30 Degrees In February

30 Degrees in February is a Swedish drama containing a mix of three stories of Swedes that relocate to Thailand. The link explains it better than I can. The Swedes speak Swedish among themselves and Thais speak Thai, but English is the common language they use to communicate between the two groups. This should be returning to Swedish TV with a second series next year.

30 Degrees In February

more on disc players

A few weeks ago I posted some comments about the future of playing compressed video files and the problems some people are having with the current crop of disc players.
I thought it might be good for everyone to share their success or lack of it and a few people contacted me privately, but only Victor in Texas posted a public comment. Thanks Victor.

A couple weeks ago I was grocery shopping in Costco and they were selling Samsung BD-JM57C players for about $90. If you look in the lower left corner of the photo you see a blue right arrow
in a circle and under it is "Multi Codec". The same symbol appears near the top right and under it says "The most competitive number of codecs available to cover various multimedia formats".
Well, that sounded good to me, so I bought one.

I connected it to the big TV my wife watches. It very easily found my home wireless router and connected to my home wireless network. It has built-in software for using the internet services shown on the box plus many more not shown. 
I keep a 32 GB USB flash drive plugged into my wireless router to host files that I may wish to view on my tablet sitting out by the pool...or wherever. The player found that source and easily streamed them to the TV. 

I also loaded a bunch of .avi files onto another one and plugged it into the USB port on the disc player and it was very easy to navigate to that source and play files from it. The player also responds quickly to remote control functions.

I then loaded several discs onto a 2 TB Toshiba portable external USB hard drive. I plugged it into the USB port on the disc player and it quickly recognized and loaded the files and played them flawlessly. 

These little USB-powered drives sell for about $100 and can hold the equivalent of about 400 data DVD's. I would not suggest that anyone takes 400 discs and copy them to a single drive, as that is 

very time-consuming even with USB 3.0 connections. But if you keep a free 2 TB or 3 TB hard drive on a PC for video files, you can create your own playlists and copy the folders to one of these drives and not have to even think about discs for months.....unless you're an insomniac and have the TV on 20 hours a day. 

Finally, for about the past 11 days my wife has been watching her shows from data discs (avi files)

to test the disc player and has not had any issues with any file, show or disc.

So I thought I would share that with you.

Once again, discs are not the future, or even the present, any more than VHS cassettes are, but they are fairly reliable data storage containers if handled properly. Streaming video from a home network or some type of flash memory device results in virtually no wear and tear on your player. There's no motor required to spin discs and no hot laser required to transfer data to the processor. 

Also, mp4 HD files are now the standard. I need to convert-down nearly every thing to .avi format.

I'm not sure if this Sanyo player will play .mp4 discs, I should try it, but if you've already moved away from discs and would prefer 720 HD mp4 for current shows, talk to me.      

River City + Fair City

About 5 years ago I started carrying drama serials like Hollyoaks, Neighbours, Home and Away and Shortland Street, but despite being popular on TV they were not so here and after 18 months I discontinued them. Now I'll throw a couple others out there and see how it goes.

For about the past 13 years when BBC airs Holby City on Tuesday nights, BBC Scotland airs its own Glasgow-based drama, River City. 
River City

For about the past 25 years, four nights a week at 8pm, a good chunk of the Irish population tune-in to check out what's going on in the fictional Dublin suburb of  Carrigstown on Fair City.
Fair City

Rather than jumping in at the first episode of 2015, I began both with the Christmastime episodes.

Bluestone 42

BBC Three comedy Bluestone 42 has returned for a third series.

Bluestone 42

Fortitude

Fortitude is a psychological thriller that takes place above the Arctic Circle in Svalbard and features an international cast that includes mostly British actors (Michael Gambon, Christopher Eccleston, Jessica Raine of Call the Midwife, etc.) but also people like Sofie Gråbøl (Forbrydelsen), New Yorker Stanley Tucci, Irish actor Richard Dormer and so on. The good news is, if you enjoy this, Series 2 will begin in late May. 

Fortitude

Stella - Disc 4

Stella

DCI Banks - Disc 3

DCI Banks has returned for a fifth series.

DCI Banks

Moone Boy

Chris O'Dowd's comedy Moone Boy returned for a third series.

Moone Boy

Series 3

Better Call Saul

Better Call Saul

forgot to mention......Comic Relief

Someone made a request for Little Britain and it reminded me of something I forgot all about. 
A few weeks ago they had the every-other-year Comic Relief charity appeal in the UK and three of the events this time around were a new 11-minute Vicar of Dibley episode called The Bishop of Dibley (that features some special guests), Mr. Bean returned to attend a funeral in a new 8½-minute episode, and David Walliams' Lou Todd character from Little Britain pays a visit to Cambridge and its most famous professor. If anyone wants them, let me know when you're in touch and I will fit them in somewhere.

The Doctor Blake Mysteries - Disc 3

Australia's The Doctor Blake Mysteries returned for a third series. 

The Doctor Blake Mysteries

Casualty - Series 29 Disc 2

Casualty

East Coronationdale

Murdoch Mysteries - Disc 9

Murdoch Mysteries is back with 18 new episodes, the first 16 of which are found on this disc. (I'd be glad to fit the last two in on another disc for now.)

Murdoch Mysteries

Schitts Creek

Schitts Creek is a new Canadian sitcom created by and starring Eugene Levy with Catherine O'Hara, both comedy legends from their SCTV days and dozens of film appearances during the past 35 years or so. 

Schitts Creek