House Of Fools

Bob & Vic returned with another series of their comedy House of Fools, the latest in the long line of Reeves & Mortimer comedy. If you're outside the UK (and haven't seen this) and like your comedy a bit spontaneous and silly (like a sketch show on steroids) and enjoy shows like Miranda and Mrs Brown's Boys that break the fourth wall.....then you'll probably enjoy this one too.

House Of Fools

The Walking Dead - Season 5

The Walking Dead

Mr. Selfridge - Disc 3

Mr Selfridge will be returning next year.

Black Sails - Disc 2

Black Sails

The Musketeers - Disc 2

The Musketeers

Hiding + Winter

Hiding is a new crime drama from Australia.
Hiding

Winter is a "mystery-drama-thriller" series from Australia starring native-New Zealander Rebecca Gibney as detective-sergeant Eve Winter. She first appeared in that role in the TV movie The Killing Field which aired last May and appears on Smorg 78. 
Winter

Disc Players

As the industry moves away from the disc format, reliable disc players that can handle compressed video seem to be getting more difficult to find. Just prior to the launching of the Blu-ray format, they were quite plentiful.

If anyone has been using a reliable player, please feel free to use the comments to post what brand/model you use, what country you're in and about how much it cost (if you happen to recall).

2 TB USB external hard drives that can fit in the palm of your hand are quite cheap in my area. If you have a player or TV with USB inputs they may offer an easy alternative to playing discs.
As do large capacity USB flash drives that can plug into your wireless router or other streaming device if your TV or disc player is WiFi ready.

There are other media storage devices on the market that connect to TV's for playback.

To me, the simplest and easiest solution is to take an old PC, install a couple of 3 TB hard drives in it, copy a few hundred or so discs of .avi files you want to watch to the hard drives and connect it to a TV with a VGA or HDMI cable and Bob's your uncle. Put the discs away. Turn on your TV, select the PC input, find the folder > file you want to watch, right-click with your wireless mouse and select play. After watching it simply delete it from the hard drive. I've been doing that for years. The PC is my player and my TV is my monitor. No problems at all.

Also, copy the files you want to watch to microSD cards that can be inserted into a tablet, sit back in your favorite chair and watch them on that. It's amazing - even the old VHS tape transfers look great.

Discs are media storage devices. How you view the media is up to you. If you do resort to disc players, please share the details of your successful experience with the other readers of this blog. 

Here's my experience: Last summer I purchased a Philips DVP 3880K disc player for about $62. 
I connected it to a TV in the spare bedroom and found it had "issues" with a lot of .avi files. Simply would not play many of them while a much older, and cheaper, Philips player connected to a TV in another room could play them all.
Bad player? Bad installed software? Bad installed codecs? Who knows? It happens and it's not my fault. It's been sitting in a box somewhere since July. So, if you're considering purchasing a Philips DVP 3380K disc player - beware. That's my recommendation.

If you have a player that's your best buddy, please share the joy. If you've been burned - please share the horror. Leave your comment.  

Eve

Eve is a science fiction adventure drama series aimed at the adolescent/young teen crowd. 
The best information I can find on it are the reviews on its IMDB page.

 Eve

Girls - Disc 4

Girls

Graham Norton Show - Series 16 Disc 2

The Graham Norton Show

Graham kicks off Series 17 in three weeks.

Alan Davies As Yet Untitled

Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled

Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled

Disc 2 is filled out with some other Alan Davies odds and sods. His 1998 radio comedy with Ronni Ancona, the video of his 2013 stand-up tour Life Is Pain, his chat show during 2014 Winter Olympics and his tour of talk shows last month (presumably promoting As Yet Untitled).

Uncle returns

The sitcom Uncle returned for a second series.

Uncle

WPC 56

Vintage 1950's police drama WPC 56 returned for a third series.

WPC 56

Up The Women returns

First appearing nearly two years ago with 3 episodes, BBC Four comedy Up The Women returned for a full series. Co-written by and co-starring Jessica Hynes (Asylum, Spaced, Bob & Rose, The Royle Family, According To Bex, Twenty Twelve/W1A) with an excellent cast of Rebecca Front (too many credits), Judy Parfitt (most recently: Call The Midwife, The Game), Vicki Pepperdine (most recently: Puppy Love, Getting On, Chickens), Emma Pierson (Beast, Time Gentlemen Please, Dead Boss, Hotel Babylon, Worst Week of My Life), Ryan Sampson (After You've Gone, Plebs), Adrian Scarborough (most recently: Plebs, Edge of Heaven, Mrs Biggs, Cranford, Gavin & Stacey) and others. Personally, I was glad to see this return. BBC Four offers a nice comedy balance to some of the juvenile comedy churned out by BBC Three. Despite being a comedy it does a good job reminding us of the seriousness of the long struggle of the suffrage movement. 
On 30 March BBC announced that Up The Women has ended and will not be returning. 
Up The Women ends

Up the Women

Quick Cuts, another BBC Four 3-episode comedy from 2013, did not return and is not new here, but needed a new "home" as did Vicious. Vicious is supposed to be returning at some point, possibly later this year. With Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi never lacking for work, scheduling has probably been a problem.  

Perception - Disc 3

Perception

Arthur & George + Asylum + The Casual Vacancy

3 X 3

Arthur & George

Asylum

The Casual Vacancy

Bnei Aruba {Hostages}

Bnei Aruba {English title: Hostages} is a 10-part Israeli psychological thriller with hardcoded English subtitles. 

Hostages

Banana + Cucumber

Two drama-comedy companion series created by Russel T. Davies with some related on-demand extras.

Banana

Cucumber

Tofu

Naked City

Teil, here in the US, kindly provided the material to put this set together. The complete (and excellent quality) run of the acclaimed late 1950's / early 1960's police drama Naked City. Filmed entirely in New York City, Naked City used hundreds from the stable of NY actors including many then-famous and many future-famous people. In addition to the series itself, I really enjoy hearing the lost New York City accent, seeing the cars from that period again, and the living cityscape in its final throes before meeting the wrecking ball or bottoming-out in squalor. 

Naked City

Call The Midwife

Call The Midwife returned for a 4th series and will be back next year. This seems to have now established itself as the reigning "BIG" BBC drama series....or maybe Last Tango In Halifax is. What do you think?  Who's #1? Midwife or Tango? Midwife gets a few million more viewers, but you know what they say about ratings.......it's only numbers. Doesn't mean much. Coronation Street and EastEnders both get about the same number of viewers several times a week, week-after-week. Know what I mean?

Call the Midwife

Top Secret Life of Edgar Briggs

After sitting on the shelf for over 40 years, the comedy Top Secret Life of Edgar Briggs is now available......complete (and without Dutch subtitles).  Starring David Jason with Elizabeth Counsell, Noel Coleman, Michael Stainton. 

The Top Secret Life of Edgar Briggs

East Coronationdale

photo's on the p-bucket

If anyone would like to download the disc label photo's as found on the photobucket page, you can do so here:

PART 1

http://www25.zippyshare.com/v/arl8UseD/file.html

PART 2

http://www25.zippyshare.com/v/6wtFIZgE/file.html

If it doesn't work, please let me know.

I may have to make them smaller files.
Make sure you hit only the "download"
button as shown below.
The other download buttons on the page
are pure poison.

Hello to all in the great frigid north

Here's the scene at this afternoon's Phillies / Yankees game in Clearwater.

Does that warm you up at all? Note the temperature on top of the jumbotron reads 93 degrees F. but that is wrong. It was only about 82. It seldom reaches 93 in Clearwater even in the summer. 88-91 is more the norm May through October.

Episodes

Episodes, the joint UK / US comedy, returned for a 4th series (episodes 4.1 - 4.9 on Disc 2). Starring Tamsin Greig (Black Books, Green Wing, Love Soup, Diary of Anne Frank, Emma, White Heat, The Guilty, Friday Night Dinner), Stephen Mangan (Adrian Mole, Green Wing, Jane Hall, Never Better, Free Agents, Dirk Gently), Matt LeBlanc (Friends, Joey) with John Pankow (Mad About You), Mircea Monroe (Hart of Dixie), Genevieve O'Reilly (All Saints, The State Within, The Time of Your Life, Spooks, The Honourable Woman), Daisy Haggard (Green Wing, Man Stroke Woman, The Persuasionists, Psychoville, Parents, Uncle), Kathleen Rose Perkins, Joseph May....... 

Episodes