Non-streaming Chinese TV online?

January 18, 2012 11:08 AM

Where can I watch non-streaming Chinese TV online?

My connection is crappy, so watching streaming media is a pain in the ass. I'm looking for Youtube-like segments of Chinese TV, spoken in Chinese, ideally including ads, exactly as if you were watching TV in mainland China.

posted by Tom-B to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

A question for clarification: by "streaming," do you mean live-streaming (as someone could see on TV if they lived in China right now)? YouTube videos are streaming content, meaning that you watch it as you incrementally download it. Non-streaming media is something you need to download completely before watching. With YouTube and similar services, video is (temporarily) downloaded and cached, so if you're on a slow or unreliable connection, you can pause the video while it loads, and watch the segment that is cached.

A second question: are you looking for anything in particular, current programs, or any recordings of Chinese TV broadcasts?
posted by filthy light thief at 11:50 AM on January 18, 2012

filthy light thief is right: watching anything online is streaming media.
posted by valkyryn at 12:27 PM on January 18, 2012

go to mysoju.com

There's tons of shows there and they come in 10-minute segments. The Chinese ones are listed under "mainland drama", I think.
posted by costanza at 1:17 PM on January 18, 2012

Youtube clone Youku has lots of the current popular dramas - I'm Lord only knows how many episodes into the recent re-adaptation of the Water Margin - plus there's chat shows and stuff like China's Got Talent. The other big video portals will have a slightly different selection - Ku6, Sina etc.
You don't get ad breaks as such on Youku, but there will be a forced ad to watch first or after, so you can keep up to date on how KFC is flogging its wares round these parts.
posted by Abiezer at 4:47 PM on January 18, 2012

Response by poster: 'Streaming' for me means it's trying to be real-time, jumping and stuttering under a slow connection. 'Youtube style' means asynchronous, I can press pause, go make a sandwich and when I'm back it's buffered say 10 minutes ahead.
posted by Tom-B at 7:45 PM on January 18, 2012

Response by poster: I am looking for the experience of watching TV in China, say you're in a cheap restaurant with a TV, what would they be watching?
posted by Tom-B at 7:46 PM on January 18, 2012

Response by poster: That's why I want the ads too, what is being sold to Chinese people, and how?
posted by Tom-B at 7:48 PM on January 18, 2012

Toudou often has chinese ads, but I've only seen it through websites like mysoju.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 12:35 AM on January 19, 2012

Response by poster: Hi thanks for the answers! But I'm still leaving the question open, here's why:

constanza, mysoju is awesome, however it feels more like torrenting series than watching TV, I'm looking for the trashy ads, talk shows etc.

Abiezer, youku is more like what I'm looking for, unfortunately the servers seem to be in China, so it ends up really really slow for me (I'm in South America)

If anyone else has suggestion, feel free to contribute! Thanks!
posted by Tom-B at 10:20 AM on January 19, 2012

More options: PPTV, QQ TV, and Xunlei.

Note that some of these sites filter out certain (copyright-infringing) videos if you're using a US IP address.
posted by twisted mister at 11:08 AM on January 19, 2012 [1 favorite]