Don't come back to me with this one, but.... the tennant in our apartment (in Dubai) has his Sky box (european Sky, not UK Sky - still has Sky logos on teh channels but languages I do not understand!) running where he has his tv package from home available here in HD, for far less than any local package here in Dubai.

He has a dish that point to the Eurobird (Or Hotbird?) satellite, and can therefore pick up the signal with no issues.

I've seen it working - I watched a world cup game whith him in HD and the picture was awesome (better than on the Du HD channel)

So, a Sky box from UK and a dish pointing to this satellite may work for you to get UK Sky TV?? Not sure if a Sky box works with OSN though.

Won't work. UK Sky is broadcast on the Astra satellites and we are too far south to pick them up here. If you have a HUGE dish, say 3-4 metres across, you can get Sky as far south as Turkey.

Your tenant will be picking up the Italian Sky TV which is broadcast from the Hotbird satellite. It doesn't have any UK Sky channels on it. A UK Sky box will not work with OSN either, totally different software/EPG systems.

In addition to what "hoblos" posted, along with the "Slingbox Pro" connected to your sky receiver/set top box and router at home in the UK, you should also buy a "Slingcatcher" for here in dubai. You connect the Slingcatcher to your router and then to your TV. You will then be able to watch and control your sky box in the UK (with the included remote control) from your living room in dxb. If you don't buy a Slingcatcher you will only be able to watch your sky programmes on a pc/laptop.
Slingbox + Slingcatcher works just fine.. just a 1 second lag when you change channels etc.

To get the optimum picture quality you need to have an UPLOAD speed of at least 1Mb from the UK ISP and a decent download speed here in dubai - a "friend" has 16Mb and the picture quality is ok during the day and good during the evening, which is kinda convenient.

It is a nice treat to be able to watch UK programming whilst in dxb.. of the nice things about living here... uae tv broadcasting is not one of them.

Where we lived before in Libya, we could receive UK Sky using a big F*** off 3.4m dish and the signal was acceptable but not perfect. Libya was at the fringe of the Astra satellite footprint.

UAE is nowhere close to the Astra footprint and even a NASA sized dish won't work.

This is all getting too technical for me .....anyone know of any companies in the UK that will sort this out for you?

I just used www.***************** the other stuff is too technical etc and costs a fortune. www.ukivpn.com are also good.

Google it, mate. I ended up buying, for cost, but there are a number of companies in the UK that will host the Sky box for you there, all you have to do is set up the hardware in your place here...

Hi again,

It's not difficult. The important thing is to have the Slingbox setup in a property in UK with broadband and Freeview, HD Freeview or Sky Box. These devices are simply connected to the Slingbox. The Slingbox is connected to your router via a n ethernet cable. It's easy.

I just followed the instructions that came with my Slingbox. I have a very simple setup. Aerial cable connected to back of Slingbox and Slingbox connected to Orange Livebox (router).

The Slingbox Pro has in fact got it's own Freeview tuner and it finds all the channels when going setting up the software that you are told to download from Slingmedia.

Make sure that there is someone available in the property where the Slingbox is setup so that if the router plays up or something needs to be rebooted it can. I would just send a text to the people in my UK property asking them to switch Slingbox off and on or to check the aerial. The setup is reliable and so you won't need to ask them often for help.

So to summarize all you need is a Slingbox Pro, router at Uk address and Broadband of at least 1mb per sec at UK address and address abroad. If you follow the instructions that come with the Slingbox and you are not too dense you'll have it setup in no time and you'll be watching all UK tv abroad. The picture quality is not like at home as it's being streamed through the internet, however it is perfectly watchable.

good luck!

Thanks for the detail mate, I appreciate it. Only issue I can see is that here in Bahrain there are download limits - after a certain point they will "throttle" your connection and slow it down. 60GB seems to be the max per month - will this be enough?

You can also set up a VPN then just go to bbc iplayer and just stream the programmes

With all the grief and cost involved in the other options, I've pretty much come to the same conclusion...

if you go for the VPN option you should be able to access this site which is brilliant www.tvcatchup.com

don't be fooled by the name it is not catchup. You can watch any of the UK Freeview channels live on this site if you are in the UK or maybe if you have a working VPN abroad.

cheers

TVcatchup blocks people trying to access it via a VPN. You might be lucky but we've tried it with several different VPNs and it rejected all of them. It will let you sign up but then when you try and actually watch a channel it tells you that you can't access it via an anonymous proxy.

useful info - thanks