Hi everyone,my husband Alastair and I are new to SFN,we have just moved to Salies-de-Bearn with our two dogs,two cats and two horses.We have been told that satellite reception for English TV is very poor in this area,does anyone have experience of accessing English TV by other means as shown on you tube,please
I use the ‘Essential’ IPTV package provided by http://www.tvaway.co - great service / great price for what you get. You will need a decent internet speed of at least 2-3 Mbps.
Hi Simon,
Thanks for the link,we have an Orange livebox so hopefully that will be fast enough.My husband was worried about catching viruses and I was worried it would slow our internet down.Can you get both ITV iplayer and BBC iplayer?
Kind Regards,
Caryn in a very wet Salies
Yes via out Smart TV but thats got nothing to do with our IPTV service.
Take a look at the link I provided above - great service, loads of channels (250+) inc BT & Sky Sports / Movies, Film Library with over 7000 titles including the most recent, Series links to hundreds of old and current Tv series and 14 day catch up on many channels - all for 30€ a month!
Hi Caryn
We are nearly neighbours ( about 25 mins away so very close by French standards!) and have 2 dogs, 3 cats and one horse ( at the moment…), oh and two guinea pigs. Happy to provide any local intel! Catharine and James x
Hi Simon,
Yes we looked at the link,thank you,we thought the English package would be perfect for 30 euros a month.It seems we need a MAG box,we looked these up on Amazon and watched a You Tube clip on how it works.It wasn’t clear,does the MAG box connect to our Orange livebox wirelessly? Is Amazon the best place to buy one,the IPTV provider didn’t seem to be selling them?
Kind Regards,
Caryn and Alastair
Alastair England MA vetMB MRCVS
Hi Caryn & Alistair - I have a simple tiny MAG250 box which works just fine - there are others available. It attaches to your TV via an HDMI cable and to your home internet router (i.e. your Orange Livebox) using a WiFi dongle - or via a LAN cable if your router is near your telly. The MAG box comes with a remote control unit.
Mine is connected to the internet using a WiFi dongle (Tenda W311U) which plugs into the back of the MAG box. All really easy to set up and TVaway will send you comprehensive instructions for the box set-up. Remember you’ll be able to use the MAG box for any IPTV provider wherever you have internet access in the world - except…most are geo-blocked so you can’t use them in the UK for obvious reasons!!
Both the MAG box / remote and the WiFi dongle if you need one - are available on Amazon France (correct plugs!). Happy to help if you have any set-up / connection issues - just shout!
Importantly - do test your internet speed before ordering anything!! http://www.speedtest.net/
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Hi Simon,
Thank you so much for all the info - we are such dinosaurs without our twenty-something children to help! We have clicked the link to test our internet speed,it is 5.77,so hopefully this will work.We will have a look at Amazon France and then pursue a subscription.I am getting tired of watching our old DVDs and we’ve only been here three and a half weeks!
Kind Regards,
Caryn and Alastair
Alastair England MA vetMB MRCVS
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There is a huge amount of English language television available through the French TNT channels which might help you to pad out your DVD collection.
Hi Catharine,
Thank you for your e-mail,we have only been in Salies since 13th October,but are very happy with both the town and the house.I am very pleased we researched the move thoroughly beforehand,it was a relatively big move for us.We started looking at Languedoc when we were not yet ready to move (ie 3-4 years ago when the youngest two children were still doing A levels/gap year) and liked Pezenas and the Etang d’Thou.We then had a re-think and thought the area may be too hot and lacking in grazing for the horses and maybe too hot for active dog walking.We looked at Bordeaux and spent a rainy afternoon in Dax on our way to Hossegor.We really liked Dax (and La Gallerie Lafayette) and thought we could easily get to the coast,the Pyrenees and Spain.I asked the estate agents for property near Dax,but they had nothing.Diane at Bordeaux and Beyond then persuaded me that Salies and Sauveterre were equally appealing so we ended up viewing properties over two viewing trips.Meanwhile we had been to 3 of David Yeates’ A Place in the Sun seminars and found those very informative and encouraging.Also,although I didn’t feel in a position to add comments,I found reading SFN conversations helpful,it proved that others were taking the plunge successfully! The referendum was a blow as I expect it was to most expats.Fortunately I had changed the money for this property with the broker two days before the referendum,but it was our intention to buy a second French property and lease this one during the summer,now we shall have to sit tight and see what happens.Our three children all voted Remain,they saw themselves European as well as British,my 84 year old godmother had the grace not to vote for something that would not affect her,but my 84 year old mother voted Leave harking back to the germans in the war! How unfair!
I have already had a very helpful reply to my query about English TV and Alastair has been on Amazon France to order the MAG box to hopefully get it started.
Many thanks and Kind Regards,
Caryn
PS We didn’t buy the property through B&B,but through Sophie Folley,who coulndn’t have been more helpful and honest.
Alastair England MA vetMB MRCVS
Hi David,
Thank you we did not know that (have only watched Sky News) we will give it a try.
Kind Regards,
Caryn
Alastair England MA vetMB MRCVS
We use UnoTelly to bypass the block on receiving TV outside UK and an ipad with Apple TV to link to our TV. This costs about $40 a year for UnoTelly and the apple TV was about £80. Works well as long as the speed holds up but as it can fluctuate quite a bit sometimes you do get occasional whirlies. The only problem has been with itv recently when some programmes (Tutenkamen) won’t display on the TV although they do on the ipad. Itv technies know about the problem but can’t fix it as they don’t have access to the apple software. It doesn’t happen with bbc or ch 4. €30 a month seems quite expensive to me.
30€ a month expensive? I believe the current Sky package alone with all movie and sports channels is approaching £80 a month (90€!) - nearly 3 times more expensive. I’d much rather have a ‘normal’ TV service with remote control than any service via a VPN. Apple TV doesn’t provide any of the premium Sky channels.
Just to be clear - there is no ‘blocking’ on UK package IPTV services used in France. Most of them are however blocked for use in the UK - so as not to upset the poor resident Sky subscribers who pay an absolute fortune!
You do not need any kind of VPN or unblockers to use http://www.tvaway.co/
Just a note to say that I live not far from you guys at Brassempouy and for the last three years I’ve had a large dish (120cm) and a freeview box. I get all the same channels as uk and barring the cost of buying the box and dish, I have no further expenses. Very heavy storms sometimes block the signal but only three times that I recall so far…
Have you tried Netflix? At €6 a month it’s very good value. You need something like Chromecast or apple TV to cast from your computer to the Television.
We use a Raspberry Pi computer with OSMC and Exodus. You might need your children to set it up for you, but we watch English and American programmes and films when we want, without adverts. You can buy a basic Pi with all the extras for around £50 https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-kits-and-bundles. The running costs thereafter a zero.
You then add OSMC https://osmc.tv and Exodus https://www.tvaddons.ag/kodi-addons/show/plugin.video.exodus/
It may all sound like gobbledygook, but it will make sense to the kids. They can set it up and post it to you (not much bigger than a cigarette packet).
Gerry
I access all British TV through FilmOn.com. Mine is free, but you can pay for a better service. I no longer use my TV since the satellite was changed. I watch on my PC, but I believe I could do the same on a Smart TV.
For us we are definitely going down the route of a MAG box and tvaway,thank you Simon.We are in a single storey property in Salies so the thought of buying a satellite,getting it put up only to find it had poor reception was not welcome.We particularly like the fact that the box is connected to the TV with a remote,not our laptop and also that we can take the MAG box and use it in other locations.30 euros per month is half what my mother is paying for her sky package in the UK and we think (hope) it is technology we can talk to.
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Filmon is just fine for regular UK tv and they even offer their own TV set-top receiver box now. Only issue for me is no premium sports services and no up-to-date film library. Added to this you need to pay hefty subs to be able to record. My IPTV supplier has 14 day catch up on most channels including the premuim ones - this lets us watch programmes when we choose to. Lots of UK stuff we like is on too late! The film library offered is superb with the newest releases still in the cinema - just watched Bridget Jones Baby at the weeked - fab!
There is another solution; turn on your television and watch French TV. It’s free! And you can slowly learn the language.
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