New Hitchhiker's Episodes Available Online

Michael Sheldon writes "The BBC is now offering the first of the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio episodes as either Real or WMP audio streams. Meaning listeners abroad can now hear the new series, which started playing on UK radio last Tuesday."

So..

[Anonymous Coward]

how can I rip this to HD?
Preferably the WMP stream.

There's isn't a 42 joke in here, I swear!

[Aquatopia17]

I for one am really excited that HG2G has finally made its way back to radio. And on top of that, I can listen to it hassle-free (not as in beer) and free (as in beer) of charge over the internet. I wish listening to American proprietary radio stations was always this easy.

Reason for no OGG / MP3

[tod_miller]

There are still copyrights, but more so they want to pull people into thier sprawl of a site.

I love the radio shows. I have them as MP3 (must OGG 'em)

Any updates on the film? It is a long way off, I don't wanna rush them, but they can keep us in suspense, and trickle delicious sweet information to us slowly - and an OGG of marvin saying 'diodes on my left side'.

In unrelated 42 news, Seinfeld 1-3 series set was 42 on the amazon sales rank, and I bought it today. Nov i'll be out.

HHGTTG Text Adventure

[stephendl]

Even better on the site is a flash version of the original HHGTTG text adventure game...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game.shtml [bbc.co.uk]

Re:There's isn't a 42 joke in here, I swear!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, US citizens didn't pay a dime (nor a pence, for that matter). It's an international courtesy which I am grateful for. I mean, would you (non-ironically) listen to Voice of America for entertainment?

Re:RA and WMA?

[Billy69]

I prefer my method:
1) Buy A Bug [thebug.com]
2) Insert SD Card
3) Press record button
4) Enjoy 128Kb MP2 recording with no analogue stage
5) Profit!!!

While we are griping about formats...

[museumpeace]

go a little farther into the BBC website [bbc.co.uk] to hear/read the recorded interviews where Douglas Adams made predictions about how all these formats and playback technologies where going to mold the economy and user experience of consuming media. This page was also the entry point for a contest seeking new material you might create for submission to the HHGG. [like I wasn't already wasting enough time reading /. !-)]

Re:Updated Infocom Game

[Masem]

While HHGTTG may have been the worst, all of Infocom's games suffered from dying easily from making the wrong move; HHGTTG made it worse that you had to make right moves, wholely unrelated to your actions at the current time, in order to survive the game later (e.g. dog/sandwich). <old-timer-mode> all you young'uns with your LucasArts never-can-die-at-all-no-matter-how-hard-you-try adventure games! </old-timer-mode>

Re:There's isn't a 42 joke in here, I swear!

[Billy69]

plus what the licensing people don't want the general public to realise is that digital TV tuners aren't detectable by their much hyped but rarely seen detection equipment
Surely it is not that hard to re-tune their equipment to the higher frequency produced by the local oscillator in the digital tuner. I mean, even I could probably do that.

My snap review frmo Tuesday night

[OriginalArlen]

My instant micro-review: the use of original cast members and sympathetic approach to Douglas Adams' work compensates for the absence of the now-defunct BBC Radiophonic Workshop [wikipedia.org]'s music and sound effects. The story picks up where the printed'Life the Universe And Everything [barnesandnoble.com]' starts. Overall it seems to me to be an excellent and worthy interpretation of the published version [barnesandnoble.com]. This is especially good news as there are no less than three complete series in the can! In a fitting moment of synchronicity, 45 minutes before the broadcast, England beat Australia [bbc.co.uk] at cricket [abcofcricket.com] by six wickets to go into the final of a World limited-overs tournament. (No, we won't get the Ashes [abcofcricket.com] back until 2005. Hoorah for the King of Spain 8)

Having listened a bit more thoroughly since I wrote that, I'd say that the style _IS_ subtly different from the first two series. I also screwed up by using lame commercial versions of Wikipedia content - Google seems to be thoroughly bombed with such crap now - and of course it's Life The Universe... Not Fish. The missing electronic music is a more serious problem - it sounds like they've used bland library music. The use of snippets of 'commercial' stuff in the original (eg 'Wish you were here' on Magrathea, bits of Jean-michel Jarre etc) was a nice touchj, almost an easter-egg. I still listen to teh original two series at least once a year and still find new pleasures therein. Only time will tell if the new will be as good, but so far it looks hopeful.