itunes for TV shows

[sprauncey1]

Ok so DH is an adamant anti-apple guy, but with our limited American TV over here and the price we are soon going to have to pay for cable (mostly Arabic and some British/American) I am trying to weed out all the possibilities.

We have Amazon Prime but streaming videos here is painful and a lot of the time useless. We are just too slow of internet to handle the video size. We can download but it takes a while but then at least we wouldn't have to watch 2 seconds then wait for 15 more to buffer 2 more seconds while we painfully watch.

So I hear about people watching TV from itunes and was wondering if this was downloaded videos or just streaming (or both). We can download videos and such from Amazon, but itunes seems to be the one with the latest shows and so I am curious about that. DH and I have become hopelessly addicted to Big Bang Theory and are about all caught up now.

Oh and for those that don't know...

We are a military family stationed in Kuwait City for two years. It is a job through the Embassy here but also still USAF. It is amazing and crazy here, but we do miss certain things from home (TV shows)! And mail. Reliable mail. Customs agents here are on strike so we don't know when our stuff that I ordered 2 weeks ago will arrive. At least we get mail. The Embassy workers in Iraq don't get any since November!

[Nettio]

TV shows on iTunes are all downloads, not streaming, since you're purchasing the episodes. In a lot of cases there are HD and SD versions of the shows which is nice since the SD versions tend to be smaller/faster to download. You can also purchase season passes for shows so you get all the episodes from the season.

I do feel your pain though. When we lived in Korea we had no cable tv I had to download everything in pre-iTunes days. Seems a lot easier now.

[TeriBeary]

I've bought the shows on iTunes before and they're excellent quality and up soon after being aired. I'm in Canada so I can't get a lot of the US streaming options and sometimes I just break down and buy an episode to see it

[Julie Billingsley]

You could download itunes and then download one of the free tv episodes to see if it works better for you. Itunes is a free download and there are a bunch of free tv episodes (nothing great, but at least you can try it.) Hope it works for you!

[sprauncey1]

Thanks guys. Now to try to pitch to DH. He's my IT guy so I have to tread lightly! LOL But at the same time...there doesn't seem to be many other options!

[Milmomma]

We are stationed in South Korea, and don't get American cable without paying up the but for a dish, a box, and then monthly. So we just get our tv shows from iTunes. We love it cause then we can watch them on ipads/iphones/ipods when we are not home. We have apple tv as well so we can stream them from that. Or you can download them to your computer and watch them on your tv from that. They have most recent shows. The show airs in the states on what ever day it is suppose to be on, then the next day it is on iTunes. (which we are a day ahead so I have to wait a day and half, almost two days) I love the season passes cause you pay one set fee and then it automatically downloads each new episode each week as it becomes available. It will be strange to go back home and have to watch tv shows on the tv with commericals and at specific times instead of watching them on my tv(apple tv) whenever I want with a pause button.

[sprauncey1]

Originally Posted by Milmomma

We are stationed in South Korea, and don't get American cable without paying up the but for a dish, a box, and then monthly. So we just get our tv shows from iTunes. We love it cause then we can watch them on ipads/iphones/ipods when we are not home. We have apple tv as well so we can stream them from that. Or you can download them to your computer and watch them on your tv from that. They have most recent shows. The show airs in the states on what ever day it is suppose to be on, then the next day it is on iTunes. (which we are a day ahead so I have to wait a day and half, almost two days) I love the season passes cause you pay one set fee and then it automatically downloads each new episode each week as it becomes available. It will be strange to go back home and have to watch tv shows on the tv with commericals and at specific times instead of watching them on my tv(apple tv) whenever I want with a pause button.

So do you have to VPN in to have it download the shows? Sorry if you don't know what that means! Basically the shows are coded for the US region and so when we go on the internet right now we show up as in Kuwait (Region 3 or something) and most shows won't work. So we have a workaround that we pay per year a fee so we can access a hub in certain major US cities and then it shows up like we are stateside. But this does slow down the connection speed even more so I'm curious how this would work with the auto-download the show thing. Maybe there in Korea you don't have to jump through that hoop!

We still have our AFN box but its a PITA because the shows are all the wrong time (we get AFN Europe which is like 3 hours behind) and because we have to have a decoder box, we can't really set it up on our VCR (yes VCR!!) to record multiple shows. Why they couldn't have given us a freaking DVR type box, oh wait this is the US government I speak of...it makes no sense most of the time! And of course they don't have all the shows anyway, just a select few.

But on the upside...we CAN get internet access and use our VPN and can use Vonage and skype to stay connected. So really even 10 years ago would have been totally different!
So we are blessed!

[Milmomma]

We do not have a VPN which means we can't watch anything online at like ABC, CBS, NBC, or what not. But we have had no issues with iTunes. I have issues getting on Disney.com and stuff. And Yahoo turns Korean once a week no matter how many times I set it to english. 4Shared, and Bing are always Korean no matter what. I've learned to deal with most sights and no which buttons to click to get what I need/want to download.
Our AFN picks which shows they want to air and usually only pick 1/4 of what is on in the states. Then like 6 months later they may chose an old show that was on in the fall or what not. Its crazy! To me its not worth all the hassle. iTunes has a pause button. If you turn off the tv or hit the menu button it remembers where you left off so you can pick right back up.
We have Korean internet which is dirty cheap and unlimited. Even like with the phone plans, 3G is dirty cheap and its free to tether. I will miss that. But the speed varies a lot based off the time and people. Holidays/weekends are impossible to do a lot online. Dling or upload will take days if you start on the weekend. But I try to remind myself that we only pay like 20,000 won a month for internet. Roughly like $18 in dollar. It is our only option too as there are not options for things like this in Korea, there is the one choice and that is it.
I guess I went on and on with more than just your questions, sorry. But I have to say I adore iTunes living overseas. It has made my life here a little better. (oh and before coming to SK I was anti Apple, but I have come more towards the light)

[lovely1m]

I have a few episodes of my son's favorite cartoons on our iPad downloaded from iTunes. It worked great.

[nonnie]

Ok Kim - we are military overseas and we LIVE by Apple TV - but we also have a strong VPN - (google it) it maskes our home and any signal coming in - and by using this we watch Hulu plus and stream Netflix - totally saves us over the CRAPPY AFN!!!!! - It is AMAZING!!! and worth the money - the money you spend on the router, you make back when you move and sell it to the next family - PM me