Fifa World Cup English Commentry

[samlorsam]

Last night I was in Crawfords Hua Hin, where I was told that they have installed a new system (South African Satellite programs) to show the World Cup with English commentary.
Also the Hilton is advertising a beer garden with big screen and English commentary.
Does anyone know if other venues are doing the same?

[SHADOW]

Octopussy has the English version through Chang beer and UBC.

[Mart]

I have been told by UBC that English commentry is available if watching Thai channels through their system. So I assume most bars will have English commentry. I was having a chat with the someone (a scouser) in the Market bar, who said that they have English English commentry, and will even provide translation if Rooney or Gerrard are interviewed!!

[olmate]

I will be in indo during WC do they get UBC in most places there?? If not ill just have to watch.

[Burger]

I am told (don't qutoe me on it) that the following channels have the English 'switchable' commentary option:
Channel 3
ITV

None of the En-ger-lund group games are on these channels

Burger

[russ]

i am watching the germany game no english commentry i phoned ubc today they said english on channel 3 and itv . but it is only thai if you go on channel 1 no commentry

[Guess]

I can confirm that I too have discovered that there is no English commentary on any of the UBC or Cable channels here in Hua Hin. There is no language swithcing option on cable and all of them were in Thai.

On UBC about six channels were showing the game. The primary sound channels were all Thai. The secondary sound channels despite being dispalyed as English onn the screen were either commentary free, Thai or in one case Malay.

I then went throught the lenghthy processs of streaming an English commentary via the Internet. Many companies offered the service. None of them worked. The closest I got were two British stations, BBC Radio Five Live and TalkSport (or something like that). On BBC there was a looped message saying that they not able to transmit the commentary due to contractural issues. The other station was transmitting a commentary of the Champions League final occasionallly punctuated with a similar message.

I will investigate four options tomorrow:

They are:

Radio streaming from another country.
The Chang Beer deal.
A friendly chat with Ken at Crawfords.
Breaking into the Hilton Hotel and nicking their kit while the security guards are asleep..

The whole situation is begining to smell like a dead kangaroo to me.

[PeteC]

I turned on Germany/Costa Rica game last night at home on UBC. It was on all the Thai stations 3,5,7,9,11 and ITV with both the soundtracks in Thai EXCEPT, Channel 3. What would have been the English soundtrack had no soundtrack at all, just the sounds from the stadium, the pitch the coatches, players etc. I found watching the match that way was quite enjoyable, like actually being in the stadium, just not as loud. I found I really concentrated on the game more without the chatter regardless of what language. Pete

[Jockey]

I turned on Germany/Costa Rica game last night at home on UBC. It was on all the Thai stations 3,5,7,9,11 and ITV with both the soundtracks in Thai EXCEPT, Channel 3. What would have been the English soundtrack had no soundtrack at all, just the sounds from the stadium, the pitch the coatches, players etc. I found watching the match that way was quite enjoyable, like actually being in the stadium, just not as loud. I found I really concentrated on the game more without the chatter regardless of what language. Pete

Me too Pete.

I also thought it might be funny if a bar promoted a commentry competition - 5 minutes per person throughout the match! I think that might be a great laugh (or complete irritation)!

[ricardo]

A friend of mine in Samui watched the Germany game last night with English commentary on cable. I don't know what channel but programme was from Malaysia. The first 5 minutes were in Thai and then it switched to English.

I don't have cable myself so I am not sure if this channel is still available in Hua Hin

[PeteC]

I attended a WC match back in 1990?, in Genoa. Ireland lost to ???, I don't remember but perhaps an Eastern European team? It was so hot I remember that towards the end of the game the Irish players were walking. I think it ended in a penalty shot phase? Score?..no memory. The stadium stands were terrible, not really seats, you stood and leaned against a rail and rested your butt on some kind of support. I had Italian commentary coming from all directions, I just blocked it out and sang Danny Boy. Pete

[Guess]

It may be a good idea to recruit a Scotsman to make the commentary on the new Hua Hin radio station.

When Andy Gray commentates on ESPN nobody understands a f#$%ing word anyway.

[chelsea]

Lads, if you want english commentary, try this site from the UK. http://www.talksport.net
They are suipposed to be commentating on every game

[Guess]

Lads, if you want english commentary, try this site from the UK. http://www.talksport.net
They are suipposed to be commentating on every game

I've been down that routeand the BBC Radio Five Live both of which are streamed on the internet. As soon as the kick off takes place you get switched to a repetetive message from the BBC stating their contractual obligations and a slighty less informative and less repetetive commentary from Talk Sport.

How it has all panned out is that FIFA went to every country individually to sell the rights to broadcast in both local and alternative languages.

They cleverly spotted that a loophole would be for say Thailand (a prime example) would be that people could watch the game on TV with the sound off and listen to the commentary of their choice over the internet. This way the Thai air to view authorities would avoid paying for the English/French/Italian/German versions and save themselves some money at the expense of FIFA.

How they do this is by switching streams depending upon the IP address of the requestor (i.e. you). These are all dynamically allocated by TOT and the range of numbers is known to the rest of the world.

The Thai government (like all others) have a contract with Fifa. Allowing English Commentaries would be a breach of that contract.

What I will attempt today is to locate a station in a country that does not give a toss about contracts such as North Korea (little English spoken though) Iran (where English is common and they just please ignorance to technical matters) or maybe even Hong Kong.

I hold little hope though. In the meantime my missus is planning to phone Mr. Beer Chang and breath fire. With Lomus' support I am sure she will convince them what an important customer she is.

I will keep you all informed of progress. Infortunately the Internet experimentation can only take place while a match is in play and all of them world wide claim live commentaries. Only the BBC state "For UK users only".

I was on HHADs counterpart site in Tokyo yesterday and they seem to be having the same problems.

[lomuamart]

Why my support, Guess?
I've switched my drinking habits to see sip now as The Thai Beverage Company seem to have cornered the the television market for this month.