I found the opposite. VPN slowed the connection down too much to stream the show. 1 hour show was taking 2 hours to download from the BBC or 30 minutes from a torrent. I've stopped paying the VPN subscription in favour of the free torrents.

VPN only needs to be active at the start of the download. Set it going and then turn off the VPN and you'll get full speed.

Yeah, I managed to get that to work a few times, but my wireless was flakey and when it reconnected, it complained. I should have tried on the linux box with a download manager...

I never stream'd much anyway, mostly set a few things off downloading then watch at my leisure during the week.

Yea, same here.

Yeah, thats because you'll be pulling the content from a local torrent user (torrents are peer-to-peer, although you probably already know that ), and not from across the other side of the world. Its all well and good until the other users start restricting their upload bandwidth. I always found p2p stuff frustrating.

My main beef at the moment is that even though peer-to-peer is legal, the big companies/isps deem it to be illegal, and are on the lookout for p2p users. They are more likely to shoot first and ask questions later when you're broadcasting to the world all the downloaded music/movies/games you have. Where as an SSL enabled http/nntp download tends to stay under the radar.

YMMV though.

While we're on the subject of wirelss and all that. I just put a wireless USB dongle on my Desktop, instead of connecting directly via the cable.

But it turns out, my Motorola Modem or Bigpond don't like the laptop and the desktop connecting to it wirelessly at the same time. Whats that about.

We've also got a netbook, and thinking back it used to say every five minutes that it had found the wireless network, so obviously it was getting kicked of every 5 minutes too.

Is this serious? Does the bigpond motorola wireless modem only handle 1 wireless connection?

JTL

So Hutch,do i just click onto film on,and it should work coolio?

Yes mate. It's free at the moment (with some pay-per-view channels) but they're sure to start charging at some point - so enjoy it while you can.

Just downloaded hide-my-ip.com and is allowing me to acccess bbc iplayer. I am unable to watch the programmes as it keeps on buffering every couple of seconds, I have tried to download the programmes but it says they are only available to people in the UK. My new IP address is a UK one so I don't understand why it does not work.

You've just hit on why I never recommended it myself in the past. But in answer to your question I guess you wait until the HideMyIP people introduce a new UK server for you to connect to and then hope that the BBC don't detect it too quickly.

you want to try something a bit more stable like the one i use (uktvaccess), 16 mps, 4 quid a month.

rob

Speaking for myself I don't use any of them these days, but I note that uktvaccess is a VPN service like many others and as such as every bit as susceptible to IP range blocking as HideMyIP. Only reason many of these VPN companies manage to hang on to their IP range for so long is because they're tiddly companies that don't generate that much traffic.

Updated to add - ROFL @ their FAQ, "We do not endorse the use of this service for any activities illegal under UK law or the law of the country you are resident in." This despite their home page which is one big advert for circumventing British copyright law.

Got to admire their sense of humour for that. Nice page you have, by the way.

Looks like I've lost my account thebox, and I want the see what the new day of the triffids was like. Guess I'll have to wait until it appears on another site ;(

try my uktvaccess login ... it's valid for a couple more days

user: turkishliving
pass: qww223
IP: 213.175.212.52

set up info is at www.uktvaccess.com/setup.htm

rob