Gung_Ho Posted March 10, 2006 at 12:32 AM Report Posted March 10, 2006 at 12:32 AM Hi all, Any tips for streaming mandarin video with english subs? Just starting to learn chinese and wanting to use the easiest way - by watching TV! So far I've downloaded PPlive, which lets me watch streaming video with around 200 chinese TV channels. It's really good - free, there's a lot of decent material there, and it has good transfer rates, because it uses peer to peer techology to send the signals. However, as far as I can see, none of the channels have any english subs... Which is really necessary, because I don't know many words at this point. Any other streaming alternatives which lets me watch mandarin TV with english subs? Does anyone know if the channels on PPlive might be subbed regularly? Quote
Josh-J Posted March 10, 2006 at 01:23 AM Report Posted March 10, 2006 at 01:23 AM Dear God, pplive will be so great for learning chinese. I never knew such a thing existed, and while I'm not entirely sure about its legality it is definately an amazing resource - and it works so well here in the UK :mrgreen: No idea about subtitles, but thanks alot for mentioning this great program! EDIT: I've looked at a few channels now, and found two that have english subtitles (or at least have had in the last few minutes) - both movies i think. Quote
Gung_Ho Posted March 10, 2006 at 02:15 AM Author Report Posted March 10, 2006 at 02:15 AM Yeah, it's pretty good isn't it? Loads and loads of free quality mandarin TV. Did you know about before I mentioned it here or did you just hear about it? But anyway, it's not so useful unless you already understand some chinese, so I was hoping to find some streams that are subbed. It worked well for my english ( it's not my mother tongue... ), I learned english from computers and watching TV when I was a kid, and I was always in the native speakers' english class at school. Quote
Ferno Posted March 10, 2006 at 03:28 AM Report Posted March 10, 2006 at 03:28 AM why not just download specific series of TV shows with subs? Quote
roddy Posted March 10, 2006 at 03:54 AM Report Posted March 10, 2006 at 03:54 AM why not just download specific series of TV shows with subs? Why not tell us where we can do this? Quote
Ferno Posted March 10, 2006 at 07:50 AM Report Posted March 10, 2006 at 07:50 AM really? i hope i'm not telling you guys stuff you already know but... :o http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/ ^has tons of stuff The Chinese subforum has discussions about the shows and links to the episodes - these can be torrent files, direct links, Clubbox links, etc... the episodes can be hard-subbed, have softsubs included, or have nothing The Subtitles subforum has stickied threads with links to subtitle files for various Korean/Jap/Chinese series. Often times a thread has a complete list of links to episodes coupled with a list of links to subtitles, so these are probably the most convenient to get your stuff from rather than looking for episodes & subs seperately. Depends on the series. + there's info on how to play the files, etc.. if it's more complicated even easier is http://silentregrets.com/ it has direct downloads to episodes & subs for several complete series (or as they become available) Quote
Ferno Posted March 10, 2006 at 07:52 AM Report Posted March 10, 2006 at 07:52 AM oh and of course theres lots of shows put up on Youtube (with the subs are already there) but obviously it's not going to be high quality gung_ho also posted some stuff in another thread http://www.chinese-forums.com/showthread.php?p=65088#post65088 Quote
roddy Posted March 10, 2006 at 08:06 AM Report Posted March 10, 2006 at 08:06 AM My word, some of those links look less than legal. I shall have to edit those out at some point . . . Quote
Gung_Ho Posted March 12, 2006 at 05:14 PM Author Report Posted March 12, 2006 at 05:14 PM Didn't want to come barging in here and begin uploading questionable links. I read the faq and decided to post them after seeing a mod posted some links to verycd, which contains material of a similar nature. Some of my links contain references to pirated material, but such links in themselves are hardly illegal anywhere. And people who download pirated CDs and DVDs by far the biggest legal buyers of media according to all surveys anyway, so I don't get a bad conscience by posting legal links that may or may not lead to piracy. I really dislike soap operas of any language, and chinese ones would probably just add a weird twist to it, so I'll pass on that one, but thanks for posting anyway. Also Youtube seems to be full of mostly junk and/or irrelevant material, and the transfer rates are slow - even though you could probably find something useful if you used more time than I did searching. I asked the people at PPlive if they could comment on the fact that none of their channels seem to have any english subs. If they answer, you'll see it here. Finally there's a PPlive forum where one might be able to ask when, if ever, they show mandarin programs with english subs: http://bbs.pplive.com/ However, it's in mandarin, so I'm not able to post there. Maybe someone else could? Quote
roddy Posted March 12, 2006 at 05:27 PM Report Posted March 12, 2006 at 05:27 PM Didn't want to come barging in here and begin uploading questionable links. I read the faq and decided to post them after seeing a mod posted some links to verycd, which contains material of a similar nature. That'd be me then. Just to clarify - when dealing with soap operas, music, etc, the additional downloads this forum is likely to generate are inconsequential, and as long as there's a focus on Chinese-study, I won't complain - I realise how valuable this stuff is, and how difficult it can be to get hold of. Start advocating downloads of the latest HBO series, and I might do something. Or at least say something. Or tut. With Chinese learning material / software, posting of non-legit links on here could potentially impact noticably on sales, particularly when you factor in people searching Google for stuff like 'XXXXX download', whatever. I won't let that happen, and in the past have deleted / edited posts where necessary. This is mentioned in the terms and conditions and has been for some time - however, they are worded to specify Chinese learning material, rather than Chinese language stuff in general. Perhaps it's not clear enough. I reserve the right to change my mind at a moments notice though. Roddy Quote
xiaojiang216 Posted March 14, 2006 at 11:15 PM Report Posted March 14, 2006 at 11:15 PM So far I've downloaded PPlive, which lets me watch streaming video with around 200 chinese TV channels. This software is too good to be true! I've been able to watch Tom & Jerry, 霍元甲, 中英电视台的新闻, and much more! Is this legal? It seems too good to be true. Or rather, "too good to be legal"! 敬祝安好! Quote
Gung_Ho Posted March 14, 2006 at 11:23 PM Author Report Posted March 14, 2006 at 11:23 PM It can be either legal or illegal depending on the copyright regulations where you live. It really is a legal matter which lacks presedence probably in most places, and also it would differ from country to country, so it's pretty impossible to give you and answer, atleast not if I don't know where you live. In case the copyright laws are unclear or ambivalent it can be considered barely legal, my personal favorite. :-] Quote
Josh-J Posted March 15, 2006 at 12:37 AM Report Posted March 15, 2006 at 12:37 AM Being the strange person that I am I did some research into my country's (the UK) copyright laws, and as far as I can see viewing the channels in this country isn't illegal for personal use. Except the software also uploads to others, so I'm not sure if its still personal use. Also, there seems to be some kind of provision for importing "device"s intended for circumvention of encryption into the country (I assume this applies to the pplive client software, its used to access otherwise-encrypted pay-to-view channels) that as far as I can see makes it illegal to download. Having said that I'm still gonna use it and I doubt anyone is going to do anything about it. Does seem a borderline case. Personally I'm more in favour of the view that it *should* be legal because its similar to how the first US cable companies started up - just recieving other people's channels and rebroadcasting. (can't remember the site I found that on) The problem is that lots of the channels are encrypted, and recent new legislation seems to like stopping people circumvent encryption - not that it stops people. I hope I didn't make anyone fall asleep, but if I did, pleasant dreams Quote
Danilo-11 Posted March 19, 2006 at 06:18 AM Report Posted March 19, 2006 at 06:18 AM This is the pplive channel list translated... What channels do you guys recommend? There's way to many channels to go through. Quote
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