Coast Australia - Series 2

Coast returned with a second series of their Australian version. 

Nurse + Pompidou + Raised By Wolves

Meant to post this a couple weeks ago, but forgot about it.

Some new British comedy:

Nurse is the latest project from Paul Whitehouse and based on his 2014 Radio 4 program of the same name (which is also on the disc although not shown). Paul has racked up a long list of credits. Do you think he has achieved "comedy legend" status?

Nurse

Speaking of creative comedy writer/character actors.....Pompidou is the latest project from Matt Lucas. It's been described as being an "all-visual" comedy similar to Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean or Gregor Fisher's Baldy Man. Whatever dialogue there is is indiscernible as it's so obvious what it is makes it unnecessary.

Pompidou

  
Raised By Wolves, first appearing as a pilot around Christmas 2013, returned with a full series starring two very well-known actors in Rebekah Staton and Phil Jackson plus several young actors who are mostly new to television. 

Raised By Wolves

Speaking of Phil Jackson, the comedy Boomers is set to return for a second series sometime this year.

yet even more on disc players

James in Texas writes:

Mediasonic HW-150PVR HomeWorx ATSC Digital Converter Box with Media Player and Recording PVR Function:

"That is the unit recommended by Sharon in Memphis. Please thank her for me. It is fantastic. The quality is excellent and the ease of use fantastic and it plays everything (the only exception being A Touch Of Frost D2 9. I had to convert it to MP4 to get it to play). Instead of re-recording, you simply use send to and can transfer a disc to hard drive in two to three minutes, The price is cheap enough to put one with each TV."

I'm going to order one myself and give it a try.

Sharon added some information on the Mediasonic:
It does a lot more than just read video files. I got it because I wanted to have all your files in one place
and I prefer to watch them on TV. Take full advantage of what this box and other boxes like it does and for a cheap price too.
Get a indoor uhf/vhf tv antenna hook it up and scan for free channels.
It has it's own input so you don't have to chose between cable and free tv.
You get ABC- CBS- NBC -FOX- ION- CW and "SUB-CHANNELS" that play classic tv shows and movies.
Record tv shows  to external hard drive rename them and watch them on your own time. (It's a DVR)
(I think your cable box has to be off to use this box to watch tv and record. I don't have cable I use Roku.)
Plays music MP3
Plays pictures has thumbnails and slide show
Plays videos off you tube
(You transfers these files onto hard drive/flash drive with computer of course.)
You supply hard drive there is no built in storage space.
Tv recording are large in size so you need lots of space.
The box reads up to a 2tb external drive
External hard drives are made for TV recording but for just reading video files, pictures, and music, usb flash drives are fine.
It would read SD cards too but you just need USB Hub and then put card into hub.
Like I said  I got this box because of you and loved the fact It did a lot more than read files. I can only think of 1 disc that I had trouble copying to the hard drive and that was just  one file on the disc but for the most part I haven't had enough problems from
this box to worry about.

more on disc players

On April 15 I did a post about a new disc player I picked up, a Samsung BD-JM57C, that seemed to be able to handle everything. Well, I've discovered it won't play files made with the DivX (4/5/6) video codec.....something that has been very commonly used in the past 6 years or so.
An example of that would be the most recent disc of New Tricks episodes. I suspect this could be the same problem James in Texas has been having. 

Inside No. 9

Inside No. 9, the dark comedy anthology series created and written by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, returned for a second series which ends later today. As with the first series, this one features an impressive list of "big name" actors...too many with too many credits to list here.

Inside No. 9

The episode "12 Days of Christine" closes with Sarah Brightman's recording of Time To Say Goodbye from about 20 years ago. Sarah was an original cast star of Phantom of the Opera along with Michael Crawford. Michael starred in Some Mothers Do 'ave 'em with Michele Dotrice as his poor wife and Michele plays Sheridan Smith's mother in the Inside No. 9 episode. Does anyone else make connections like that, or am I losing it?

Harry

If you are a fan of the classic 1960's / 1970's comedy of Harry Worth, a few weeks ago Mancunian Ken discovered that a previously "lost" episode of his late 60's sitcom "Harry Worth" had been uploaded to youtube in four parts. I downloaded the 4 parts and after a bit of editing combined them into 1 file. You can watch it on youtube or I would be glad to fit it in on a disc or email it to you.
Harry Worth (Series 3 Episode 5 ) James Bond: Where Are You? (originally aired 18 November 1968).

Vera

Vera's back. The world's second-oldest Inspector has returned with four new feature-length episodes.
(The world's oldest inspector, George Gently, also returns with four new feature-length episodes beginning Wednesday.)

 Vera

Poldark

Poldark has returned to the TV screen. About 40 years ago BBC produced a Poldark series that ran for 29 episodes and also aired in the US on PBS Masterpiece. This should be returning next year for a second series. In case you missed it the first time around or are unfamiliar with the Winston Graham books, Poldark is a drama that takes place in 1790's Cornwall. This also marks the final appearance by the late Warren Clarke, who appears in the first 4 episodes and appeared on television quite regularly for 50 years (first appearing in an episode of Pardon The Expression in the northern hemisphere summer of 1965). Clarke's final scene is a deathbed scene. Ironically, he was not well at the time of the filming and he died in bed a few weeks later.

Books

1975

2015

Gallipoli + House of Hancock

A couple of Australian dramas from a couple months ago that fell through the cracks and I forgot all about them.

Gallipoli

House of Hancock

Banished + Ordinary Lies

Two new drama serials. All are one-hour episodes. Excellent quality full screen 720 X 404 high bitrate video on individual discs or both on a single disc with a 640 X 360 picture and lower quality bitrate. Take your pick. 

Banished is about the establishing of a British penal colony in what is now New South Wales in 1788. Starring Orla Brady (Out of the Blue, Noah's Ark, Proof, Mistresses, Sinbad, Eternal Law, Jo), MyAnna Buring (White Heat, Downton Abbey, Ripper Street), Ryan Corr (Packed to the Rafters, Love Child), David Dawson (Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Luther, Peaky Blinders, Ripper Street), Russell Tovey (Little Dorrit, Being Human, What Remains, Him & Her, The Job Lot), David Wenham (SeaChange, Killing Time, Top of the Lake, Better Man, The Code), Joanna Vanderham (Dancing on the Edge, The Paradise, The Runaway) and so on..................and was created by Jimmy McGovern.

Banished

Ordinary Lies takes place in a modern day British car dealership. The show is written by Danny Brocklehurst (Clocking Off, Shameless, Linda Green, Accused, The Driver) with Kay Mellor (Playing The Field, Fat Friends, Band of Gold, Strictly Confidential, Between the Sheets, The Chase, The Syndicate) starring Jo Joyner (Swinging, No Angels, Candy Cabs, Trying Again, EastEnders), Sally Lindsay (Coronation Street, Scott & Bailey, Mount Pleasant), Max Beesley (Bodies, The Last Enemy, Hotel Babylon, Survivors, Mad Dogs), Michelle Keegan (Coronation Street), Ellie Haddington (Life Begins, The Cafe, Bad Girls, Foyle's War), Shaun Dooley (Five Days, Married Single Other, Sugartown, Misfits, The Game, Broadchurch), Mackenzie Crook (The Office, Detectorists, Game of Thrones, Almost Human), Tony Maudsley (Eyes Down, Benidorm, The Wilsons, The Job Lot)....and others. Samantha Power (A Prince Among Men, Little Britain, The Cup, guest appearances) appears in the second episode. I recognized her distinctive voice before I recognized her.....Susannah Doyle (Drop the Dead Donkey, Ballykissangel) appears in the 6th (and also made a recent appearance in WPC 56).

Ordinary Lies

and another option

Sharon in Memphis, Tennessee has a good suggestion to share:

"I use a Mediasonic HW-150PVR Homeworx box.

Look it up on amazon.com. 

Mediasonic-HW-150PVR-HomeWorx-Converter-Recording

I transfer your files to a external hard drive with my computer then plug it in and watch it on tv. I started doings this months ago.

It plays  all your files with no problems. It's nice to have all the files in one place. It's the best investment I've made. A great alternative to a dvd player."

another option

GP in Texas wrote: "My Samsung TV is only about two years old and has a USB input at the back. When in TV mode, not DVD mode or anything else, if I plug in a USB drive, a box pops up on the screen asking me to select a USB device, even though there's only one. Then I can choose videos or music. My remote control has a play, pause and stop button at the very bottom that are for these files. There's also a "MEDIA.P" button on the remote that brings the USB menu back up if I get out of it somehow."

I have a 7 year old Samsung and it has a USB input on the side, but it only plays photo's or music. So sometime between 2008 and 2013 they must have added a video feature. 

So there's another option for playing files with no disc player even needed. Simply copy the files from disc, create your own playlist and copy to USB, plug it into the TV and away you go. 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Charlie in Bangkok writes that he has had very good success with Pioneer brand DivX / all-region players which can be had for about $40 there. 

Roger in New Zealand writes that he bought a Pioneer DV-2242 and has generally had good luck with it but sometimes it won't play a file yet finds his 8 year old Sony DVR will.

James in Texas says his newest disc player purchase, a Sony 3200, will only play about 70% of the files. I'm thinking that it may have a DivX and/or Xvid codec issue where it will recognize one, but not the other. In the future, send me a list of files you can't play and maybe I can figure out why. It could also be a mp3 and/or AAC or AC3 audio codec issue.

    

Quite Interesting XL - L

QI {quite interesting} returned for a 12th series, the "L" series, back in October. They were somewhat erratic with the airing of the extra long "XL" episodes. The series ended back in January but the last XL episode wasn't aired until last night. 

QI

Inspector Montalbano - Disc 4

Series 8 of Inspector Montalbano. Each episode runs about 100 to 112 minutes. Italian dialogue with hard-coded English subtitles. 

Inspector Montalbano

Indian Summers

Indian Summers is a new big-budget drama set in 1930's India. It will be returning in the future. I didn't find any sites that offered much information on it. Here's a newspaper article from a couple months ago:

Julie Walters Indian Summers interview
Trailer