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-   -   Can we watch uk tv via satelite in the US? (https://britishexpats.com/forum/usa-57/can-we-watch-uk-tv-via-satelite-us-771976/)

MarylandNed Sep 19th 2012 11:06 am

Re: Can we watch uk tv via satelite in the US?
 

Originally Posted by Donna_c uk (Post 10287257)
Oh that's a shame,what's VPN?
Thanks

TunnelBear is one. You can try it for free with a 500MB monthly download limit which won't last that long but it's enough to let you see how it works.

First, try watching something with BBC iPlayer (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/tv)
You'll get a message that you can only watch in the UK.
Download/install TunnelBear (http://www.tunnelbear.com/).
Start it up, turn on the VPN and set your location to UK.
Now go back and watch your BBC iPlayer programme.

You can also watch programmes with ITV Player (http://www.itv.com/itvplayer/)

RICH Sep 20th 2012 3:21 am

Re: Can we watch uk tv via satelite in the US?
 

Originally Posted by penguinsix (Post 10287945)
Almost all the satellites in Europe are 'under the horizon' for the US. The curve of the Earth prevents you from being able to point your dish at them. There are one or two that are over Africa / the Atlantic but even with living on the East Coast of the US you'd have to have your dish pointed basically on the horizon and hope you could get a signal (I've never been able to get a hit, despite having a house on the water and trying for a few hours).

Maybe you could try after dark, when the satellites are in the western hemisphere?;)

Bob Sep 20th 2012 3:35 pm

Re: Can we watch uk tv via satelite in the US?
 

Originally Posted by MarylandNed (Post 10288663)
TunnelBear is one. You can try it for free with a 500MB monthly download limit which won't last that long but it's enough to let you see how it works.

First, try watching something with BBC iPlayer (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/tv)
You'll get a message that you can only watch in the UK.
Download/install TunnelBear (http://www.tunnelbear.com/).
Start it up, turn on the VPN and set your location to UK.
Now go back and watch your BBC iPlayer programme.

You can also watch programmes with ITV Player (http://www.itv.com/itvplayer/)

They still doing the thing where you tweet about them to get a gig free?

Anyway, with iPlayer and the others, as long as it isn't live, you can switch the VPN off after a couple of mins as it buffers up and the show will still continue to stream, that'll save your monthly bandwidth. That trick doesn't work very well for live events, which tend to cut out now and again and need rechecking and of course you need to switch it back on if you're changing shows, so it's not ideal, but good enough for occasional uses.

Steve_ Sep 20th 2012 5:14 pm

Re: Can we watch uk tv via satelite in the US?
 

Originally Posted by Donna_c uk (Post 10287257)
Oh that's a shame,what's VPN?
Thanks

People call it "VPN" but it's not really a VPN, they use the VPN client built into Windows or whatever to connect to their proxy server but usually there is no encryption to speed it up, so really it is just a way of creating a connection.

Essentially they provide their IP address in the foreign country to your computer so that you can defeat the per country IP address restrictions.

However, because the network traffic from your computer goes through their server, usually there isn't enough bandwidth at peak times and you get choppy video or lots of buffering.

If you have someone in the UK who can help you, a better way to do it is for them to set up Internet Connection Sharing on their PC and you use that as a proxy. Because of the time difference it shouldn't be a major problem, they just have to leave their computer on.

Personally I think all the bandwidth issues make it tedious and pointless, plus the time difference also makes it stupid unless you're okay with using the BBC iPlayer.

Also another method of blocking connections is via network latency (i.e. how long the traffic takes to get from A to B), you can't defeat that using a proxy server (unless they use major buffering) and there's no way of speeding up the speed of light.

Steve_ Sep 20th 2012 5:18 pm

Re: Can we watch uk tv via satelite in the US?
 

Originally Posted by penguinsix (Post 10287945)
Almost all the satellites in Europe are 'under the horizon' for the US. The curve of the Earth prevents you from being able to point your dish at them. There are one or two that are over Africa / the Atlantic but even with living on the East Coast of the US you'd have to have your dish pointed basically on the horizon and hope you could get a signal (I've never been able to get a hit, despite having a house on the water and trying for a few hours).

Plus they use spot beams. One of my neighbours has DirecTV, it's a complete farce, he can't get the local spot beams so he has an aerial for local TV, and he can get about half the channels as DirecTV use five satellites.

It's just daft, especially as we have east coast American networks on cable and local satellite.

Makes a bit more sense if you live right on the border as you can get all the spot beams.


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