Friday, April 23, 2010

Ask a Korean! Wiki: Streaming American Movies in Korea?

Dear Korean,

I came across your blog online. My wife and I live in Korea and we are trying to find out if there is a way to stream American movies in Korea. Do you know how?

Andy P.



Dear Andy,

The Korean does not live in Korea anymore and has no idea. Readers, any suggestions?

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

24 comments:

  1. To be honest I'd just use bittorent, given the insane speed of Internet in Korea it'll take about 10 minutes to download nearly any movie you want.

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  2. I agree, use a torrent program, except I'd recommend uTorrent.

    In case you don't know how -

    Go to utorrent.com and download and install the application.

    Then go to a site like www.torrentz.com and search for whatever movie/music/whatever you want. Be aware that usually the first couple of links are paid ads and not real download links.

    Download the torrent and add it to your utorrent program (it will usually do this automatically if you just double click on the torrent).

    Be aware that this is often illegal, but also that S. Korea is one of the #1 countries for pirating (illegal downloading) in the world. So take that as you will.

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  3. I think the person asking the question is talking about Hulu, Netflix and so on. This may be possible if you get an account for a commercial VPN provider. This essentially means that you build a connection to a server standing in the US and you perform your internet tasks through that connection. That connection then gets an IP address from the US VPN provider in the US. Thus you will have to access which is limited to the US. The downside of this approach is that your connection will be limited by the speed of such a connection. The speed varies highly and may not be enough for HD streaming.

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  4. You might want to invest in a Slingbox or a Hava box. Connect it to a friend's or relative's cable or satellite back home and it will work fine. I have two at my brother's house connected to a couple of DVRs to make the time-shifting of my favorite shows even better. I do pay him a bit for the additional dvrs on his account with DishNetwork and for the added strain on his electric and internet bills.

    Slingbox

    and

    Hava

    The Slingbox is a better product, but you can usually get the Hava for a bit cheaper; however, the longer lag time on the virtual remote is a bit of a turnoff for me. The Sling's lag time is nearly nonexistant. You can also find better prices for the products by surfing the net at sites like Amazon.com and a couple other electronics store sites.

    Over the last four years, I don't know what I would have done without them and my brother's computer expertise at debugging some of the problems (it's best to reset them at least once a month).

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  5. I'm an avid user of Hulu and the various networks' online viewing options. Plus I use the online movie access to Netflix that comes with the mail-in movie membership I bought for my mom.

    NONE of these work in Korea, simply because it's outside the US. It sucks.

    I am planning, per John's suggestion, to get a Slingbox for my next prolonged stay in Seoul, and hook it up to my mom's cable setup.

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  6. Disclosure, I work for the company I'm recommending, http://www.casttv.com.

    We don't host the videos, we simply search and aggregate them.

    Apart from that, I second what bnz said about using a VPN. I just recently got back from a trip to Korea and used http://www.witopia.net/index.php/products/ with success in connecting to Hulu and the BBC for catching Formula 1 races.

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  7. iTunes music store. It's not streaming, but it gets the job done. Plus, with subscriptions to TV shows, it takes all the work of keeping up to date out of it for you. I get home from work, and the latest episodes of all my favorite shows are ready the day after they air in the states.

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  8. But Darin, don't you have to pay for that?

    (If you don't, then this is totally going to sound like a setup).

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  9. Yes, iTunes costs money for each TV show episode you download.

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  10. @Kushibo

    Well, yea. But I find the fast automated distribution to be worth more than the cost when compared to the hassle of finding something online and the lost opportunity cost.

    After poking away on a computer all day at work, it's nice to go home, turn on the TV and see what Apple TV has ready for me.

    Of course you need an American credit card to make a US iTunes account, but you can access your account from seemingly anywhere in the world.

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  11. One more thing about iTunes: if you want to go that way, you in fact do not need a US credit card. Instead, you can buy gift cards online. Thats what I do. And yes, iTunes does have its advantages if you're exhausted from work...

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  12. use hotspot shield to hide my ip address for free and then watch Hulu to my hearts content http://www.hotspotshield.com/

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  13. You can try Yidio.com or surfthechannel.com. They don't host the movies or TV shows directly, but they do send you to websites that do. sidereel.com is better for TV shows, but I haven't got their movie links to work.
    If you can read a little bit of Chinese, then tudou.com and youku.com are invaluable. There's been several times that I simply couldn't find what I was looking for anywhere else, even in the US. You might not even need to read Chinese for these, as you can usually search with the English title.

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  14. For streaming movies one can checkout youtube.com and hulu.com

    Of course their won't be many new releases but they do have a wide selection, and it gets bigger and bigger.

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  15. You basically have two choices: legal and illegal. The chances of getting caught being what they are (and the fact that I won't advocate breaking the law in a public forum), just realize the difference.

    That being said, I've been told thepiratebay.org still rocks at finding torrents. Graboid is supposedly good at streaming according to a close friend. Not that I have ANY experience with these sites, mind you...

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  16. infogoddess, someone recommended I try Hotspot Shield, but I couldn't get it to work on my MacBook Pro. Never could figure out why, though, as I gave up kinda early.

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  17. I've used watch-movie-links.net (I think. Just google watch movie links) several times, and it's pretty reliable. All free, though Megaupload links stop after about 50 minutes and ask you to sign up. There is also the wider site ovguide.com that has many more free streaming links. Beware though, lots of ads. Watch-movie-links has ok bootleg copies maybe a couple weeks after movies are released in theaters. Wait a bit more and you can get decent quality.

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  18. It galls me that the networks and movie studios put us in a situation where our only realistic options are illegal ones.

    When I'm back in Korea for only a few months of the year, it's not feasible for me to set up cable TV or anything like that, so I have to watch things on computer (or in my car, which has a TV that picks up AFKN — though I heard that has gone off the air now).

    To me this is like the same crap with the region coding where we can't take the stuff we paid for and play it on our own computers. I mean, with the Netflix membership, I paid for it already, but I can't watch it in Korea (or Japan).

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  19. Before I got cable I was using tudou.com for all TV shows and myp2p for all sports. MyP2p still works, but for some reason todou works on some days and not on others. Hope it helps.

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  20. I use www.tvshack.net
    It is accessible in Asia and folks upload American movies and TV shows for your viewing pleasure! I watch new releases as well as keep up with Law and Order! And it is free!

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  21. In Korea use pandora.tv, youku.com, surfthechannel.com. Tudou blocked Korean access about 1.5 years ago.

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  22. I know this is kind of late but I liked

    ch131.com
    tv-links.eu
    tvshack.bz

    if you are fluent in french try

    wat.tv -

    this is where I watched Korean dramas in Korea

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  23. hotspot shield did not work good for me either - seemed to make things stream slow.

    Korean - tvshack.net was taken down so they changed to tvshack.bz

    I forgot about a GREAT streaming movie site -

    veetle.com

    It is amazing!
    You can not choose the movies you see but you will see any movie you want!

    I also found some great channels on Justin.tv (but they are getting iffy)
    Ustream.tv (iffy as well)
    and livestream.com

    ONE final one really good for sporting events SOMETIMES
    channelsurfing.net

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  24. I can suggest here list of 10 best free streaming sites try some of them and on the same blog there is some other post how to watch on American movie streaming sites. also try Wolowtube.co - watch free movies online it is my favorite but i'm not sure does it work in Korea.

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