Getting BBC IPlayer in Italy

11/27/2009 - 16:15

Have just found an interesting site, that allows you to watch the BBC iplayer,and ITV programs. Have tested a few of the programs and all seem to be playing well, just a few loading delays, but may be because my broadband is slow.I use XP, with firefox, so cannot comment if it will work with a Mac or Vista, but you can only try.Setup took a couple of mins and then could get straight into viewing programs. At the moment it is a free service, so give it a try!!http://www.iportal.me/

Comment

I was very excited by this Badger, and fololowing your link I have registered, BUT I now can't seem to get any further and actually see anything! I know i am being totally thick but what do you do once you have an icon on your computer and it says, yes you have registered?????

Once you are connected through IPortal, just open up the BBC iplayer in your browser and select what you want to play. Once you have finished watching or downloading the program, you can close IP and return to your normal internet connection.

I am connected to the portal, but when I went on the BBC site it said I couldn't see anything because I live in Italy!!

Londonlass.Once you have signed in, then you can view your connection status by right clicking on the icon in the taskbar.The server will log you off automatically if not being used, but normally gives a warning giving so many seconds. If it shows connected, then you can check your IP Address with this site.http://whatismyipaddress.com/That will tell you where your computer is meant to be located. On my last login, I was in the Yorkshire dales. If you close the site, then it will revert back to the Italian IP.PS Once you had your registration, you did download the software I presume, so you should be able to see it located in network connections, in control panel.

Hey Badger, you are really great! i have done it and have just enjoyed watching gavin and Stacey, the new series, episode 1! I never knew I could have so much enjoyment from an internet connection! You have made my year! thank you!

Hi LondonlassGlad you managed to sort it out.If you get a lot of the reload stops, through slow internet connections, then you can use the Iplayer desktop program to download. You can then watch the program up to 7 days, as many times as you like after download.Currently working with some software to allow unlimited viewing time and the ability to covert to DVD, but will advise after having tried and confirmed it works ok

Has anyone tried,www.tvcatchup.com

Pas55. Did try it, but it is only available to UK residents. You may be able to get it though through IPortal as well. Quote from their site below:TVCatchup is a UK service and can only be accessed by persons located within the United Kingdom. If you are not in the UK, this service is not currently available to you. If you are in the UK, but still receive an "Unauthorised Location" error, please post in this forum.

Brilliant, works really well. Thanks for the link.Steve & Jackie

I have signed up with the site below, I've had it for about 6 months now and gives you a UK proxy server IP address which enables you to log on to all the UK I players , plus catchup Tv and Zattoo which are both live feed channels. Costs € 12.95 a month but give great service as you can watch all the channels as of Freeview.............great for sports.http://www.getconnected.com.cy/

PAS55, Just tried tv catchup, but it loads so slowly, so gave up. ITV online was very fast and good quality, even better than the BBC player. Zattoo seemed to be rubbish as well, but perhaps Gromit will let us know more of the service download speed.

Gromit - we use USAIP which is a similar service I think, but only about £5.70 per month Badger - sounds very interesting - will see if I can give it a go - using Vista and Firefox, so will report back. Thanks

As long as you get about 400Kb downlaod speed at home you should be able to get any 'peer to peer' streaming site, Catchup and Zattoo included. But Zattoo has a lower pixel rate than most so hence less quality.Thanks Sarah & Mark will give USAIP a go. Like any proxy server the end result depends on what speed you end up with at your modem; so even with Alice 7meg you will probably be lucky to get 750Kb at your home if your any more than 1 km away, no matter what PC you have.

Agreed Gromit..............The packaging may suggest Alice 7meg..............but as you say the distance from 'your' exchange is a major factor in the conection speed, I use http://www.speedtest.net/ to test actual speeds.........I'm not surewhat the Alice answer would be if you asked them what speed is it that you are paying for?!! I suspect they would use a phrase along the lines of 'UP TO 7Mb' Any download speed less than say 600/700Kb you will struggle to get a constant stream and will get a lot of 'buffering'. A dial up connection would be a total waste of time.........S

Tried to do this but it told me BETA full ! What does this mean ? Would love to get UK TV as find it quite lonely here and need some connections with home!

Sounds like as it is a new service, it has been limited to the number of initial users while in the "Beta" testing stage. You may have to use one of the other suggested sites above. Alternatively, you could also try this site, which allows 100 free signups on the first of each month, but you need to get on very quickly at the stated time. Their premium service is only US$ 5.99 month, so that is another option.http://www.hideipvpn.com/free-vpn/

Have been using a program that allows you to watch IPlayer downloads after the 7 day time limit. If you download them into windows media player, you can then remove the time limit block (DRM) for viewing and if you wish, write them to dvd with other software. The program is completely legal for use, before anyone comments. http://www.flash-on-tv.com/media-converter.html

Hi everyone If you want to watch UK or US television then the services mentioned previously just gives you a UK proxy server IP address. These are typically just a rented sever to use as a proxy, all you get is an IP address to use and some open source software. Often companies marketing themselves as a UK Television Proxy can get into trouble with UK TV companies like the BBC. Also you are limited to just one proxy in the UK or one in the US per subscription (you might even like to watch some German television or Dutch television and you won't be able to do this with one subscription). I chose to use identity cloaker as it's not marketed as a UK television proxy provider. The software allows you to access servers in countries all over the world so anyone who wants to watch US television, Canadian television can do so. The support is fantastic and I've always received a personal response by email the same day when I have had questions in the past. It's also cheaper than any UK TV Proxy service. The software isn't actually designed to allow you to watch TV abroad - this is just a bonus as it's actually designed to hide the location of your computer from others while you surf the web. So you can use the software to improve your security online. Also when you are surfing the net then you will automatically get google.co.uk and other Uk sites by default (or US sites if you choose another country). For this reason alone it's worth having the software! It's really easy to pay for the software (credit card or Paypal) and there is no automated rebilling for the service - just an email reminder to renew when your subscription runs out. a 10 day trial is 5 euros and you can sign up for 3 months, 6 months or 1 year. A years subscription is under 7 euros a month. In terms of bandwidth needed - I would say you needed a speed of around 1MB to comfortably watch live UK TV on BBC iplayer or one of teh recorded shows. I'm in a small village and my connectivity isn't great. I test my connection a few times a week using http://speedtest.net/ and it's consistently around 0.7MB so I'm not quite fast enough. Typically when the kids are watching CBBC live then we get a pause for a few seconds every 15 minutes or so but it's still very watchable. PS if you click this link identitycloaker then I do get a small referral fee from identity cloaker as I'm an affiliate but I mainly promote the software because I'm a huge fan of the software (would be willing to pay 7 euros a month just for tricking websites into thinking I'm in the UK so I automatically get English language version of the site and the UK version e.g. www.google.co.uk instead of www.google.it etc) and am so happy to be watching great UK TV again and want others to be able to access it. You can simply go directly to the web site and load the software here http://www.identitycloaker.com/ and I won't be getting any referrals :-)

Good advertising Kevan, Do not think that most people will require data input that is encrypted to U.S. military standards. I just put on a link that I have found that worked very well, so okay, they will be charging for it in the future, but for UK tv its ok, if I want to watch US tv programs then it's just as easy to use "Hotspot Shield", which is free if you do not mind the ads. I also have the other site that I mentioned lower in the post. Both work well despite the low bandwidth that we experience here as well. I always find it best to download with iplayer, remove the DRM and watch when I prefer, but that is not possible always, with kids for sure, they want to watch it live.

Hi Badger I'm just trying to help people. I have no connection with identity cloaker except that when i tell people about the different options for watching TV overseas and they use my preferred method (identity cloaker) and follow link from my site then I benefit from referrals (as I do with other sites that I promote). I am always open about this and always offer an alternative link direct to site to allow users to choose whether to credit me or not which is common practice. I should have spent more time discussing other options in my post and normally would have as without this it does sound like an advertisement. As I came late to this discussion many of the other options had been mentioned by you and others. Identity cloaker is my preferred method of watching UK TV live. Because bandwidth isn't great here in Italy it's usually better to watch downloads but this means you need to wait for download to finish and with the poor bandwidth in Italy you can't watch live TV and download at same time. A site I use regularly is http://uknova.com and I leave site on overnight to download programmes. I like this site as it's run by UK TV enthusiasts and the site won't allow anything up there that can be bought on DVD - such as Doctor Who from the BBC - so it tries to be ethical about copyright. There is no cost to join the site but you need to be able to download torrents on your computer and need software such as http://www.bittorrent.com/ to do this - this software is free. You can get lots of old UK TV from the 1970's and 1980's that enthusiasts recorded on good old fashioned video tape as well as the latest TV from the past week. If you aren't that worried about ethics and are happy to download stuff that breaches copyright then you can use a site like http://www.thebox.bz/login.php where you can basically get anything from UK TV (for example all 8 series of Shameless) or you can stream live from the net using links already in this thread - again you need torrent software. I'm not a fan of these sites as often the bandwidth isn't great because the servers hosting the sites aren't able to cope with the traffic and can't stream well - also I prefer where possible not to use sites that don't have permission to stream stuff that is copyright. Bandwidth can also be the problem with 'get UK TV sites' and you need to choose carefully to make sure you don't get a site that just uses one server in the UK that might get overloaded with users. I'm sure there are some good ones out there and if you have used them successfully then that's great. I like identity cloaker because it avoids using a 'UK TV package' solution and the problems that can come with these. The best way to watch UK TV is to use BBC iplayer and ITV player and to do this you need a UK IP address and Identity cloaker is the best way I've found after lots of research to get this. I have to admit that I originally found the hard sell of the US Military encription statement on their website a bit off putting but in fact you are better off switching encryption off if you are watching TV in italy as bandwidht here is typically poor in rural areas and encryption uses up bandwidth (i can't watch live TV with encryption on and need to switch it off then it's just enough to watch live). I also like that they are transparent about their servers - you can select from a list of servers in each country. At present they have 6 UK servers and keep adding new ones whenever there is an increase in demand (latest one added this month). I wish I hadn't come on this post now as I don't want you to think I am advertising! Kevan

oops - posted same message twice so have edited this - can't find a delete option

Sorry Kevan. It was meant as a lighthearted reply to your post. Please do not take it personally. I use bittorrent all the time as well.

Hi Badger Cheers for reply - I've been away from the community for 3 months as it was getting me down last time I was on here as I find there is a lot of negativity especially in the months after the switch from the old forums to the new community - this was my first post on returning to look at the site yesterday so thanks for letting me know it was lighthearted :-) as i was thinking that it was a bad idea posting here again. I'm going to keep coming back for a while and see if the vibe is a bit more positive. Kevan

I found Kevan's post very interesting, we have always had macs so there are a limited number of opportunities to watch UK TV .

Having a bit of a problem with this. I've signed up for the Paypal payment of €5/month but not received the password to download the software. Tried yesterday and had to cancel the Paypal as didn't want to pay for something I wasn't getting. Done it again this morning but an hour later still have no mail with the password. Anyone else had this problem or any help with this - would so love to get it organised!

Hi Hazy. Probably worth sending an email to them. Hope this helps to get it resolved. email support@iportal.me

Thanks Badger, I've done that but no reply. Is this site for Italian residents or UK residents on holiday? My credit card which is used for paypal has a UK address so shouldn't be a problem if they need that. Will have to cancel the paypal payment if I don't get a reply today, same as I did yesterday! So desperate to get some decent TV!

As I understand, it is for anyone who wants to access UK tv from abroad. It might just be there are a few minor problems, as it has just come out of the BETA testing stage. You could also try the info@iportal.me. This is the last email that I had from them copied below: "Further to our last email, today is the day that we are making changes at iPortal so that you good people can start to contribute a little towards the service. We've devised two option as we said, either monthly subscription (ideal if you're only out of the UK for short periods) and annual (for those lucky people who are abroad for a bit longer). As you've all used iPortal before you'll probably be familiar with how to switch the service on and off. Today you will need to revisit our website at www.iPortal.me and choose your subscription package. Then our system will send you a new username and password (we've made the usernames the same as your email address to make it a little less complicated). Now you'll have two choices: 1. Follow the instruction in the email and pretend you're a new user, or 2. Simply change the username and passwords in your existing logon screen without revisiting our site. We're here to help if you get stuck and remember, even after subscribing today you'll get another 24 hours to make sure it all works for you before you have to pay anything. By the way, we can also accomodate Mac users now so if you've friends with Mac's, let them into the secret! Kind regards Customer Services"

I joined this on the 5 Euros a month through paypal and it all worked really well. We could not be more pleased with it!

Hi All, This is my first posting and its a really good forum for info and advice. Well after reading this subject about TV from the UK I thought I would tell you what I have . I have been watching the BBCi player and ITV, CH 5 but not channel 4 all on catch up, also real time BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5 plus others making a total of 40 channels for the past year with only minor hicups. I know its a lot but all I need is news and maybe a film or documentary to watch before I go to bye byes. If you wish further info please ask me and I will gladly try to answer your Q. Many Thanks

http://www.filmon.com/tv/#ui-tabs-6

Hi Badger, I think, after some trial and tribulation no doubt due to my computer illiteracy, I have finally succeeded in getting the UK TV channels so wanted to say a very big 'thank you' for bringing this to our notice. Makes a big difference and Sky TV redundant! Thanks again, Hazy

Hi Hazy. Glad that you managed to sort it out. At least you can now watch the Queens Christmas message. Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year to All. K

Getting BBC IPlayer in Italy

Comment

i portal

Easy!!!

Still doesn't work!

Connection

I've done it!!!!

Hi LondonlassGlad you

Has anyone

Pas55. Did try it, but it is

Thanks

UK IP address............

PAS55, Just tried tv

UK IP address............

Gromit - we use USAIP which

Download speeds......

Connection Speeds

i player

Beta Full

Watching Iplayer programs after 7 days

Hi everyone If you want to

Good advertising Kevan, Do

Hi Badger I'm just trying

Hi Badger I'm just trying

It was a lighthearted reply

Cheers

I found Kevan's post very

iPortal.me

Try the technical support

iplayer

As I understand, it is for

paypal and iportal

BBCI and Live TV

We use this site and it's free

iPortal - Thanks

Great

Latest property in Italy

Related Questions