How to record TV online from an earlier timezone?

Question

I'm trying to find a solution for this...

I want to be able to record TV shows that are being shown 3 hours earlier on the east coast so I can start watching them 30 minutes before they are scheduled to start airing on the west coast.

What sort of solutions are available?

Update: Maybe I should explain why I am doing this...I am only doing this for personal use. The TV shows that I watch all end at 10pm. I'm trying to get into the habit of going to sleep at 9:30pm. I want to be able to watch the shows 30 minutes earlier so that I can get to bed by 9:30.

Answer 1

Accessing over the net as BBlake describes could approach morally-acceptable in certain situations. If you maintain a residence on each coast, and buy service in both places, streaming it to yourself across the country doesn't seem criminal[*].

On the technical side, it isn't much different from tivo'ing; you just need to add the automated transfer from one coast to another. If it were my project, I'd probably setup a VPN between the two home networks, a MythTV backend on the East coast, and an HTPC running XBMC or MythTV as a frontend on the West coast[+].

_{[*]. IANAL. Just because something strikes me as moral doesn't mean you can't lose in court. This is not an excuse to stick a MythTV box in your parent's closet.}

_{[+]. To make your deadline, I'd need a fat upload pipe on the East coast. Or to use a higher compression level. Probably both.}

Answer 2

You would have to have access to someone's feed on the east coast, over the net to their box and get them to stream it from their box to yours (most likely this would actually illegal as it would be considered "rebroadcasting" of copyrighted material, though I couldn't say for certain).

Your other option is to invest several thousand in a full size satellite system (not talking dish network or directv, but the big dishes--though depending on the network there may be some you could get with DTV or DN) where you could get the raw feeds direct from the satellites.

That's about it. There are few to no tv stations (at least none associated with major networks aside from PBS) that offer live streaming over the web.

Answer 3

I was told by someone with an RV that when they got a dish for their TV they could pick a cost or pay a little more and get both (for when he travels). The dish companies won't offer this to home addresses, but if you know someone that can get a hold of one of those boxes, you may be able to get an east coast feed.

I was also thinking if you knew someone on the east coast using a slingbox and an internet connection to stream it home to your computer or a slingcatcher.