3858 Watch UK TV in Italy without a satellite dish

I haven't got one of these things so can't give a personal recommendation yet, but the Slingbox might end up being a very cheap way of getting access to UK broadcasting in Italy. It looks like you'd need ADSL in Italy and a UK base to constantly give you the feed, but you could avoid getting a mega satellite dish and it would be available for a one-off fee, so no need for continuing subscriptions.

[URL="http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029552,49273687,00.htm"]http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029552,49273687,00.htm[/URL]

Don'tcha just love technology? :D

Category
Cost of living - Utility Services

As far as I understand this technology (which isn't a lot!!) you have to have
1: some sort of "interpreter" (set top box, or aerial + tuner) for whatever is being broadcasted to your base "outside Italy".
2: something at that home base which will forward this stuff to your Slingbox
3: a Slingbox and a computer at your Italian base

Probably useful for techies on the move, but not a one-stop solution to Britsh TV in Italy IMO. Also - streaming "as good as Yahoo"............mmmmm :) :)

Actually I was thinking that the set up would be something like this: signal goes down my aerial (in the UK) to my Freeview box. I'd link that up to a sling box which in turn would feed into my PC in the UK. With always on broadband in the UK, I should be able to access that signal at any time via a PC in Italy (without the need for another sling box, I think) although I think the viewing wouldn't be satisfactory if there was no broadband on the Italian end.

I'm guessing but don't know for sure that there might have to be some sort of special software on the Italian computer so that you could see the programmes if windows media or Real Player couldn't interpret the signals.

Funny enough a woman from Sony was on Radio 5 this morning they're have something coming out this year cost about £225.00.You'll even be able to record things while away from home.

[quote=Relaxed]As far as I understand this technology (which isn't a lot!!) you have to have
1: some sort of "interpreter" (set top box, or aerial + tuner) for whatever is being broadcasted to your base "outside Italy".
2: something at that home base which will forward this stuff to your Slingbox
3: a Slingbox and a computer at your Italian base

Probably useful for techies on the move, but not a one-stop solution to Britsh TV in Italy IMO. Also - streaming "as good as Yahoo"............mmmmm :) :)[/quote]

Oops wrong Relaxed - you only need one slingbox which conects to the AV output from your home tv/vcr/dvr etc. this then connects to your home ADSL connection and hence will only upload at 256kbps. You then need to be able to connect to your home network via the web to pick up the streaming video etc. However if you don't have a static IP address or use DDNS then this could be really tricky! You also need the systems at home to be up and running as well as your at least 256kbps download to view the pictures and you can't change the channel!! Plus the machine in Italy would have to have their special software loaded on it - or is that on your computer at home which has to be on as well?

Sorry to be a bu**er - but has anyone tried this using a Telefonino

I would be interested to know your results - I am not in Italy at the mo - but I have 9GB to use....

Mobile technology in Italy is soooo cheap compared to the UK

And useful that someone that doesnt have a landline.

I hope you arent using me as an experiment again.... ;)

My next challenge...

I have been looking at UK TV on a computer, via a slingbox, and it is really pretty watchable.

The set up is a slingbox in the UK, fed by an aerial (apparently it has its own freeview box incorporated), and uploading at 484kbps. Coming down the pipe here in Italy at about 340 - 350 (at best) - anything below 300 is not very watchable. It takes a bit of time to optimise (which it does automatically), but is pretty impressive. There have been some difficulties wth a decent download speed - it was fine in the morning, but hasn't been as good in the evenings - we haven't yet established why this is.

The computer in Italy has the slingbox software on it, which lets it change the programs, and this computer is coded to that slingbox: I don't know if it is a technical or copyrght issue (or simply practicality) that the computer and the slingbox have to be dedicated to each other.

Anyway, for any of you holidaymakers or permanents with some relative/friend with a decent UK broadband connection, it looks as if a one off payment of £180 for the slingbox gets you all the UK digi terrestial channels.

I have been searching for some internet TV sites. I avoided fileshare because of viruses.

I found a site [url]http://tv.peekvid.com[/url] that has quite a lot of UK programmes that you can watch with no hassle at all. The quality is not great....but its free and has no waiting time.

It already has Season 3 of LOST. But I will wait for better quality.

I once used direct2download.com where you pay$1.99 per episode. Quality was fantastic, but it took 3 hrs to download Prison Break on a 4Meg line.

Anybody found a better site?

I was wondering if there were programmes that could be downloaded/cached & watched later.

I have seen Sky's option to do this but wondered if there were other optnios.

We are restricted by a slow connection, so were trying to counter this by caching....... any ideas?

Saw the new Sony thing at the airport last week lets you use your UK tv to view and record all brit tv via broadband in Italy or where ever and £180

[quote=PAS 55]..... via broadband....[/quote]

We lack the 'width'