Keeping Up with TV in Guatemala
Posted on February 11, 2010 - Filed Under Guatemala, Simple Life | 11 Comments
We haven’t had cable for over two years. Our actual cable wire was wonky from being in the sun and stopped working well and we simply stopped watching rather than replace it. Over time, we didn’t even really notice because we have a rather insane collection of over 800 movies, plus full seasons of Supernatural (bet you never would have guessed!) and Jericho.
One of the issues with living in Guatemala is that even if you have cable, none of the television shows are up to date. We were watching season one of Lost when those in the US were enjoying Season 3. You had to be careful not to accidentally read spoilers online!}
The other issue is that even with internet, we can’t watch the shows on the US network sites . . . they only permit Americans in country to do that. So, that leaves us with two options . . . we can either set up a proxy IP so it appears we’re in the US (I’m too untechie to even attempt that and the sites that do it for you never work) or download the episodes. We aren’t the only ones who have to do this, all of Latin America loves US television shows, so entire sites have been set up to let you watch what the States wants you to wait two to three years to have access to.
We get our shows from Darkville or SeriesMoviles, each of which has it’s pros and cons. SeriesMoviles is great if you want older shows, like NCIS, which I’m catching up on in my “spare” time (like two episodes every few weeks) and they are in MP4 format, so they download fast and if you’re more of a techbug than I am, you can watch them on your iPod video thingy. However, SeriesMoviles doesn’t get the most recent episode of shows until about 5 days afterwards.
Darkville is a bit of a mess at the moment, since the two partners fought and there are now two Darkville sites. The original is here and the other one is here. I usually stick to the original unless they miss something. They have shows within 12 hours of the show being aired usually, with sizes ranging from 350 MB to 100. The entries are done in a blog style, so you have to scroll to see what’s new, but all the episodes are usually listed once you click through. You also have to register for an account.
I should probably mention at this point that both sites are in Spanish, but that shouldn’t stop you from finding any of the shows, which are in English (except Latino shows) with Spanish subs.
To actually download, most files are available through Rapidshare or MegaUpload. You can download one file at a time through these with a free account. Or, if you’re into more than one show, all available on the same day (cough, Supernatural, cough, Fringe, cough, Vampire Diaries) and don’t want to wait for one to finish downloading, you can pay a fee to get unlimited downloads. If you’re really impatient. Like me.
And finally, if you’re going to watch these shows, most of them won’t play on your standard Windows Media Player, so you need to get VLC, which is a totally awesome, totally free media player that will play pretty much ANY format you come across in your travels online. Seriously, it’s good, get it.
And that, my readers, is how to watch almost up to date television shows when you live outside of the US and don’t have cable.
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11 Responses to “Keeping Up with TV in Guatemala”
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We use Graboid. It’s great and things are up within hours.
http://www.graboid.com/
Will have a look at these when I get home later today… But thanks for the ‘Tech Tips’!
Ooh, thanks, Benjamin, I hadn’t heard of that before. Off to check it out.
omigosh! You like Jericho too! I watched both seasons of it within a week last time I was on layoff after hearing about it from a friend… interesting facts about the TV there, I am bringing my laptop and hope to connect with the Vigo service that has the mini modem so you can be online anywhere, I don’t think I could be without internet the whole 19 days I am there lol! thanks for the TV hints as well, I think my inlaws have cable but I am wondering if my netflix will work… plus I have a macbook, so not sure if those sites support macs as well.
I’m not sure if VLC runs on Macs, but you should be able to find a similar media player that you could use to watch the shows if you download them. I’ve never heard of Vigo . . . do you mean Tigo? That’s what I’m using right now, though we have Telefonica, as well. Tigo is perfect because you can just recharge it with phone cards, but there is a limit as to how much you can download, 3 MG per week, I believe.
We LOVED Jericho, we got the whole season and watched it all in a few very long nights, back when Dorian was a baby and never slept, lol. We later got the second season, but I’m ashamed to admit that we have yet to watch more than one episode. Mostly because we don’t watch anything together anymore as I’m working so much.
yup, I meant Tigo… lol. It has been a long, long week. Deja & Daddy just got back from the annual father-daughter dance, I will see if I can scan the photos and put them up on my blog over the weekend. I was thinking just get the prepaid Tigo cards and the modem they show on their website for web access so I can at least check email, blog, and email my son and his girlfriend to make sure all is well when I won’t be calling them of course. I really would have loved to see Jericho continued, there was some talk of bringing it back but nothing ever came of it. Have a great weekend! Sounds like you have a very busy February ahead!
Vampire Diaries? Have you read the books or just watched the show? I didn’t even know there was a show, and borrowed the first two books from a friend. I ended up reading the next two as well, but that’s just as far as I can go… They’re terrible! Is the show really good? Does Elena get resurrected from the dead by basically someone shouting at her in the shows? Cause that’s the point where I had enough!
I’ve read the books and watched the show. The books are pretty lousy, I have to admit, yet I read them all anyway. sigh. The show is actually better than the books, but it’s also drastically different. Nothing that occurs in the books happens in the show . . . just the characters, some of them, have the same names. Margaret doesn’t exist, they replaced her with a broody 16 year old brother, Damon is ten times more evil and Elena doesn’t die. Or at least she hasn’t yet.
Oh, and Tyler isn’t a werewolf. :S In fact, he’s barely in the show. So basically, they just took the name from the books. lol
Actually, if you get the Tigo modem, you won’t need the cards, since they give you a month of access free! Pretty nice.
Ah, I may give the show a try then! I’ve noticed it coming on late at night since I read the books. We have pretty similar taste, so I’m sure I’ll like it if you do!
Well, it’s not totally awesome, but still enjoyable.