Why I like to download TV and Films ...

Hmm. We’re having trouble finding that site.

Interesting statement from the browser when I am looking at the box that is providing it ...

In the 'good old days' things were easy. One could not stream TV live and so downloading for latter viewing was the only option. That, or record off air so one can watch at a convenient time. At one stage I had three Linux PVR boxes that were providing FreeView and FreeSat in our bedrooms, and auto record was set up to track some of the popular series. A lot of that material was still on the boxes when I recovered them and all has been copied to the current media server. I've still got some 200 episodes of NCIS to strip the adverts from, but they can still be watched with the adverts. That is another reason for recording and playing back later ... do I really need 5 minutes of invariably the same adverts for female sanitary products every 10 or 15 minutes! On major plus for keeping the BBC as it is, although many old programs I am now having to re-record and process again because the iPlayer no longer provides them directly.

But this rant is more about broadband then TV adverts ... I'm currently paying for an unlimited broadband contract that is supposed to provide 5G here, but most of the time even the 4G is dropping out. Since there is a '3' mast that is closer then the Vodafone one, at some point I may get better coverage and for that reason I have no problem with that merger, but it probably will not produce results until I'm out of contract in 2026 anyway. So I had to get a fixed line broadband to plug the gap and pay again. Except Vodafone can't provide that to my address. It does not exist on their corrupted copy of the PAF database. So I ended up with BT as even EE could not find the address. Things would have been easy if the salesman had actually listed to what I asked, which was for a broadband with a fixed IP address. Apparently NO residential contract can provide that, one has to pay business rates and have a business contract, something I had had for 30+ years at the previous address, but that counts for nothing when taking out a new contract ... at full price again.

So currently I am paying for 100Mb down and 20Mb up on an actual fibre connection. At least that is what I should be getting, but often I get 'Hmm. We’re having trouble finding that site.' or 'That site has timed out' even for those that are hosted in the other box under my desk! Something else to complain about. Of cause when it becomes even more irritating is when my local Plex server keeps buffering on the TV. Perhaps it's time to replace that with a server that does not keep checking in with the US to see if my lifetime subscription is still valid? The meta data it builds to go with the material I have locally is great but I have NO INTEREST in the american internet TV it keeps pushing and I still can't get the desktop copy to share properly so just what else is available today.

One for the TODO list I think along with a properly documented crib sheet on just what I am using and what problems exist in that process.

And just got 'Sorry, you don't have enough bandwidth to play this right now.' while watching iPlayer on the side screen by my desk ...