US TV for Australians

April 10, 2005 7:41 PM

What's the best way to get a copy of an American television program to someone in Australia?

I'm going to be on a U.S. television show in a couple of months and some friends in Australia want to see me. This is not a program that is put out on the torrent networks. Is my best bet:
a.) to make friends with a torrent-maker and ask for a favor
b.) pay to have my videotape duplicated in the PAL format
c.) ask someone with a TiVo with built-in DVD burner and ask them to make a DVD (are those discs regionless?)
d.) ask someone with a TV card on their PC to make an .avi and burn it to a data cd
e.) something else?

posted by Dreama to technology (6 comments total)

Being someone in Oz right now, ask your friends if they have a video player that can play NTSC tapes - you (and they!) might be suprised. Whilst PAL is the standard over here, the manufacturers long ago seemed to realise that a distressing number of recordings were in NTSC and added NTSC playback functionality to their VCR's.

Other than that, I'd get someone with a TV card to avi it, which for me would basically equate to (a) anyway. Are you sure it's not auto-torrented anyway? There's a _lot_ of random stuff on the torrent networks....
posted by coriolisdave at 9:05 PM on April 10, 2005

You could ask if they have a multisystem VCR and TV.

Unlike North America, most other places have TVs that work on all standards nowadays. VCRs included.

If they have a multisystem VCR and TV, you can just send them the NTSC video tape.

Of course, the *best* way would be to have somenoe record it on their computer and compress it into a DivX/XviD video, because then you wouldn't have to pay for shipping. :o)
posted by shepd at 9:06 PM on April 10, 2005

doh! coriolisdave beat me to it.
posted by shepd at 9:07 PM on April 10, 2005

Almost all DVD players are sold region free here so the DVD route sounds good too. [Does TiVo embed a region code? - they're only just starting to appear here, so no experience]
posted by tellurian at 11:09 PM on April 10, 2005

Tell your Australian friends the URL of the torrent of the show, which should be posted all over the Internet the day after the show airs.
posted by kindall at 11:18 PM on April 10, 2005

If it's the show I'm thinking of, search for other episodes, and contact the person listed [if there is one]. They may be able to do you a favour and torrent the specific show that you need.
posted by fionab at 10:31 AM on April 11, 2005