopping channels, a religious channel and a spanish channel (univision - we'll come back to this in a minute). I pay about $11/month for "cable" now - if I want the minimum cable package that includes ESPN and ESPN2 I have to pay $49/month. I'm sorry, but ESPN is not worth $38/month. So, now I'm back to the same problem.
I look around the internet to see if maybe there's an internet video thing I can subscribe to. NBA, MLB, and NFL all have packages that I can watch games live over the internet. I thought the World Cup might. It turns out they do. In Israel and Brazil. And both are blocked to non-residents. And while I'm sure I could figure out some hack to fake them into thinking a resident, I'd rather not have to do that. So back to the drawing board.
I started thinking - you know what? The Mexicans are huge soccer fans. I've seen soccer on Telemundo and in Mexican restaurants. I wonder who is broadcasting for the Mexicans. Turns out - Univision! 58 of the 64 games. Unfortunately, I don't speak Spanish. Have you ever watched soccer in Spanish, though? It's AWESOME. They get so much more excited about it than the Americans. I don't understand a goddamn word, but it's fun. So. I'll be watching the World Cup in Spanish this year. Except for some weekend games which I'll get to see in English on ABC. Most likely I'll watch the Mexican broadcast anyway.
So, now the problem is finding a way to record the games. I got rid of my VCR years ago. And I heard that WalMart was going to stop selling them. So, I've got to make a decision - get a VCR and throw it away when I'm done with it. Or get a DVD Recorder. The VCR is cheap - but I can't do anything with it when I'm done. I'm uncertain about timing for the DVD recorder. My concern is that I won't be able to get enough time on a DVD Recorder. With a VCR on low settings I can record 8 hours - plenty of time to record 2 or 3 games a day. With a DVD Recorder I think I'm going to be limited to 2 hours TOPS.
Anyway. All y'all electronics geeks out there (Brian, Aveh, Pete?!) help me think this one through. Any great ideas? You know the limits - and no, get a "TIVO" is not an option ($20/month for the ability to record 25 channels? I don't think so). I have thought about a TV Tuner/Recorder for my computer so I can record to hard-drive. But, given the age of my computer, I don't think I have enough empty slots for one. But it IS an option.
Brian, I know you have an ORB account - any chance of you recording to your computer and me grabbing your feed?
1 comment:
Well, first thing is I'd suggest holding off on buying a DVD recorder. Unless, oh and this is good, you buy one that has an airtight 30-day return policy, you record what you need, and then return it! (Wash rinse repeat if you need more than 30 days). Anyway, the reason I advise against is that it is still unsettled which of the HD DVD formats is going to win, not to mention which of the current recordable DVD formats will win out. You risk buying a betamax. Any non-HD DVD recorder (i.e. all of them, I think) is obsolete once you get it out of the box, since all-HD is coming pretty soon.
If you do have that extra slot, I'd think your best bet would be to get a video-capture card. Not only will it work for what you want now, but it doesn't suffer from the same obsolescence problems as current DVD recorders (not to mention being much cheaper). There are also tons of web-accessible instructions for making your own Tivo, complete with free software. Good luck!
Post a Comment