Hi MauriceYes,better than Filmon, although you can pay for the premium Filmon service that loses the adverts and also gives you HD. The problem is that most Internet connections in Italy are just too slow for HD, but certainly the Standard definition with UKTV4ITALIA will give a good SD resolution on a decent size screen (I use a 42 inch plasma). There are LD and HD options as well-Richard
If you have a decent Internet connection its easy - Use Filmon or UKTV4ITALIAIf you want a real or normal TV experience watching through your TV, UKTV4ITALIA do a box that you plug into your hdmi port on your TV and also the internet and you can get all the UK free to air channels and lots more, including all the UK radio channels, 14 day catch up and recording.Filmon has adverts, similar to Youtube (thats where they make their money, and if you try and watch on a big TV screen its a bit grainy (put fine on an iPad) and there is an annoying Filmon Logo always on the screen. Not bad for free though!UKTV4ITALIA does not have advertising or screen logo and its a normal TV experience but the cost is about £10 a month.You need about 1.2 Mbps download speed (in the evening) for standard definition and you can check your internet by using www.speedtest.net
You could get a Voip phone and run it on the Internet.If you only need it for a few weeks a year, you could consider a Pay as You Go solution from one of the Satellite internet providers. Avanti and Tooway have a solution where there is no monthly charge, you just pay for the data. You would have to buy the Satellite dish though!You could use a company such as Europasat (based in Oxford - UK) and they will the system over here and you could get a local Satellite man to instal, or check out www.europasatitalia.comI believe the only issue is that you can't make Emergency services calls, but on the plus side, there is no landline monthly charges and the call costs are very low (or nothing)!Another alternative is to use a 3G dongle, this may be the cheapest solution - you could try Vodaphone, Tim or Wind and I don't think you need a Codice Fiscale, only your Passport.
Lots of news out there about BBC etc changing to the new Astra 2e satellite, this may well mean that noone in Italy may be able to get " freeview" English Tv, no matter what size of dish you buy. The change over should happen in the next couple of months, so keep your ear to the ground ( you will soon see loads of posts - such as where has my UK tv gone) ! It would be sad to buy a big dish, pay for installation and find out that it may not work in 2014.But maybe it will still work ( unlikely, but no one really knows at the moment) and there may also be the same problem with UK Sky, so as bunterboy says, one way is by streaming over the Internet, we do this all of the time and it works well as long as you can find an internet connection with speeds of at least 2mb stable download speed, otherwise you will get the program stopping and starting as it refreshes. When choosing internet ( if you go that way) beware of the companies claims of " up to" speeds, most are a lot slower! We use Satellite broadband and it delivers 20 mbps - check out www.europasatitalia.com or any of the other Tooway distributors. Anyway, i would just hold fast before making any investment and see what occurs over the next two months!
If you need a longer term solution, you could consider the Tooway Satellite Internet, the New system is very fast and works well for streaming tv, voip telephone as well as the internet in general. They do a Pay As You Go system as well, so you only pay when you use it and there is no monthly payment. Check out www.europasatitalia.com or www.europasat.com. The system works pretty much anywhere in Italy.
BBC iPlayer can be a problem if you have an iP address in Italy, basically, the BBC system can see where you are located and if it believes that you are not in the UK - you can't get the service. There are ways around this, like buying a VPN service that disguises your location and makes the BBC think that you are UK based, it doesn't cost very much and some internet providers can provide it for free. Of course a Uk based mobile phone or dongle would not have a problem.I have just watched England v Australia rugby on my computer!
You can't use a standard dish for satellite internet, the "eye" (LNB) on the dish is very different and a lot larger, but you can fit a TV LNB to a Satellite dish quite easily. So yes, you can have one dish with both, but you have to start with the Satellite dish rather than a TV unit!That said, the internet is a great way to watch On Demand Tv - provided your internet connection is up to the job speed wise (you need a steady 2-4mbps download speed), I have been watching BBC and lots of other Ondemand Tv very successfully over the last year using Satellite.You could check out www.europasatitalia.com for satellite or of course Tim or Vodaphone etc.
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Hi MauriceYes,better than Filmon, although you can pay for the premium Filmon service that loses the adverts and also gives you HD. The problem is that most Internet connections in Italy are just too slow for HD, but certainly the Standard definition with UKTV4ITALIA will give a good SD resolution on a decent size screen (I use a 42 inch plasma). There are LD and HD options as well-Richard
If you have a decent Internet connection its easy - Use Filmon or UKTV4ITALIAIf you want a real or normal TV experience watching through your TV, UKTV4ITALIA do a box that you plug into your hdmi port on your TV and also the internet and you can get all the UK free to air channels and lots more, including all the UK radio channels, 14 day catch up and recording.Filmon has adverts, similar to Youtube (thats where they make their money, and if you try and watch on a big TV screen its a bit grainy (put fine on an iPad) and there is an annoying Filmon Logo always on the screen. Not bad for free though!UKTV4ITALIA does not have advertising or screen logo and its a normal TV experience but the cost is about £10 a month.You need about 1.2 Mbps download speed (in the evening) for standard definition and you can check your internet by using www.speedtest.net
You could get a Voip phone and run it on the Internet.If you only need it for a few weeks a year, you could consider a Pay as You Go solution from one of the Satellite internet providers. Avanti and Tooway have a solution where there is no monthly charge, you just pay for the data. You would have to buy the Satellite dish though!You could use a company such as Europasat (based in Oxford - UK) and they will the system over here and you could get a local Satellite man to instal, or check out www.europasatitalia.comI believe the only issue is that you can't make Emergency services calls, but on the plus side, there is no landline monthly charges and the call costs are very low (or nothing)!Another alternative is to use a 3G dongle, this may be the cheapest solution - you could try Vodaphone, Tim or Wind and I don't think you need a Codice Fiscale, only your Passport.
Lots of news out there about BBC etc changing to the new Astra 2e satellite, this may well mean that noone in Italy may be able to get " freeview" English Tv, no matter what size of dish you buy. The change over should happen in the next couple of months, so keep your ear to the ground ( you will soon see loads of posts - such as where has my UK tv gone) ! It would be sad to buy a big dish, pay for installation and find out that it may not work in 2014.But maybe it will still work ( unlikely, but no one really knows at the moment) and there may also be the same problem with UK Sky, so as bunterboy says, one way is by streaming over the Internet, we do this all of the time and it works well as long as you can find an internet connection with speeds of at least 2mb stable download speed, otherwise you will get the program stopping and starting as it refreshes. When choosing internet ( if you go that way) beware of the companies claims of " up to" speeds, most are a lot slower! We use Satellite broadband and it delivers 20 mbps - check out www.europasatitalia.com or any of the other Tooway distributors. Anyway, i would just hold fast before making any investment and see what occurs over the next two months!
If you need a longer term solution, you could consider the Tooway Satellite Internet, the New system is very fast and works well for streaming tv, voip telephone as well as the internet in general. They do a Pay As You Go system as well, so you only pay when you use it and there is no monthly payment. Check out www.europasatitalia.com or www.europasat.com. The system works pretty much anywhere in Italy.
BBC iPlayer can be a problem if you have an iP address in Italy, basically, the BBC system can see where you are located and if it believes that you are not in the UK - you can't get the service. There are ways around this, like buying a VPN service that disguises your location and makes the BBC think that you are UK based, it doesn't cost very much and some internet providers can provide it for free. Of course a Uk based mobile phone or dongle would not have a problem.I have just watched England v Australia rugby on my computer!
You can't use a standard dish for satellite internet, the "eye" (LNB) on the dish is very different and a lot larger, but you can fit a TV LNB to a Satellite dish quite easily. So yes, you can have one dish with both, but you have to start with the Satellite dish rather than a TV unit!That said, the internet is a great way to watch On Demand Tv - provided your internet connection is up to the job speed wise (you need a steady 2-4mbps download speed), I have been watching BBC and lots of other Ondemand Tv very successfully over the last year using Satellite.You could check out www.europasatitalia.com for satellite or of course Tim or Vodaphone etc.