Can't play downloaded tv program

You want SMPlayer.

You also want to keep any illicit downloading activities to yourself. Piracy discussion is not welcome here.

VLC player is pretty sharp and supports most codecs.
ISOhunt is a good search engine to find various files.

Well if Google allows it then it must be legal. Safe Harbor for providers?

You are according to US law. Personally I think the law is short-sighted, unnecessarily restrictive, and completely ineffective at discouraging piracy (as you yourself have demonstrated), but it is technically the law. Please take the hint and refrain from posting about it in the future. It's for your own good.

From the Forum Rules:

i think we all agree movies are illegal, but tv shows are a little hairy, especially if it was copied for free from network tv.

what is the files extension?

I'm surprised vlc didn't play it. it sounds like it is encoded incorrectly. try downloading a different version.

have you installed any codecs? like maybe divx?

VLC and Mplayer have all necessary codecs built in. If the file won't play with either of them, it is corrupted or was encoded improperly.

Did you download it from google? No.

Google has links to all sorts of illegal stuff, so the fact that it's linked from google isn't a measure of it's "OK-ness".

If you didn't download the show from a site sanctioned/run by the copyright holder it's an illegal download and discussion of such topics is clearly prohibited by the forum rules.

Do we really not even understand/realize anymore that copyrighted material downloaded through torrents and such isn't legal. Please people, at least have the courtesy to respect the forum rules and at the very least don't broadcast to the world you download content through from illegitimate sources.

He's in Canada. I think they can do whatever they want up there.

If VLC won't play a file then the file is bad.


Here are some pretty HD test files

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...tshowcase.aspx

I'd think those would play without any extra codecs or such... However, for divx you'd need to add something extra like FFDshow or the Shark codec pack to get playback in WMC or WMP.

Peter

Yes, it sounds like the file is corrupt.

FWIW, I recommend using MPC-HT as the player and FFDSHOW as the decoder.

And a note regarding how you worded your original question. Next time, just say I have a Xvid that won't play, never give out the entire file name like you did. Those last 3 letters in the file name (FQM) let us know it's an illegal download, as that's the name of the group or person who capped and posted the show originally. I'm only saying this to help keep you out of trouble with not only this forum, but possibly the law, as Canada does acknowledge international copyright law.

Kaal,
Since you stated that you found over 400,000 download sites I suggest that you pick one that provides the program legally and in a file format that your player software can play.
The small size of the file you downloaded indicates that the progarm is encoded in a small resolution and/or encoded in very poor quality.

Including violating forum rules? Maybe I should move to Canada

The point is AVS Forum has rules that prohibit discusion of stuff like torrenting copyrighted content. It's frustrating to see the decline in respect for that rule. I don't care if the OP torrented the show, but we should at least understand what it is (posting copyrighted content to the internet without the holders permission is illegal) and respect the forum rules and not ask for help with blatantly pirated content.

Guess I don't know why people feel the need to post info that makes it blatantly obvious the problem content is pirated.

Unless he's playing dumb, it would appear that Kaal doesn't realize that what he's doing is illegal. I know it seems painfully obvious to anybody who's been on the internet for more than half a day, but some people really don't know any better. I'd say it says more about the failure of harsh laws for discouraging piracy than anything else.

At any rate, he's been warned. Hopefully he takes that warning to heart.

Which is a problem. It's one thing to realize it's illegal and do it anyway, at least if that's the case you know where and when to talk about it (ie not on AVS). Kind of like speeding, everyone knows it's illegal to go five over, but most people do it anyway. But if they get called on it, pulled over, they usually know better than to try and argue they weren't doing anything illegal.


Frankly I think it's cultural more. Very few seem willing to call people on it even if it's blatantly obvious. I guess that's why it bugs me lately. I've been on the forum for a while, back when CD-sized "divx" copies of movies were all the rage but sort of before torrenting took off, it seemed people understood that talking about how they got the movies and where they came from should be down low and they framed their posts in that light, such that you could easily give them the benefit of the doubt. Basically people seemed to understand what they did and respected the forum rules.

But increasingly we get posts like the OP's "Why can't I play this TV show I torrented?"

If people don't even understand that downloading copyrighted material is illegal, what hope do we have of getting good, legitimate sources supported and getting out of this DRM hole we're in.
At any rate, he's been warned. Hopefully he takes that warning to heart.[/quote]

I am a little confused.
I thought that any TV show that is broadcast live from a local broadcast station such as episode of American Idol was freely copiable and therfore if I wanted to record and copy it to a DVD using an OTA tuner on my PC that I could. Apparantly from the posts in this thread I am not allowed then to give the copy I made to any body, is that correct?

At the risk of dragging this thread farther off topic...


Laws vary significantly from country to country. In both the US and Canada, you are allowed to make one copy of a broadcast program for personal use (such as with a VCR or DVR). You are not allowed to share that copy, nor are you technically allowed to download someone else's recording.

Lobbyists are hard at work to prevent even this limited fair-use, pushing things like the broadcast flag into US law. Both the US and Canada are part of the super-secret ACTA treaty negotiations, which would criminalize non-commercial file sharing in all participating nations.

I had an intern tell me the other day about a site like Hulu, but had movies currently out in the theaters (yeah, like that is anything new). But what surprised me is that the intern didn't think he was doing anything illegal, since he was streaming it, not "downloading" the movie.

I just shook my head in disbelief, and explained to him that streaming is downloading. [facepalm]

Hulu.com is totally legal, and any site owned by the networks are legal. It's the downloading of a show via illegal means (ie, torrents) that is a no-no.

Yes, that is exactly correct. It's not 100% clearly stated anywhere, but the precedent so far is that making copies of legally attained content for personal use is completely OK. That means you can record TV programs, copy CDs, etc, as long as it's for your own personal use.

What you can't do is make copies of that content and give it out to your "friends", whether they be close real friends or the masses of the internet.


Yes, they've failed at getting fair use obliterated, so they're seeking to circumvent it by foisting DRM on us and making it illegal to break (or at least be able to break) it.

The only legal way to watch a tv show over the internet by download is if the actual station allows you to download it after its aired which some do, go to the station website and see if its available.