Homemade "SciFi Channel" for classic sf video online

Wil Wheaton sez, "This guy really loves science fiction, and REALLY hates the Sci-Fi channel for not airing enough classic SciFi. So he found all sorts of shows online, and has created his own incredibly awesome repository of classic science fiction television show links. As far as I can tell, it's all legal, and there are hundreds of hours of programming to choose from." Link (Thanks, Wil!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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cinemajay

Awesome!
Anonymous

Thanks i love Sci Fi
Have been looking for Firefly all week
Yes i’m in Europe so hate hulu aol too

Megavideo or Sina or even Youku , Tudou would be nice
In the end i found Firefly on sina
So for the others in Europe those are places to check
The quality isn’t the best but they got a lot of the American series
So there we get a chance to at least watch it

Firefly 1-14 Full season 01 [EU Friendly]
you.video.sina.com.cn/a/1878450-1459842472.html
Thiazi

Personally, while I am happy to see a site like this, I am also pretty happy that the SciFi channel doesn’t air these shows. Given how available these things are on the internet, it makes no sense to air them on television. The larger issue for me is that, aside from things like BSG, the SciFi is largely clogged with crap. Wrestling? Ghost Hunters? Sometimes I’ll read something about the channel making the Diamond Age or something that has some resonance with the genre, and the very next day I see some truly awful “SciFi original” monster movie. I just can’t believe that people intend to tune in and watch things like that, and it’s boggling to me why money is spent on developing the things they do.
Thiazi

#13: I share that concern, but I’d much rather see them go that direction than Tremors XVII or Global Warming Aliens Terrorize Danica McKellar.
caipirina

darn .. yep .. most of the stuff does not play when you are an evil non-american … nice idea though
CraigGNoble

Screw this. It’s Hulu.
Hmpf

What about Farscape? Certainly about as ‘classic’ as Firefly, isn’t it? (That is to say, I think they’re probably both a bit too ‘young’ to be considered classic, but I’m pretty sure they’ll both be considered classic a decade or two from now, so if you include the one, why not include the other?)
CraigGNoble

By that I mean that if you reside or are currently outside amerika you can’t get the friggin vids.
crotchetyoldfan

Hi all. I’m the guy who loves SF and hates SFC.

My apologies to those who can’t view the content – I was unaware of that issue and am looking into ways to solve it.

Apologies also to those who don’t like the site ‘design’ and those who think its ‘just hulu redu’; I put it together out of anger and frustration, not to win awards for looks. It will be changing over time tho.

I’m also not trying to be hulu or any other streaming video site. TCSFC is there to make it easier for folks to find these shows and as a statement of dissatisfaction with the direction that SciFiChannel is going.

If I can solve the foreigners problem, I’ll post it here.
elNico

Not sure whether I’m looking at the same thing, but I see 3 columns of about 20 entries each. Hovering over those links shows you archive.org items straight away – what’s the problem in terms of determining access?

Having said that, the Hulu service does actually look quite nice…until it shuts you out at the very last and most important step of playing the fikkin’ thing.
Church

Keep going Craig. There’s a lot of archive.org in there too.
Keir

not just Hulu, every Star Trek (on CBS) I tried, a robot voice said ‘this content is currently unavailable’ – because I’m not in America, I assume. That site’s two annoying for me unless he rearranges it, as it is i’d have to click everything to see if it’s archive.org or not.
Anonymous

This brings tomind one of my favorite things to complain about:

Anyone else remember how frikkin’ AWESOME cable used to be? The cable networks only had budget for a few (if any) original programs, and often their prime time lineup would be reruns of recent network hits.

So how to fill the other 22 hours a day? Nothing but pure classic gold reruns. If you were sick in bed for a day in 1995 and you had cable or satellite (REAL satellite) you could absorb a whole hell of a lot of 60 previous years of American and European popular culture.

Bugs Bunny isn’t on TV the way he was 15 years ago. I remember it used to be a frequent joke that Lucy could be watch 24/7 with a sufficient number of channels.

And this guy is right: SciFi is one of the channels hardest hit by this. Those endless loops of Night Gallery were great. However there’s a pretty much inarguable worst decline in a cable station:

The Discovery Channel.

Cheapo reality gets more bang for the buck than licensing something old but great I guess.
JoshuaZ

Dammit! I’ve got work to do. Cory, for the good of humanity please quit pointing out such wonderful wastes of time.

Cory must be an alien sent to retard our technological development by pointing out so many wonderful things.
License Farm

Though I also hate some of the non-skiffy programming on SFC these days, most of the shows this site has archived have aired on SFC at some point, some even currently. I’d like to see some more obscure series, like “SuperForce,” “Century City” or “Time Trax.” Now that would demonstrate some commitment to the concept.
Enochrewt

#9: I’m very concerned that they’ll butcher the crap out of The Diamond Age. That’s a story that deserves better than even the best SFC treatment.
Ugly Canuck

Sadly no pay in Canuckistan. Cry big ice-cube tears. Must make own cheap sci-fi teleplays when winter bound next year…
subterrene

IMO, they’ve been changing the definition of science fiction on the Sci Fi channel for years. I mean c’mon, “Field of Dreams” (which I’ve seen aired) is not science fiction.
Church

FWIW, “Skiffy” refers to the channel. IIRC, it was coined in the forums to avoid confusion b/t the channel and the genre (e.g., “I hate Skiffy” vs. “I hate Sci-Fi.”)