scrubbedexpat091

^^^^^

Could be a possibility. I used to be able to trick Hulu with using a VPN but they seem to know and still block access.

Its annoying since we don't have any decent streaming type places to legally watch things online, Netflix sucks, the Canadian streaming services suck, and Hulu and the like won't let us use their services.

Michael

I suspect in most cases, the companies that provide pay video services don't want the restrictions since they get paid no matter which country the customer purchases the service from. I suspect it is the different governments that want those restrictions to try to force the video service providers to establish a presence in their country to be able to collect taxes and hire people. Therefore even though it probably wouldn't be too difficult to restrict foreign users, I suspect the service providers are using every excuse as to why it can't be done.

It could be that the Canadian government has been applying pressure to all American service providers and the smaller ones folded since they didn't want the legal fees to fight the restrictions. On the other hand, Netflix is an 800lb gorilla and probably has a team of lawyers creating briefs as to the difficulty of implementing the restrictions.

scrubbedexpat091

Most of it boils down to licensing and distribution agreements.

Canadian networks/cable channels buy the licensing rights and distribution rights for US produced movies and shows and as such they generally have sole right to that content in Canada under those agreements.

Most of the license holders also own the cable companies.

The Big 3 pretty much control all of Canada's TV and cable, Shaw, Bell and Rogers.

http://getamericannetflix.com/why-netflix-canada-sucks/

In short we get a very watered down netflix with a lot of old shows, movies nobody has heard of, and netflix originals but our version is just a total waste of money unless you really like old movies and independent stuff.

Canveydave

Just a suggestion, but I have UKTV Everywhere. It is a little set top box that allows me to watch all Freeview channels from the UK live, record them and even go back in time 10 days to watch what I want.

$350 a year, or $35 a month

Job done

WJS

Canveydave, that sounds very interesting. It sounds like a Freesat Humax box that works with a satellite dish so not sure how it works but sounds very good. Will have to look into it. Thank you!

By the way, on behalf of my husband any chance it includes Sky sports?

WJS

Just had a quick look Canveydave and not sure if it receives BBC because it refers to Channel 1 2 and 5 but definitely not Sky sports which I assumed they wouldn't anyway. But certainly something to keep in mind, thanks again.

Canveydave

It receives all freeview channels.

Last night I watched the BBC news, followed by a Trevor McDonald documentary on the Mafia and then the six nations from the weekend

It even has BBC in HD.

It doesn't have Sky, but that isn't surprising, other wise nobody would subscribe to Sky and everyone would just buy this box

It works by using your internet to stream the channels. I can honestly say it is the best $350 we have spent since we got here

E17Avenue

I love the look of the services like UKTV Everywhere, but for now I am content with paying $5/month for UnoTelly (a smart DNS service) so I can watch BBC iPlayer on my WDTV Live box, and any other UK streaming service on my laptop hooked up with HDMI.

Macleodoftheclan

I live in California and receive my british tv fix through Sling box. All you need is A, a sling box, B, someone in the UK that doesn't mind you plugging said Slingbox into their STB, ie sky hd box in my case. And C, quite good internet speed/connection on both ends. Which btw is quite problematic in parts of California! To say that usa should be quite forward in such things I find they are lacking in this area!
I have full functionality of a sky box. Record, catch up etc...being 8 hours behind I can watch TV while they sleep in England so it doesn't cost me a thing. You could pay for a multi room box if it's a problem though at about £10 a month I think it is.

Macleodoftheclan

Oh and I have an Apple TV so sling the picture from England onto my tv from my iPad.

markonline1

Funnily enough, I watched that Trevor McDonald documentary the other night (and all the 6 Nations games), it was very good. I just hook my iPad up to the tv though and use UnoTelly. I did look at UKTV everywhere, but seemed a little pricey when a $5 a month subscription to a DNS service does the same thing.

scrubbedexpat091

If you think US internet is lacking, avoid Canada, we are even further behind when it comes to internet speeds/connections.

Pricey up here too, currently paying 120 per month.

GeoffM

Out of interest, which area are you in? We've been quite lucky to (a) have a choice of cable; (b) get up to 300Mb/s on one and up to 60Mb/s on the other - in all three places we've lived (all SoCal but 60 miles apart).

E17Avenue

Paying $40 starter rate for around 25-30mbps cable internet here in Michigan. Dreading the increased rate this autumn. Service is plenty for any streaming, we regularly watch live streaming TV.

Michael

I don't think it is an issue with cable speed. If I run the OOKLA speed test locally, I get a 10 ms ping and a 60 mbps download speed. I just run a test the OKKLA speed test to the Softlayer server in London and I get a 174 ms ping and a 16.6 mbps download speed. I also ran the speed test to the Vodafone server in Newbury and had a similar ping and download speed as the London server.

Both speed tests and video use TCP/IP. TCP/IP requires an acknowledgement per TCP/IP stream and a speed test has a much larger stream than a video stream causing video streams to have many more acknowledgements per mb sent than a speed test. With a 174 ms ping, that indicates that probably 87 ms is required for a response for the acknowledgement causing the video server to wait until the response is received. The video server has to wait for the acknowledgement response since if it didn't and the stream was corrupted or lost, video frames would be lost to the user since it would be too late to retry the TCP/IP stream. Therefore a video stream will likely run significantly slower than a speed test stream.

It is the latency, rerouting, and lost packets across the US and Atlantic that typically cause the problem and if the speed test is indicating 16.6 mbps, then video will likely vary between being very slow and 1/2 that figure. Besides that problem, upload speeds on a home internet connection is generally significantly slower than download speeds unless the connection is a balanced line and the person that is sending the video data from the Sky STB is uploading. That is why high speed servers can't use a high speed cable connection since it is unbalanced and have to use a very expensive OC connection which is balanced.