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This may be old news to others, but I have just stumbled across a service at tvplayer.com which seems to be quite new. It offers live streaming (only) of the main uk channels in what the reviews say is high quality (if your broadband speed is up to it), apple and android apps (with chromecast support coming "soon"), and a user interface which seems very much better than filmon (which admittedly isn't saying much). In short, everything I want, if it lives up to its billing.

But it is UK only. I'm currently in Australia and don't have access to smart DNS or VPN service so can go no further. But if anyone cares to explore and report their experience, I would be very interested.

seems to work with my iportal vpn. i will explore it further later.

Yes, it works really well with iportal and you can zap between channels. Not many channels for the moment but more should be added soon. Picture is good (on my computer, I haven't checked it yet with the tv). A good alternative to other tv channels suppliers.

franglaise wrote:Yes, it works really well with iportal and you can zap between channels. Not many channels for the moment but more should be added soon. Picture is good (on my computer, I haven't checked it yet with the tv). A good alternative to other tv channels suppliers.

How many channels are available then. Does this include the BBC / ITV / 4 series? I thought that Iportal was going to have a big British collection of channels as well as a big selection of American channels too.

Probably I'm confused with what iportal is providing. I have planned to sign-up soon too so it's worth asking.

Blackduff

blackduff wrote:
Probably I'm confused with what iportal is providing. I have planned to sign-up soon too so it's worth asking.

Blackduff

iPortal doesn't provide any channels, it is simply a VPN which you can use to fool services in other countries into thinking that you are in that country.

There are several ways of doing this but VPNs and SmartDNS are the main ones.

SmartDNS is the simpler and sometimes faster solution, it just routes traffic to pre-determined sites such as BBC and ITV through servers owned by the service providers.

A VPN routes all traffic from your computer through a server provided by the service provider.

The service providers computers are in the UK so sites that require you to be in the UK think that you are there.

There are a few free services but they are generally not very good
Expect to pay around €4 a month for a service that will allow you to use all the main UK channels plus a host of fringe ones.

As for TVPlayer.com, it looks a really professional site but it doesn't appear give any more channels that you would get with Filmon. If you want access to UK catchup services like BBC iPlayer or ITV player then you need a VPN or SmartDNS, if you have one of those services then TVPlayer looks a good option. They also have apps for IOS and Android - I have it running on a G-Box MX2 with Overplay smart DNS and on an Apple iPad.

A couple of questions re IPortal.

You register with IPortal, pay your subscription monthly or yearly. You can watch UK TV programmes on your computer. The questions are
1 Can you also watch them on a television
2 And if so what do you need to connect the computer & television.

Hi.

Yes you can. If you have a reasonably new laptop it will have an HDMI connection and you can connect to a reasonably modern TV with an HDMIconnection via an HDMI lead. HDMI carries video and audio. You need to select the HDMI input on the TV.

If you have a reasonably new TV but a laptop without HDMI you will need a VGA Cable for the video and an RCA cable for the audio. You need to select the PC input on the TV

I believe that there are also ways to do it on an old TV via a scart socket and I found a website once by googling which explained just about every possible connection.

I have been going to Australia regularly over the past few years and iportal has worked well there.

neil mitchell wrote:Hi.

Yes you can. If you have a reasonably new laptop it will have an HDMI connection and you can connect to a reasonably modern TV with an HDMIconnection via an HDMI lead. HDMI carries video and audio. You need to select the HDMI input on the TV.

If you have a reasonably new TV but a laptop without HDMI you will need a VGA Cable for the video and an RCA cable for the audio. You need to select the PC input on the TV

I believe that there are also ways to do it on an old TV via a scart socket and I found a website once by googling which explained just about every possible connection.

Thanks for the reply Neil. Thats another option available as a NASA style dish is out of the question for me. I wonder would iPortal oblige me by providing Irish TV as a goodwill gesture lol.

There is Irish TV on Filmon for which of course you don't need a VPN. You might find an Irish TV website which, via the IPortal VPN, you'd probably be able to use.

I now have an IPTV system set up via my laptop/tv and it works well. I'm not in a hurry to go back to satellite.

What Irish TV is available, in a quick look I can't find any.

lonesome paddy wrote:A couple of questions re IPortal.

You register with IPortal, pay your subscription monthly or yearly. You can watch UK TV programmes on your computer. The questions are
1 Can you also watch them on a television
2 And if so what do you need to connect the computer & television.

Google make a product called the Chromecast which you can buy on Amazon. http://www.amazon.fr/Google-Chromecast- ... Chromecast

You may see several other products that claim to do the same thing but I've yet to see one that works

It lets you connect wirelessly to a TV from a PC running the Google Chrome Browser ( An alternative to Internet Explorer ). This has the advantage over a cable in that the PC doesn't need to be next to the TV.

The Chromecast does lots of other things that don't work here so ignore the literature.

With the Chrome browser you can also run an add-on called MediaHint which does similar things to iPortal but is free. In the long term you would get better results from a paid for service, iPortal is one of a number available and not necessarily the best.

Kate
Can you make this thread to a "Sticky" or "Tacky" or whatever this is called. I think that lots of people will like to review this in the near future. We're all needing ways to see the BBC again. (we need an Emoticon for "thanks")

Blackduff

A mere £10 on Amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/Google-Chromeca ... chromecast

malcolmcooper wrote:A mere £10 on Amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/Google-Chromeca ... chromecast

You missed the bit about £30 UK delivery

blackduff wrote:Kate
Can you make this thread to a "Sticky" or "Tacky" or whatever this is called. I think that lots of people will like to review this in the near future. We're all needing ways to see the BBC again. (we need an Emoticon for "thanks")

Blackduff

If we are going to have a sticky, it might be better to have one post covering the whole topic from scratch. I am not volunteering, but if no-one gets in before me, I need to occupy my mind on a long-distance plane flight in ten days time or so....

It would of course need to start as a draft, with input from others who have experience of the various options.

You ARE Spartacus! Yes please! it would be great to have all the different threads and topics pulled together!

Just been looking at TVPlayer.com:

It looks quite good but there are many fewer channels available than on Filmon. It needs a VPN such as iPlayer but it doesn't work with the SmartDNS I'm using (Overplay).

One nice feature is that you can select your data rate from 0.34, 1.1, 2.0 Mb/s with increasing picture quality so it might be useful for those with a slow internet connection. The higher data rate is equivalent to Filmon's HD but is still free of charge. If left as default it starts at low rate and seems to test it before switching to your best rate.

The android app looks quite slick and works well but again needs a VPN unlike Filmon.

Russell.

russell wrote:Just been looking at TVPlayer.com:

It looks quite good but there are many fewer channels available than on Filmon. It needs a VPN such as iPlayer but it doesn't work with the SmartDNS I'm using (Overplay).
Russell.

You could ask them to add it? Or even better, ask Unotelly as well, and save me the effort.

Hi, can I ask that you do make the effort and add your voice to this thread...
http://help.unotelly.com/support/discus ... pics/75680
I'm thinking the more people that do perhaps the higher priority it will have.

martyn94 wrote:

russell wrote:Just been looking at TVPlayer.com:

It looks quite good but there are many fewer channels available than on Filmon. It needs a VPN such as iPlayer but it doesn't work with the SmartDNS I'm using (Overplay).
Russell.

You could ask them to add it? Or even better, ask Unotelly as well, and save me the effort.

It works fine on Overplay, check again Russell, it even has an Androd app that works well

malcolmcooper wrote:Hi, can I ask that you do make the effort and add your voice to this thread...
http://help.unotelly.com/support/discus ... pics/75680
I'm thinking the more people that do perhaps the higher priority it will have.

I did, and it said that it didn't recognise my email address. I don't have the energy to pursue it for the moment. But it it is one of the less-considered aspects of the ip-tv saga: you often to have to get up close to systems which don't work very well (or which work quite well if only you could remember the id and password you used, on spec, 18 months ago).

martyn94 wrote:

malcolmcooper wrote:Hi, can I ask that you do make the effort and add your voice to this thread...
http://help.unotelly.com/support/discus ... pics/75680
I'm thinking the more people that do perhaps the higher priority it will have.

I did, and it said that it didn't recognise my email address. I don't have the energy to pursue it for the moment. But it it is one of the less-considered aspects of the ip-tv saga: you often to have to get up close to systems which don't work very well (or which work quite well if only you could remember the id and password you used, on spec, 18 months ago).

I did find a bit more energy, and found that you have to set up a separate account actually to talk to unotelly's support people. A new entry to the endless competition "how clueless can you get away with if you want to make a living out of the internet?".

martyn94 wrote:

martyn94 wrote:

malcolmcooper wrote:Hi, can I ask that you do make the effort and add your voice to this thread...
http://help.unotelly.com/support/discus ... pics/75680
I'm thinking the more people that do perhaps the higher priority it will have.

I did, and it said that it didn't recognise my email address. I don't have the energy to pursue it for the moment. But it it is one of the less-considered aspects of the ip-tv saga: you often to have to get up close to systems which don't work very well (or which work quite well if only you could remember the id and password you used, on spec, 18 months ago).

I did find a bit more energy, and found that you have to set up a separate account actually to talk to unotelly's support people. A new entry to the endless competition "how clueless can you get away with if you want to make a living out of the internet?".

For the avoidance of doubt, I did add my two ha'penth.

Thanks, I hope it helps. I'll be looking into Overplay. I'm very happy with my set up except that I can't yet get live TV so if Overplay solves this via TVPlayer.com I'll move to them.

Allan wrote: It works fine on Overplay, check again Russell, it even has an Androd app that works well

Yes, you're quite right. My IP had changed my IP address so Overplay didn't recognise my account

This is a continuing problem for me with Overplay as they use your IP address to verify your account. If at any time there is a power outage when your router restarts your IP allocates a new address.

Russell.

russell wrote:

Allan wrote: It works fine on Overplay, check again Russell, it even has an Androd app that works well

Yes, you're quite right. My IP had changed my IP address so Overplay didn't recognise my account

This is a continuing problem for me with Overplay as they use your IP address to verify your account. If at any time there is a power outage when your router restarts your IP allocates a new address.

Russell.

Overplay will use a dynamic dns name if your router supports it

Which router do you have, I might be able to send some instructions

I have never had the changed IP address issue when at home: free seem to give you a fixed IP address as standard. But if you do have the issue and can't/won't use dynamic dns, unotelly seem reasonably helpful. There is an android app which you can use to update your IP address with minimum effort (an iOS version was said to be coming but does not seem to have yet arrived). And their website gives instructions for automating regular updates on windows and mac machines, though on a very quick look they are not for the un-geeky.

Allan wrote: Overplay will use a dynamic dns name if your router supports it

Which router do you have, I might be able to send some instructions

Thanks Allan,

I have an SFR Neufbox NB4. I can't find any settings for dynamic DNS. I would be grateful if you know some way to enable it.

Martyn - thanks. I haven't tried Unotelly. I must give it a go.

Russell.

Russell

Google neufbox and dyndns, there are loads of pages explaining how to set it up?

Alternatively look at noip.com, they have routines for windows, mac and Linux to update dynamic dns