Quote: there are many free options to watch UK TV, so recommending paying for a service seems like you may have some invested interest with the company.
I'm not sure how you get to that opinion Simon but most people on this discussion so far have been talking about Hola which is free and allows your computer to hide your IP address and access Tv etc worldwide . I can keep up with a favourite US series as it airs in the USA from France thanks to Hola. I can't understand why people pay for a VPN service when Hola is there for free. Filmon is a great service
My main question to this discussion is how the android box works as come November the TV in our house will be too far from the Free box to connect despite having a 5 m HDMI cable and a one off payment for an android box sounds like the answer for us.
there are many free options to watch UK tv, so recommending paying for a service seems like you may have some invested interest with the company.
https://www.filmon.com/tv/bbc-one
live tv, but no option to rewind or watch missed episodes
http://www.primewire.ag/
this is where you can watch any film or series for free, just be careful not to click on any add, if a link doesn't play, choose another link
the only way to watch tv on demand from bbci player ect... does mean using a service that routes your i.p to an english server unless you fancy your chances at configuring a proxy server but i.p's expire and you need to keep changing them and they're often slow.
whatever you do, stay away from expatshied! i've had to do the cleanup work to get rid of all the malware that thing puts on your pc
show some comradery to your fellow English and help them out :)
Downloaded Hola 6 months ago...never looked back, took two minutes and can watch anything on iplayer, bbc, 4od etc...films GBBO you name it can watch it...no fuss no buffering. On tablet Tv set and PC. Oh and the best thing its free...no subscription etc
Yes, but which one is best.......................there's only one way to find out...................
;o)) know where are coming from Vic....Apero's can be such a pain!!!
I've been using Hola for a while now to catch up on stuff I've missed when I'm forced away from the tele. to drink alcohol at our neighbours etc. Works great,
Wow...thanks Peter.....it makes no sense to me whatsoever.....but then I'm a technophobe....the article quotes many people far more intelligent that I who rate it though.....so, all's good with the world ;o))
According to this article, Hola appears to be a kind of very efficient peer-to-peer networking. This means that it is using Hola users in, say, the UK to access the various UK catch-up TV websites and then transferring the data to the foreign user. They claim it only does this when the UK user isn't using their computer so as not to slow it down.
Skype does something similar, though phone calls use rather less internet capacity than a TV stream.
I've no idea what it is exactly Nick.....some sort of VPN? I'm guessing ;o))
But it works a treat, tried it this morning and watched a couple of episodes of grand designs.....;o))
It was interesting to see other options and refinements. I was particularly interested in Brian English's mention of Hola, especially as it was free! I had a look at the web-site but couldn't really find on the opening page a "welcome to Hola - this is what we are" - without downloading stuff, which I'm always loathe to do, especially when it's free.
Brian - what exactly (in simple language) is Hola ? and is there stuff it doesn't do compared to my-expat-network ?
Desktop running windows 8.1 I am connected direct to the Free box but do have wifi running in the house. The two tablets we own Kindle Fire HD and Acer A1 seem too be the only two that don't allow Hola to work.
Our Tv only has one hdmi imput connection.
We are with Orange and the Livebox was about 4 years old and used old wifi technology. They had an offer called Jet which covers mostly free telephone and mobile calls plus French digital TV. (We no longer have a fixed landline - all calls are over the internet so money saved there).
The Livebox is situated in the back hallway about 40 feet from the tv. The Livebox tv box is next to the tv and joined by ethernet to a Netgear plug-in wifi extender which connects to the Livebox in the hall.
Also plugged into the tv is a Droidbox iMX6 TV box (http://www.amazon.co.uk/DroidBOX-iMX6-Android-Box-Performance/dp/B00DIJXZ6Q) which comes preloaded with various apps including FilmOn, Itv player, Channel 4 but not BBC iPlayer - there is a Google browser to connect with iPlayer via a VPN - there are 2 apps preloaded for this service. There are various free services which I haven't found very good so I use www.my-expat-network.co.uk for £5 a month.
This all works fine but sometimes with a lot of buffering due to our .5mb internet connection. To defeat buffering it is possible to download programmes and view them on a computer but this also takes a fair amount of time.
The advantage with using the Droidbox is that it frees up your computer.
Claire - It would be helpful to know some of the circumstances:
Is yours a Laptop or Desktop computer?
Does it run on Windows, Apple OS X, or something else?
Does your computer connect to Internet through WiFi or with an Ethernet cable?
Where is your 'router' (e.g. Free-, Live-, SFR/Neuf-Box) now and where will it be when the extension is completed?
Do you have any tablet-type computers? (e.g. Android or iPad/iPhone)
Answers to the above should help get you some practicable options.
What is your android box called Neil? can you get catch up i.e. Iplayer etc on it?
I am using an HDMI cable for catch up from the computer to the Tv but when DH finishes building our extension and I have a separate office space The Tv will be too far from the computer so other alternatives would be helpful.
Exactly, this is why haven't bothered. I have a very slow internet speed. Probably, only 1mb.......I'm also lucky enough to have chosen to live north of Angouleme, so reception is not an issue for me, at least, not yet??......"on verra" ;o))
In fact, a fair bit of it is free to stream to computer now BUT the speed of your line counts a lot so freezing and pixelation are par to the course if it is slow.
This is just a standard VPN service such as www.my-expat-network.co.uk which I use for catchup TV which is £5 a month. I have also just bought an Android box which you plug into your tv and connects vis wifi thus freeing up your computer. It has Filmon app pre-installed (plus others such as Google web browser, Itv, channel 4, etc.) which gives you UK tv for free.