BBFLBoy

Hello all, I am a newbie and about to land in the US

I'm trying to find a way to watch UK television whilst living in the States. I have found many nasty looking websites with poor picture quality which seem to be illegal to me so I want to avoid using any websites at all to be frank. I am wondering if there are any dedicated services via satellite or the internet that anyone can recommend that offer a good picture quality?

I have heard about Sling boxes but don't know how you set these up and seeing I don't have a base in the UK to do this, it's not really an option. Any advice?

Brat1

Welcome to BE!!

You'll find plenty of info on here about VPN's which is what I use, so that you can use BBCiplayer and ITVplayer. If you use the search facility, there's been a lot of discussion about them over the months and I've never had any problem with the one that I use. You can then attach your computer to the tv or just watch on your computer, up to yourself really.

Good luck with the move.......

BBFLBoy

Problem with VPNs is that you can only watch a handful of on demand stations from what I've read. No live footy. Does anyone know of a live service where you can control a Sky box, change channels, record tv etc?

penguinsix

I think you can use a VPN with the Sky Player, and if you have a Sky account you can have Sky Sports 1-4 running. But if you want to record stuff / play back you are looking at a Slingbox set up to a physical device back in the UK. You can also get BBC1-4 on a VPN using the iPlayer. Just search through the dozens of threads on VPNs and Proxies.

http://go.sky.com/vod/page/64/home.do

That said there is quite a bit of live footy on Fox Soccer Channel on US cable networks.

I use overplay as my VPN. Use it to watch plenty of stuff from the UK.

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

cluedweasel

I watch my football via liveonlinefooty.com. No VPN needed. Watching Man. City v. Swansea at the moment on Sky One HD.

N1cky

I watch live football through my TV provider, on Fox Soccer, Fox Soccer Plus and ESPN. I can't keep up with all the live games they show

Bob

VPN with either a paid service or ex-pat shield for free...or torrent the stuff.

It's all a bit on the dodgy side but that's life.

Brit In TN

You have a fair amount of choices to watch English/Euro footy in the US nowadays.
Fox Soccer Channel (FSC) is available through most carriers, cable and satellite. Shows several live games each week. They show several EPL games, CL games and an assortment of other leagues.
Fox Soccer Plus available on satellite and slowly being picked up by cable providers. Fills in almost all of the EPL gaps and other Euro games.
GOL TV available through most carriers, cable and satellite. Shows several live games each week. Has a Spanish language bias, so lots of La Liga games amongst others.
ESPN & ESPN2 available through most carriers, cable and satellite. Shows some live games each week. An occassional EPL game on a Saturday and/or Sunday, and regular MSL games.
If all else fails www.LiveOnlineFooty.com is the place to go. You can find practically any live game you want. Costs 2 quid for one day of viewing or 6 quid for sixty days of viewing. Usually good quality streams with very few problems.
There you go, with not much effort and reasonable costs you should be able to sate your footy appetite.
The following site is good for looking to see what games are being shown and on which channels : www.livesoccertv.com

cluedweasel

I find FSC to be on the expensive side. To add it to our old cable package would have cost $32 per month. The online service (foxsoccer.tv) is up to $19.95 per month now.
If your ISP is an affiliate, then ESPN3 is an option. They carry one EPL game on a Saturday at 7:00am PST (10:00am EST). They also carry some other games.
Liveonlinefooty.com did have a yearly option at 28 quid but that seems to have disappeared. What i like about that site is that they carry all the games, plus they stream Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports News. Caught a lot of the cricket this year that way. They also streamed Channel 4 so I didn't miss the Tour de France this year. I'm assuming their legality is a little "dubious" though

Brit In TN

$32 to add FSC is a bit rough. Obviously it differs provider to provider, mine costs an addtl $6 a month, which also includes other sports channels (that I'll probably never watch.) That is with Comcast, aka Xfinity, who seem to be expanding rapidly.
Nice to have lots of options though. When I first moved over here it was nigh on impossible to see a game. On more than one occassion I drove to a pub in Atlanta (nearly 8 hour roundtrip), just to watch a live game on their C band satellite telly.

BBFLBoy

Thanks for all the advice guys. It seems watching footie is not too hard however actual UK TV stations is the sticking point, hence my thoughts on some kind of Slingbox service instead.

Does anyone have any experience of a provider that uses placeshift devices? I did some research and found a firm called UKTV2C - has anyone ever used them?

Brat1

What UK tv is it you want to watch?? I can watch all ITV channels, BBC and Channel 4 with my VPN??

General Tojo

Can you watch them live or is it catch-up stuff?

BBFLBoy

I tend to watch BBC, C4, E4, News some Channel 5. Being 5 hours behind means I'd prefer a Slingbox service to be honest. For the cost of a VPN, you may as well get an entry level freeview recording package with the firm I mentioned.

Bob

Both...depends on contact...but unless it's sports, who wants to watch it live? There's other means for that, which has already been mentioned...