suburbanmum

We moved here last month and as soon as we had our cable service set up I looked into subscribing to a UK VPN service so we could watch things on the BBC Iplayer etc. We've had one for a month now and our subscription has just expired. Overall it has been ok although it has generally taken at least 4 or 5 attempts every time I log in to establish a connection. Once I'm in, watching things on the BBC has been fine (not live tv of course) but 4OD and the ITV player have been less reliable. I don't think it is anything to do with our internet connection here as I've tested the speed regularly. It's more likely to be the VPN service in the UK.

So who uses what and have people found a particular provider to be more reliable? We've been using speedytv.

HumphreyC

On 4OD I find that when I use expat shield to get a UK IP address the website still says 'not available in your region'. However if you go to 4OD's youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/4oD then it works - and as far as i can gather it is the same content. I tend not to stream it though - I use a program called GetFLV 9 to download the video and then stream it from my computer to my TV via a Roku.

suburbanmum

Thanks. But that's not the problem I'm having. It's just very slow (although does sometimes come on just fine). I'm afraid I don't understand the rest of your answer (apart from the youtube bit). I'm interested in experiences of UK VPN providers rather than looking into other fixes.

HumphreyC

Ah my apologies - I think all I read was the thread title. In that case i'm not much use as I use Expat Shield instead of the VPN providers. Once I use that I watch all the channel 4 stuff off the youtube channel and the streaming is generally pretty good.

On the VPN front - this thread might be of help

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=588592

I've heard UKivpn http://www.ukivpn.com/ and Strong http://strongvpn.com/ mentioned as being good.

Sheepdip

PM sent

dyqik

BTW, you can get ITV and other channel's stuff through the BBC IPlayer interface now, so there's only one bit of software to keep pointed in the right direction.

Bob

strongvpn is pretty solid...but yeah, plenty of threads on this with recommendations...

dave2702

Make me a +1 for Strong VPN. Never had any problems with connecting to them and watching Iplayer

CatchupTV have blocked Strong but Iplayer is fine and even the BBC live streams work perfectly

HarryTheSpider

Where do you get 'GetFLV 9' from - I googled it for 9 pages - all search results were for cracked versions with serial nos etc - from sites I don't download from - I'm looking for the 'official' source, if there is one

I'm guessing it's Windows software - which I can run on my Mac - but is there a Mac equivalent? Even if a plugin for a major browser?

Cheers

HTS

Bob

there are shed loads of programs that'll save the video feeds from the likes of youtube...even for the mac, for free...

http://www.imtoo.com/download-youtube-video-mac.html

that's the first one that came up for mac on google, but there's loads of them...

penguinsix

I love Overplay for my VPN. I get access to 30 countries through an easy desktop application so I don't have to go through any configuration. Just a click. Not only are there four or five servers in the UK but they also have Canada, Ireland, Australia and most of the rest of Europe covered, allowing me access to their players and content (RTE, CBC, ABC Australia, etc). We watch stuff from all over, and have had enough bandwidth to stream in BBC1-4 live when so desired.

I have it up on my iPad right now (in Hong Kong) watching Sky News live via the Sky News app. No hiccups. Good stream.

http://overplay.net/r.php?i=4284621788

NSBlake

We use Identity Cloaker - about $100 a year I think.

Can cloak and use a UK (or many other countries) for IPlayer and never have a problem or I open up a VPN on the same page in the UK to watch 4OD (found this works best.

Sarah

Another fan of Overplay here. Never had any problems with them. I pay about $9 or 7 quid a month.

HarryTheSpider

Thanks Bob!

HTS

BritishGuy36

Been using ibVPN for 6 months now, in fact I resubscribed this week for another 6 months. $20 for 6 months is a bargain, IMO.

Works with all the UK online TV catchup services. I haven't had any problems, except very infrequent re-buffering for just a few seconds, but that's to be expected with pretty much all of these types of services.

Watching Wimbledon live right now on the iPlayer BBC2 live stream.