There are many things that people miss about their home countries and a common one is television. I don't think there are many foreigners who would want to watch Thai television and that includes those who speak the language fluently. The content shown on Thai television just does not appeal to the vast majority of foreigners so most of us will try to find a way to watch foreign television.
There are expensive pay TV packages out there from the likes of True Visions but I have always thought that the level of content they provide is poor considering the large subscription fee they charge. Instead these are the services I use to get my TV fix!
Torrents
This is by far the most popular method of viewing foreign television programs in Thailand. The vast majority of people I know are torrenting almost constantly and we often leave ourselves with a surplus of things to watch because we go slightly torrent crazy!
*note as of december 2014 the pirate bay has been closed - I now use Kickass torrents but there are still many alternatives out there*
If you would like to watch your torrents on an actual television rather then on a laptop screen you have a number of options. I have recently bought a Samsung TV which has USB capabilities. This allows me to put all of my downloaded torrents onto a flash drive and stick it in the back of the TV allowing me to view the content on a large screen in beautiful HD. Another option if you're not in the market to buy a new television is to connect your laptop to a normal TV using cables. This is a fairly simple process on most windows PC's but I did have to buy a special adapter to connect my macbook which was fairly pricy (1,200 baht)
Live TV & TV on Demand
We all know that most broadcasters restrict their live steams and on demand content to viewers based within their intended broadcasting area. This means that I am unable to view the BBC I Player or watch any live streams from a service such as Catch Up TV. There are of course options which allow you to trick the website into thinking you are viewing the content from a certain country. Many people use programs to change their IP address or purchase expensive VPN services. These can vary in quality and although I have only tried the cheap options I was not impressed. I am told that the paid VPN's are actually quite good.
I was recently introduced to a service on Twitter which has the same effect as a VPN but is free of charge and really reliable. The program is called Hola and can be installed as an extension in your google chrome browser. You simply turn the service on head to a website and then select which country you would like to view the website from. It really is as simple as that and I would urge anyone to check it out! This service has completely changed my viewing experience because I am now able to trick the BBC website into thinking I'm in the UK and I can view the BBC iPlayer as well as TV streaming sites such as TV Catchup.
If you know anybody in the UK who subscribes to Sky Digital who would be kind enough to let you have their username and password you can use hola to watch every channel just as you would back home. The service is called Sky Go and I believe it is included in every Sky Subscription so it's just a case of finding someone to lend you their details and you're away!
Live Sports
Most of the time that I want to stream live content is to watch sporting events. There are numerous websites out their with various links to streams showing sports events. The site I usually use is Wiziwig and I think it is the most comprehensive of all the stream aggregators.
When you look at the site you will see there are various different methods of streaming. Most streams will be flash streams and these are usually very poor quality but are often quite reliable streams. These flash streams are not appropriate is you are viewing the content on a TV because they are too pixelated. The best results are had by downloading an external video player. Sopcast and Ace Player are external players which provide the best quality streams and work on a similar method to torrenting so the number of viewers directly effects the quality of the streams. I often find HD quality streams on there which are comparable to anything on a normal television!
I would also recommend taking a look at the youtube live streaming page because sometimes when a sporting event is not bought by Thai television it is broadcast on here free of charge. A good example of this is the Commonwealth games which is not broadcast in Thailand so is available free of charge in 720p HD.
Links