OnlinePhim.net Blog

Can’t you believe it, it’s been over 2 years since we started this little project. Along the way we ran into numerous problems , from server failures to hosting cost hike. Still, here’s we are … starting our third year, and with some luck, we’ll stay on a little longer. We understand that we’re not one of the few sites for free online videos like it used to be, but at least our video quality is still one of the best being offered, and we’re always working toward better and better streaming quality. More on that later. It still surprise us that even though some people has been coming here for a while, they still haven’t figure out some of the features we have here. So, before I go on, I’ll cover the basics.

OnlinePhim.net and OnlineDrama.net are two separate sites. I’m always amazed to find out that someone doesn’t know there are 2 sites. Depends on what you like to watch, you’ll probably spend the most time at one site or another. OnlinePhim.net contains videos that are vietnamese audio dubbed in the US. We don’t host any narrated videos (phim thuyet minh) here. EVER. OnlineDrama.net is the sister site that contains videos with their original audios with english subtitles. If you want to watch something that’s currently being aired in Asia, this is the place.

Searching for something to watch. This is one of the things we kept in mind when we built the site from the ground up. If you know the title of the video you’re looking for, then use the Search function. Make sure the word you’re using is 3 or more letters, otherwise it won’t return anything. This is the default search behavior. By selecting Viet, it enables you to type in vietnamese characters, if the title you want is vietnamese. Want to watch something new? Browse the New Releases section or check out the Newest Added Videos box. Videos more than a year old will be found in the Videos section, which act as the archives. The Directory Listing under the logo gives you the ability to quickly locate videos from the countries of your choosing. You can further filter out the videos by selecting series or single. Of course, if you don’t care about the country of origin or the titles, you can find the videos you’re interested in using Tags (genres).

Read the blog. We understand that you rather watch videos then read any random stuffs we put here. However, try to skim through it once in awhile. We usually post updates here. If the site is down, or we made some changes to the system, chaces are the information is right there. Don’t send us a hundred different emails about a problem we already know about.

Moving on … For the past 2 years, we have been bringing you quality contents for free. However, it’s getting more and more difficult to maintain the site. With the help of our contributors, we have been able to get this far, and we understand that without them, we won’t make it much further. Therefore, as a way to show our appreciation, we will now turn the majority of our effort into creating something only for our contributors. We actually been planning for a long while now, but problems always come up that forced us to post pone the project. Since the holidays are over, we’ve started to put our attentions at the project once again. Once we’re done with the first phase of the project, we’ll send out invitations for a preview to get feedbacks and comments before we move on to the next phase.

So what’s exactly are contributors? They are the people who help the site by contributing time, effort, and/or money. This includes video uploaders, link posters, reviewers/writers, graphic designers, promoters, and donators. There are other way to contribute too, but that’s the main designations. Email us if you want anything clarified. Speaking of donators, to those of you who donated a few dollars, for whatever reason … please don’t. Although we appreciate every dollar we can get, what you’re doing is actually giving it away to paypal (our current credit card processor). Paypal charge a processing fee for every donation we get, and after all the fee, we basically get nothing. So, if that’s all that you can afford, please save your money. More information on the invites coming soon.

Since last week, our site has been online/offline pretty much every day as we’re trying to recover from a DDos attack. Afterward, we were experiencing problems with misconfigurations on the server which basically lock out users. Then, we ran into hardware problems which froze the system. We have no idea when all these problems will go away, but for now you should be able to access the videos normally. As for the staffs … there’s no rest for the weary.

PS. We have began testing a FriendConnect module which you can sign in using any openID service like Google, Yahoo, Myspace, etc… without the need to register again. For now, this will allow you to write reviews/discuss the videos. The review boxs are placed on the main video title page, at the bottom.

You know you reach some kind of milestone in popularity when you get one of these. We’re not that big and we don’t have that many fans (or fanatics, like certain sites), so it was quite a surprise when we got one of these letters in the mail. We do get them once in awhile from fan groups, fanatics, and others – shall we say … “enthusiastic” individuals – but this is the first from a producer.

From: 9301, TVBLEGAL <tvblegal@tvb.com.hk>
Date: 2008/8/28
Subject: Copyright Infringement

Dear Sirs,
 
Re: Copyright Infringement
 
We are a well known television broadcast company in Hong Kong and the copyright owner of various television programmes produced by us.
 
It has recently come to our notice that one of you have been using your website http://www.onlinephim.net (“Website”) to provide streaming of our television programmes for public’s viewing without our authorization.
 
Details of your uploaded files which contain our copyrighted works can be found on the Website by accessing the following links:-
 
1.          Our copyrighted work name in English and Chinese: 
Unnatural Born Killer (十三密殺令)
Links of files containing infringed materials:-

http://www.onlinephim.net/1548.vid

 
2.          Our copyrighted work name in English and Chinese: 
A Change of Destiny (天機算)
Links of files containing infringed materials:-

http://www.onlinephim.net/624.vid

http://www.onlinephim.net/696.vid

and the list goes on for quite a bit. It was too long that it got cut off in the mail when we got it. They had to email it twice. Appearently, someone had spent some time going through our listings. Do they have interns in HK? Anyway, about 15 minutes later, we received another email. It simply states:

From: 9301, TVBLEGAL <tvblegal@tvb.com.hk>
Date: 2008/8/28
Subject: Recall: Copyright Infringement

9301, TVBLEGAL would like to recall the message, “Copyright Infringement”.

Umm. OK. You had us worried for a few minutes there. We have more than a handful of reasons why their claim is without merit. We have no idea which one they used, we’re just glad that someone checked again. They should have double-checked before they send out the letter in the first place, but we have to give them credit for a quick recall. An apology would be nice, but we doubt that they’re that nice. Well, it’s a good thing that we didn’t have to go through all the legal paperworks because it was a little pass 3am and our lawyer was happily chasing sheeps and counting butterflies.