TV vs. satellite TV

Great idea, Patrick. I think I'll tuck a season of a TV show into our luggage. I noticed some of the apartments we're considering have a DVD player. Thanks!

I have every episode of "The Office" (BBC & NBC) stored on my netbook;)

We traveled with two teenage sons for about ten years and that was never an issue. So we never inquired about regular or cable. I thought most of our TV was cable/satellite. You can generally find one or two English speaking channel but they are mostly news oriented channels -- CNN, BBC. Beware that you will find soft porn as a regular offering.

We just returned from two weeks (Rome, Florence, Venice, Sorrento) and TV sucked everywhere. But then we weren't there for the TV. In our experience each place had only one English speaking channel (BBC news that repeated every 10 - 15 minutes, like CNN Headline News), the TVs generally were tiny CRTs, and in all but one case the reception was pretty bad even though it was satellite TV. You may want to have your sons load up their iPods with music and videos. Or, even better, drag them out from in front of the TV . . . :)

The only English language channels your going to get are news channels. Most American and British TV show will be dubbed into Italian. If this is something that is important for family harmony and you're binging along a laptop/netbook, you might want consider purchasing a Slingbox:

www.slingbox.com

Actually your responses are really helpful. Certainly we're not going to Italy for the purpose of watching TV. In fact we hardly ever watch it at home - we're more likely to throw in a movie if we need some "down time". We're planning to bring along a few books that all of us would enjoy and can trade because a month of travel is a long time and sometimes you just need to do nothing. However, you have convinced me to omit any considerations about TV and reception. Thanks for your help!!! This is exactly what makes this such a useful website!!

I just returned from 3 weeks in Tuscany and Rome, and echo all the comments above. In Rome we only had Italian stations, off an antenna I guess. Some places we visited elsewhere did have satellite, which gave us CNN International and/or BBC World News, but nothing else in English.

I occasionally like to have the TV for company in my room while getting ready in the morning, or at night while writing in my journal before going to bed. Next time I go to Italy I'll take a tiny netbook with a bunch of Tivo shows transferred to it, or I'll take a travel DVD player with some DVDs.

Cindy, you may have problems with playing North America DVD's in Italian Dvd players. I think they're different regions & won't be compatible.

I know that I have several dvd's from the UK which I can only play on my computer as it's set for multiregions.

Great... that's a bummer! Thanks for the warning!

I suspect not all satellite packages are the same, but we stayed in an apartment in Rome in Nov 2007 with satellite. I don't recall many English-language stations, maybe BBC, CNN International, and a sports channel. Funnily enough, we got a ton of German-language channels (mix of German, Swiss, and Austrian) -- probably more channels than in Italian. (My 22-month old loved Sesamstrasse.)

We have a slingbox, purchased last year on a return trip to the States. It's hooked up in my son's house in Atlanta so we watch DirecTV here in Rome - although we're six hours ahead (so I tivo it!).

Living here we do not watch much TV, Italian or American - except for the news.... which is quite different depending on which country network you are watching! Most hotels will NOT have too much US TV available (other than news). Italian TV WILL NOT have programs in English with Italian subtitles. There's a requirement that ALL programs be dubbed into Italian, so that will not be an option for your teenagers. Here, the DVD's are on the PAL system with the US is on the NTSC system so thay are NOT compatible (so don't buy and dvd's here - bring them with you if you need them!)

For a funny view on finding a Wii, and the challenges of TV in Italy,
CLICK HERE!

By entering a special code via the romote control of most non-Sony DVD players you can play DVDs from around the world. To check if your player has this capability, head to this website:

www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks

The only times we made sure we stayed somewhere with a tv was during the soccer World Cup and European Cup. and then we usually ended up with the local channels and German or Italian commentaries ... Moreover, for the final games there was no way we wanted to watch them cooped up in a small hotel room, we went out to find a restaurant or bar to share the experience with the locals.