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How can we get TV from Germany in US

S

ski2moro

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 3, 2007
320
3
I'm not getting the search results that I want, so I turn to you for help.

A German family moved to our neighborhood in the US and wants to be able to watch German language TV. The wife and young children do not speak English very well, and something from home will be helpful in making the transition.

Their grown daughter is living in their home in Germany while they are on this 2 year assignment, so they still have German internet and TV there.

They purchased a Visio HDTV and Region 1 DVD player here in the States. They have a PC, but are thinking about getting a Mac Mini to add to their 'home theater', such as it is.

I was thinking about Slingbox and then connecting their computer to the big TV to watch. There is a six hour time difference to be considered in this solution.

Or

I considered having their grown son do a video capture of specific TV shows and upload them to Mobile Me. It wouldn't be high quality, but the content would be there.

Or

Apple TV - Can they buy an Apple TV and watch German content in the US? What sort of iTunes account would they need?

Or

Is there some German Netflix-type option that is available in the US?

And

I thought I could hook up their computer (PC) to the TV to display their German (region 2) DVDs. Is there anything difficult about that?

I am new to this concept, so please be kind. If there are other discussions about this, any links are appreciated.
 
Thanks for the links. I am not sure which shows they want, but this is a good start.

What about Apple TV?
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C134 Safari/6533.18.5)

They can get shows from zdf as video podcasts in iTunes. Huetejournal, Logo amongst others. There are other options too. If they hook a computer to their tely the can get some shows from the channels website too.

It's what I do.
 
German Setup in the US

Hi Ski2moro,

I appreciate their problem, we have been living in CT since February and had the same problem. There used to be a cable channel called Germantv, but the tv is very limited and I think the channel was cancelled. Satellite is not really an option, no german channel is covered here. So we have actually found what I think is the optimal solution.

We have a mac mini with a connected harddrive to save the shows. We registered a service called Bong.TV. There you can select shows on any channel in Germany and record them. The Apple server then downloads them into Itunes as a Podcast. In the Bedroom and Livingroom we have an Apple TV II, with which we can watch the potcasts. The advantage of the Podcasts is, that anything we record in BongTV is automatically downloaded as a Podcast, thus we don't have to go on the site every day to manually download.

To set up recordings, Bong.tv also offers an Iphone/Ipad app where you can look at the germant TV guide and record any shows, as well as delete shows you have recorded in the past (which you should do regularly since you have limited space in your online drive) (just search for Bong.tv on the App Store)

For us this setup works perfectly. We like watching Tatort every Sunday evening and since the show is on 6 hrs earlier, we can watch the show in the evening same as always. The quality is fantastic we watch it on a big 52 inch screen in fantastic picture quality.

Good Luck!

W
 
Thanks, dewulf! I will recommend BongTV as well.

How do you watch new release German language movies? Can you rent them with your Apple TV in the US?
 
As long as you have German iTunes Account you can use it anywhere. (Like i can use a US-account over here in Germany).

But Apple does not offer all new released movies via iTunes in Germany. Limited choice...
 
Have you checked your local Over the Air ATSC channels?

In some areas of the US, there is significant Over The Air (OTA) content in languages other than English, via the broadcast ATSC system. In my area, these are primarily Spanish and Chinese, but, also include some German, French, Italian content, and a smattering of other languages. Any current HDTV with over the air is already capable of receiving these channels. Depending on where the broadcast antennas are, you may even be able to get some channels in an apartment with rabbit ears. A lot of people pay for cable or satellite TV when they don't have to, and, they may get the channels they want to watch for free.
 
Dish Network

I would get a Dish Network satellite dish for the German sports (most of the Bundesliga!) but buildings block the signal.

The German-Language Plus Package is a comprehensive non-stop 24 hour entertainment package which offers five fantastic German channels broadcasting a variety of news, sports, popular series, talk shows, documentaries, theatrical and classic film, women and children's programming directly from Germany.

It's an extra $28 a month.

http://www.dishnetwork.com/international/German/default.aspx?lang=German

New Customers: 1-888-347-4134
DEUTSCHE WELLE (DW-TV) 725 EURONEWS 901
GERMAN KINO PLUS 724 MY SPORTS GERMANY 610
PROSIEBENSAT.1 WELT 726
 
Tell them to get a Slingbox in Germany and hook it to a dedicated DVR that is attached to the cable system there. They will be able to remotely program it to record shows so they don't have to worry about the time difference. In the US a MacMini would be a great living room computer, but there's lots of other ways to watch too. They could even just watch on a PC.

The slingbox was great for me when I was working in Australia and Russia.
 
Thanks for the great suggestions everyone. This is exactly why I like MacRumors. People from around the world are united by all things Apple and willing to share their experience and knowledge with others.
 
BruiserB said:
Tell them to get a Slingbox in Germany and hook it to a dedicated DVR that is attached to the cable system there. They will be able to remotely program it to record shows so they don't have to worry about the time difference. In the US a MacMini would be a great living room computer, but there's lots of other ways to watch too. They could even just watch on a PC.

The slingbox was great for me when I was working in Australia and Russia.
Click to expand...

This.

I had a slingbox connected to my DVR in the UK while I lived in New York.

You get complete control over the DVR so you can watch TV either live or (better still recorded). I used it all the time to watch UK TV.

You record programs in the day and then watch them remotely. You can fast forward, pause, rewind etc this way and it doesn't disturb people in the UK as they are likely asleep while you use the box.

Very cool and it uses your home subscription...
 
http://www.onlinetvrecorder.com still exists.

I used it in the past before they changed their points collection system. While I used it it was OK. Eventually I stopped because I did not find the time to watch all the stuff I had them record for me.
 
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