I know we don't travel to watch TV, but my wife and I like to sit by the tube for a short while after a day of sightseeing. It is frustrating to see one of the excellent BBC shows you want to watch dubbed in French when you don't know the language.
Several of the cable boxes we have encountered in Europe(Portugal and France) will switch to English on some shows with this procedure:
1. look for a button on the remote like 'info' or similar
2. when the screen comes up, if you don't see a word that looks like 'language', hit info again
3. you might get a screen that lists the language of the country you are in and English.
4. Scroll to your language(up-down buttons) and press OK, then press info again
This does not always work, but I have found it works with several channels
Posted by
2399 posts
All of the main British channels are on a Free to Air satellite called Astra 2E. These include the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 & FIVE.
Places that cater for British tourists in Europe try to pick up this satellite but not all are within the footprint. Some European establishments will have dishes set to satellites for their own countries which may have the odd English language channel.
More here:>http://www.a516digital.com/2014/08/uk-tv-via-satellite-in-europe-spotbeams.html
Posted by
Seattle
287 posts
During my stay in Paris last month I was able to watch several American TV shows and films in English because of utilizing this same type of feature on the TV's menu button. There were options for some shows in English, French and German. Not all shows had this availability, and it seemed the ones that consistently did not offer English audio were the BBC shows (other than BBC news of course). The English option was definitely skewed towards American productions.
Posted by
Toledo, Ohio, US
11613 posts
Thanks for the tip, dale. I kind of like watching English-language shows dubbed into other languages.
Posted by
Paris
9550 posts
When I discovered this a couple of years ago, I was floored (I guess I shouldn't have been, modern digital technology and all). Unfortunately I discovered this a couple of weeks after my parents had departed and we had watched the new version of True Grit in French.
(We actually rather enjoyed it though - my dad knows the story well enough and it's pretty clear what's happening, and it was hilarious watching Rooster Cogburn drawl on in French . . .)
Posted by
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
4037 posts
Some hotels pick up Deutsche Welle, the German government's international broadcaster with extensive news coverage in English. This link includes some streaming: http://www.dw.com/en/top-stories/s-9097