Russian TV in USA & Russian Keyboards

[shikarnov 7]

A quick thought on calling...we bought my mother-in-law a magicjack and mailed it to her with $40 to buy a dedicated cordless phone. Now she has a local U.S. phone number and we have no more long distance phone bills. Works great!

Just out of curiosity, since MagicJack requires an active Internet connection, why wouldn't you just talk over Skype or Yahoo and save yourself both the cost of the phone and the MagicJack? Both are free, and the USB headset that my MIL uses cost me $20.

As an aside - what annoys me is that she spends a lot of time at her boyfriend's place -- with no Internet -- meaning that we have to spend money to call her cell phone (which isn't so bad at 6 cents per minute, but it's still more than free, which pisses me off since free is an actual option).

Edited July 17, 2010 by shikarnov

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Lots of choices. we do not have TV so I cannot comment on that. we occasionally watch a Russian film on the internet, otherwise it is all English. Alla uses the stick on keyboard letters. I use a separate keyboard and plug it into my laptop USB port (I bought the keyboard at the market in Doentsk) The keyboard works for me as I also use a French keyboard, so the stick on letters are not my cup of tea. Alla has used about 2 sets of stickers so far, but they are cheap. She odered them off the internet.

The boys are touch typists and switch back and forth with no problem, both have English keyboards but get by quite well.

[peejay 327]

The link below is the latest place my wife uses to watch Russian language programs via the internet. It is basically a pay-per-view subscription where she adds money to her account in $20 increments, chooses which programs she wants to view, and the website debits it from her account. When her account is depleted, she charges it back up another $20 from her credit card. She likes it because she can watch shows or movies of her own choosing from a list and view them when she has free time to watch them. When she subscribed to Jump TV via internet it was basicly just streamed Russian TV channels. There was no choosing of programs and if a something she wanted to watch came on while she was away, she missed it.

I have hooked our HD TV up to her laptop computer via VGA cord so she can watch her shows full screen size on the TV instead of the little computer screen. The quality is great and it looks just like watching a regular broadcast or cable TV show on the TV set.

http://www.etvnet.com/

Edited July 17, 2010 by peejay

[Rob_Lesya 4]

For Russian programs via the internet, I recommend WorldStreamTV:

http://www.worldstreamtv.com

A large number of Russian channels to choose from. You can watch them live, you can time-shift them to watch entire schedules on a delayed basis, you can record individual programs for playback at a later time. They automatically record and archive many popular programs and specials so that you don't have to. You also have a selection of hundreds of different movies to watch on demand, as well as access to a large number of streaming radio stations.

The quality is excellent (assuming you have adequate bandwidth) and the total package is $16 a month.

[Rob & Oksana 0]

Just out of curiosity, since MagicJack requires an active Internet connection, why wouldn't you just talk over Skype or Yahoo and save yourself both the cost of the phone and the MagicJack?

We used Yahoo a couple of times and it worked fine. The problem is that my MIL needs to be able to walk around her flat and not be tethered to the computer, thus the second "wireless phone". They have a high-speed intercnet connection but kind of lack anyone with much computer savy, so playing with a bluetooth headset and other stuff was more difficult. Another benefit is that my wife can call her from anywhere via her cell phone since it's a local call. She still uses the minutes on her calling card occasionally, but it's dropped from $40-$50/mo to $5-$10/month.

We tried the various "over the internet" TV options, but in the end, succumbed to convenience over price.

A final comment on Magicjack...it looks like they're going to start allowing "porting" beginning in August so we'll be moving our home phone number over to MJ.

[Rob_Lesya 4]

For Russian programs via the internet, I recommend WorldStreamTV:

http://www.worldstreamtv.com

A large number of Russian channels to choose from. You can watch them live, you can time-shift them to watch entire schedules on a delayed basis, you can record individual programs for playback at a later time. They automatically record and archive many popular programs and specials so that you don't have to. You also have a selection of hundreds of different movies to watch on demand, as well as access to a large number of streaming radio stations.

The quality is excellent (assuming you have adequate bandwidth) and the total package is $16 a month or $10 a month witout the the recorder package.

[Brad and Vika 129]

We bought a Russian keyboard at a mall in Odessa. About $20, packed it and brought it back.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

The stickers work good. Alla uses them on her laptop. I bought a Russian keyboard in Ukraine, it is a USB plug in and I also have a French keyboard. Pasha just memorized the keyboard in both languages. Sergey uses stickers

[AmyWrites 593]

Sorry if this was already said, but just change your language settings for the keyboard and buy some Cyrllic keyboard stickers on ebay. Russian-English keyboard FTW.

[slim 1,525]

Be advised those stickers only work for a few months. If you haven't learned the key locations by then you'll need another set. Big deal at $3 or whatever they are but you may want to pick up two or three sets when you order. (Or learn the keys!)