from Hacker News

TV Garden

by vkdelta on 3/30/25, 2:25 PM with 126 comments

  • by thundergolfer on 4/2/25, 10:07 PM

    One of those projects that has me wondering what I was doing instead of building this. The end result is great, and the technical details seem like they'd be interesting. TIL about Internet Protocol TV: https://github.com/iptv-org/iptv
  • by NKosmatos on 4/2/25, 10:39 PM

    There’s also Radio Garden https://radio.garden/
  • by mcflubbins on 4/2/25, 11:30 PM

    Checks out.

    Clicked on a channel in the Philippines and immediately had to sit through 5 soap related commercials, precisely what I recall from my time there.

  • by jaqalopes on 4/2/25, 9:52 PM

    This is pretty amazing. I clicked on a Luganda-language channel in Uganda and it was a concerned-looking woman being interviewed for a news segment about a "for men" testosterone supplement. Kind of heartening to see that people everywhere are the same, for better and for worse.
  • by londons_explore on 4/3/25, 10:07 AM

    Really notable that all the youtube feeds work and load fast, whereas all the other feeds are 50/50 if they work or not, and if they do load they're slow, laggy and bad quality.

    Props to the youtube engineering team I guess!

  • by vault on 4/2/25, 10:06 PM

    Thanks. I could spend hours watching distant cultures. Their colours, environment, technical equipment... I saw some people in Somalia using DJI microphones, those that in the West are mainly used by YouTubers.

    I also see TVs that are normally subject to fees. I'm aware the FAQs say it's only public streams, but I fear this won't last long.

  • by AnotherGoodName on 4/2/25, 10:13 PM

    For me the site is incredibly snappy. Amazing. As in i clicked Australia, clicked ABC TV and it all loaded in milliseconds.
  • by jccalhoun on 4/3/25, 12:49 PM

    Pretty fun. Reminds me of the 90s when my parents had a big satellite dish and I would spend time going from satellite to satellite seeing what was being broadcast in the clear. There's something about discovering something weird that you never knew existed. There are some b-movie channels on roku that i love just because I never know what kind of weird movie they will play

    I do wish there was some kind of Shazam for movies/tv shows because there are times when I flip on one of those in the middle of a movie, get into it, and then have the hardest time trying to find the name of it.

  • by blueflow on 4/2/25, 10:40 PM

    Go to Germany, select "KIKA" and you can see the depressed bread.
  • by hombre_fatal on 4/3/25, 12:59 AM

    Can someone explain the economics of this?

    So, there are a bunch of open http endpoints serving free video feeds and they don't care about bandwidth?

    It's not like radio where you broadcast it and people passively receive the signal.

    This is a great service for language practice, though. Wish it had a login + favorites system.

  • by forks on 4/2/25, 9:52 PM

    One of those things that's so cool it's hard to believe it's legal
  • by onionisafruit on 4/3/25, 12:02 AM

    Crazy that I can change channels on this faster than on youtube tv
  • by magicmicah85 on 4/2/25, 10:07 PM

    Love the website design. Very neat to just drop in on a country, see what’s on. Was watching two guys in Afghanistan acting goofy in a commercial. Just fascinating.
  • by ctm92 on 4/3/25, 10:36 AM

    The name is ironic, as there is a german TV show called Fernsehgarten (basically television garden). It's broadcasted live every sunday morning during summer season on ZDF, basically it's a outdoor studio with music and other things around a topic every week.

    Mostly targeted to elderly people, but funny to watch every once in a while. You can even go there in person for quite cheap

  • by temp0826 on 4/3/25, 8:08 AM

    Feels like I got an inter-dimensional cable box from Rick&Morty
  • by financetechbro on 4/2/25, 11:41 PM

    TIL There’s a Mr. Beast channel in the US
  • by memalign on 4/3/25, 8:53 AM

    Heck yeah, they have ReBoot:

    https://tv.garden/us/qRH5QbLVuLvQQR

  • by devnexus16 on 4/3/25, 7:39 AM

    Intriguing concept! Combining TV with virtual world exploration opens up fascinating possibilities. The demo is impressive, but I'm curious about plans for content beyond scenic walks. Interactive experiences? Educational journeys? With the right partnerships and creative direction, this could become a compelling new medium for immersive storytelling.
  • by geostupid on 4/3/25, 3:12 PM

    This is fantastic! One of my favorite things about traveling is experiencing their media--it gives me that same feeling.

    Also, as someone that studied Geography extensively, it's an excellent review in that respect as well. One can quickly jump from one place to another.

    Bonus points for using a globe, and not a map!

  • by morsch on 4/3/25, 5:45 AM

    An option to sort stations by (some reasonable measure of) popularity instead of alphabetically would be nice.
  • by abhishekY495 on 4/3/25, 4:54 AM

    Clicked on a channel and it started playing the video pretty quickly. There is also https://github.com/iptv-org/iptv but your UI is much better.
  • by totetsu on 4/3/25, 2:56 AM

    There are some conspicuous erasures of countries on the data used to make this map.
  • by derac on 4/3/25, 2:17 AM

    This is awesome. If the site owner is reading this, favorites would be cool.
  • by INTPenis on 4/3/25, 11:32 AM

    So it's only getting videos from youtube that claim to be from Sweden. But very few of them actually were. The very first images I saw was a racoon, not common here at all.
  • by sexy_seedbox on 4/3/25, 3:38 AM

    How to select Hong Kong?
  • by bookofjoe on 4/3/25, 11:04 AM

  • by DecentShoes on 4/3/25, 12:24 AM

    It's cool, but are you not worried about a huge lawsuit from rebroadcasting copyrighted content without a licence?
  • by Chihuahua0633 on 4/3/25, 2:47 PM

    Is there some way to find a stream url to toss into VLC - if you wanted to easily watch this on your actual TV?
  • by jonathanlydall on 4/3/25, 6:46 AM

    Pretty cool overall. On South Africa some of its listings are radio stations "broadcasting" over YouTube.
  • by mvdtnz on 4/2/25, 10:52 PM

    Cool project. Unfortunately I get infinite spinners on all non-Youtube videos in Firefox. Works in Chrome.
  • by cbozeman on 4/3/25, 3:57 AM

    Thanks to this website I learned that ABC 25 Waco TV (KXXV) has some incredibly good interlude music.
  • by nkanaev on 4/3/25, 10:51 AM

    Checks his own country: "No channels available."

    Damn, even Afghanistan has a dozen available.

  • by exogeny on 4/3/25, 12:29 AM

    We've got -- nothing better to do! Than watch TV! And have a couple of brews!
  • by pete1302 on 4/3/25, 8:23 AM

    I spent hours watching French Drama, I don't know any French.
  • by matt3210 on 4/3/25, 5:17 AM

    Very nice!

    nit: country label appears under the mouse. Edge Browser, Mac

  • by alabhyajindal on 4/2/25, 11:37 PM

    Wonderful! Works surprisingly well!
  • by hei-lima on 4/2/25, 10:51 PM

    Just a great project!
  • by pleyr on 4/3/25, 5:38 AM

    this is very clean..

    hi from Pleyr, https://pleyr.net/

  • by aa-jv on 4/3/25, 10:14 AM

    Not to be confused with https://radio.garden/ ... must resist urge to make Buggles joke ..
  • by thomasfromcdnjs on 4/2/25, 11:40 PM

    Love it