jimrussell

Hi Duffer,

Good to hear that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Sounds like you should be right on PPTP and I will try it again. I really don't want to play around too much with the ISP router and not really too sure that I want all traffic to go thru VPN. I will check out the websites. BTW is there a site or book you know that explains WiFi and routers in detail (what are various gateways, subnets masks etc) as a most of the time I am having to guess at what I am doing and working a bit on suck and see, which is hardly rewarding)?

agility

Hi! Have come on to this forum 'cos I too have just lost Bbc and now today itv channels using a Freesat box...Help! do I need to call the aerial man to fix me a larger dish (I have one in another place)? will it be possible doing that?

duffer

All BBC and ITV SD and HD channels not available at time of writing except for ITV2 HD and C5 HD.

This more than likely means I can improve reception only by upgrading my dish size. For those that might get a weak signal in the evening, e.g. blocky picture, freezing picture, intermittent picture, etc. it might be possible to improve reception by upgrading the LNB and/or satellite cable, which is cheaper and more practical than upgrading the dish.

Anyway, the Google Chromecast should be launched in Europe soon. It's been available in the US for some time now. It costs only $35 and plugs directly into the HDMI slot of your TV. It then connects to your home wi-fi network. You can then 'send' it photos, videos or websites (which could be the BBC iPlayer website for example) from your laptop, tablet or smartphone. You watch the 'sent' media on the TV the Chromecast is connected to.

Obviously I have a VPN router so it would be very simple for me to watch UK content this way but it's not something that would be difficult to setup, if you didn't have a VPN router.

agility

Thankyou Duffer...fi the aerial man can get his head round this....too complicated for me!!

duffer

OK so no BBC or ITV in the morning but at lunchtime all SD working fine in addition to C4HD and C5HD.

I don't think upgrading my LNB will improve things but I will give it a try soon. I already have quality cable. I will not go down the bigger dish route.

duffer

Hi Jim,

Don't worry about gateways and subnets, you don't need to overcomplicate things.

If you want to keep some devices on local internet and others on VPN then yes you are right, you will need an additional router. It's probably a lot more simple than you think and most new routers have setup wizards that will make it a doddle.

First thing is to find a cheap compatible router and install the DD-WRT firmware onto it. Then think about adding it to your existing network. There is documentation and forums on the DD-WRT website.

Let us know how you get on.

jimrussell

Thanks. I must say that I was a bit discouraged by the experience of spending a lot of time with my VP provider Purevpn. They thought that my router would be fine but we never got it to work. Anyway I will follow up your lead in the knowledge that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Incidentally I want a wireless VPN router because amongst other things I want to use my chromecast with it so as to cast iplayer from the chrome browser onto the TV. I got chromecast a few weeks ago and while it worked fine for its apps (as long as they were internationally available of course) it had bad audio/visual sync when casting from the Chrome browser and after playing around and permissioning adobe flash extension on Chrome it started to work a treat. Cheap and effective.

Best regards, Jim

duffer

Yes it would be interesting to know how the Chromecast works with the VPN. You might only need to set up the VPN on the laptop and PC.

lilibet

I will check then with the ariel man the cable, Lbn anf failing that the size of the dish. Thanks for your help

klarika

Duffer,

I see in 1 of your post that you have a Smart TV working with UK Apps
I am thinking of buying a Samsung Smart TV 8000 series using DNS do you think it would work in Hungary?

duffer

No I don't actually have UK apps on my smart TV because it is a European model Panasonic. Instead, I have UK apps on my WD TV Live media player because that came from Amazon UK. Likewise, if you get a UK bluray smart player, these will also have UK apps built-in.

But then again, Panasonic apps are rubbish compared to Samsung or LG. I presume that once you have set up the smart DNS, you can download the UK apps on the Samsung (if bought here in Italy) but I have no experience of this. Alternatively, you may be able to upgrade the TV firmware to the latest UK version. On the Panasonic you couldn't but that's because it's Panasonic, they're very archaic!!

You can set up smartDNS on several Samsung TVs so it really shouldn't matter where in the world you take it. Just make sure your internet is fast enough.

klarika

Thanks for your reply Duffer.

Patty

OK - am well and truly confused now. Another friend who lives in my same village has just rung me to confirm that her TV still gets all the channels and her dish is only 75cm
I just dont understand why my 70cm stopped receiving but her 75 didnt. Surely 5cm cant make all that difference ?

linseed oil

ask the actress or the bishop , sorry serius we once spent a fortune , on a 2 mtr dish and still could not get a signal

Nellybell

Might be different quality cables, LNBs and the like?