Monday, January 11, 2010

Finnish TV

I have started subscribing to tvkaista.fi, a way of watching Finnish tv programmes on the internet. A week's trial costs 5 euros; and it is 20 for a month amd 98 for a year. You can pay by Paypal.

You can watch or download old programmes (not sure how far back: might be 3 weeks) and you can set them to record a day in advance. Not any longer though: if you want a programme further in the future than that, you have to be able to log on that day.

Recorded programmes presumably remain on your list until you end your subscription. I don't know if there's a limit to the number of programmes you can have on your list. You can download them in various formats: I have downloaded mine in 1mbps .flv format and 8mbps .ts format. These files are big: an hour long programme is 500 MB in .flv and 2.27 GB in .ts. You can watch either on VLC Media Player, which I downloaded for nothing. I found the .ts difficult to play at first, but things improved once I had defragmented my hard disk.

So far I have watched a short programme about Finnish expats in America, a Christmas karaoke programme featuring Tarja Lunnas, and Tanssi jos osaat, which means Dance if you can and I presumed was a version of So you think you can dance. And that's what it is: unfortunately an old American programme, not the home-grown Finnish version I was looking for.

The best programme though was the Tangomarkkinat 25th anniversary concert (really the 24th as I have said before). This was broadcast on Boxing Day. I hadn't seen it in Seinäjoki in July and this was a chance to catch up. It featured most of the Tango Kings and Queens since 1985. In one of the Finnish tabloids Kirsi Ranto was voted the most beautiful of all the Tango Queens. I voted for Mira Kunnasluoto, but I can think of two good reasons why Kirsi topped the poll.



She sang Black Cat Tango with Tiina Räsänen; a very nice straight version with none of the childish messing about you get too often with this song.


Jari Sillanpää sang his Eurovision entry Two to Tango in English. He also did his Olavi Virta -inspired version of Sinitaivas, this time with Arja Koriseva, Marita Taavitsainen, and Eija Kantola.


Marita Taavitsainen did a lovely gentle understated version of Sä oot mun tangoystäväin.



Finally it was spot-the-celebrity time when the entire cast sang Onnemme kyynneleet and La Cumparsita. Truly excellent show.


1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

When you have chosen the channels which you want to be recorded,
TVkaista-recording device recors all the programs from those channels.
You do not have to choose in advance which programs you want to record.
On your own Lista (Playlist) and Sarjat (Series) sides you can pick your favourite programs so you find them easily.

T:TVkaista
asiakaspalvelu@tvkaista.fi

6:47 am  

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