Worlds coverage in China? | Golden Skate

Worlds coverage in China?

pitterpatter

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 25, 2012
I'm heading out of the country to Beijing on exchange next semester, and will therefore be missing out on CBC's coverage of Worlds in March. That said, are there any Chinese FS fans here who might be able to shed some light on Worlds coverage over there? I can't really read Chinese or else I'd do some poking around myself, but it'd be great to get some sort of idea of what resources Chinese fans use (if there are any). Am I stuck watching choppy Russian streams and waiting for Youtube videos to come out? Or maybe I can swing a trip to Japan during Worlds... :eek:

Thanks in advance! (I hope I'm posting this in the right section).
 

Becki

Medalist
Joined
Nov 28, 2011
I'm heading out of the country to Beijing on exchange next semester, and will therefore be missing out on CBC's coverage of Worlds in March. That said, are there any Chinese FS fans here who might be able to shed some light on Worlds coverage over there? I can't really read Chinese or else I'd do some poking around myself, but it'd be great to get some sort of idea of what resources Chinese fans use (if there are any). Am I stuck watching choppy Russian streams and waiting for Youtube videos to come out? Or maybe I can swing a trip to Japan during Worlds... :eek:

Thanks in advance! (I hope I'm posting this in the right section).

I believe if you use your school's VPN, you might be able to access CBC Sports Figure Skating coverage.
 

bigsisjiejie

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 22, 2009
It's not good news particularly for live coverage. Broadcast CCTV5 (China Central Television Sports Channel) does not necessarily broadcast live, is apt to show only events with Chinese skaters, and also abruptly ends coverage even while the competition is ongoing. It is possible to access some of those choppy streams you talk about, but given that the bandwidth connecting China to non-China is not sufficient to smoothly get live streaming video, you're going to have to put up with the chop. Note that for streams that are geoblocked by the broadcasting country, you'll need to get a VPN (virtual private network) with servers in optimum locations....such as a Canada-based server for CBC access. This won't get rid of the chop and may make this aspect worse, or may improve it. You might have some luck since it's in Canada, and live events held in afternoons and very early evening (at the event site) will be in the early morning hours in Beijing, which means less internet traffic and therefore somewhat less chop. (Note: my experience with CBC is that is is geoblocked for China and maybe everything outside Canada, but I can access it with my VPN server set to Canada).

For all sorts of reasons besides watching figure skating, I strongly suggest that you research and find yourself a VPN with multiple possible server settings, to get around the Great Firewall that wil block your access to things such as youtube, and also to avoid being geoblocked out of North American sites that are increasingly doing this when they sense a Chinese ISP (anti-hacking measures). Try to find a VPN that you can get a 3-month or 6-month subscription to, and make it a good but non-famous service that is used to dealing with China. The free services are all crap and prone to getting shut off or blocked themselves. You cannot trust your school's VPN, it will be heavily filtered and monitored. ISP's serving Beijing are particularly overbearing on the internet security and blocking. You need your own laptop or other device, and your own private VPN. Laptop or anything you can use a wired Ethernet connection will probably be better than a wifi or 3G connection. Get any VPN, Skype, and other critical programs up and working on your device, before you head to China.
 
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pitterpatter

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 25, 2012
Thanks for the advice! I don't know too much about VPNs, but luckily I still have some time before I leave. The situation sounds pretty rough, I was aware that services like Facebook weren't available, but Youtube too? :eek:hwell:
 

bigsisjiejie

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 22, 2009
Youtube's been blocked for a long time.
The overall situation has gotten worse in the last week, especially in Beijing. New technology being applied by the Chinese ISP's (especially Unicom) is basically dynamically detecting anything going out encrypted (as over VPN's) and terminating connections. Much worse than anything ever seen before. Some VPN's can still work but you'll have to dig into more details than you'd probably like, unless you're a tech geek yourself. Go ahead and take ice cool up on the offer of links, but prepare to be....underwhelmed. I've been dealing with this a long time--best idea is to schedule yourself outside China for the time period if you can (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, etc). It's all quite frustrating, but watching Worlds live or nearly so will likely be the least of your problems.
 
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pitterpatter

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 25, 2012
Thanks ice cool, I appreciate it. bigsisjiejie - No youtube is going to be a downer, but not the end of the world for me. I'm not a tech geek myself, but hopefully I'll be able to get some help or figure something out. Sorry to hear about the situation in Beijing, I know internet access is always an issue over there.
 
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