The BBC’s iPlayer offers real UK TV over the Internet but not to viewers overseas. You can unblock it quite easily, however, and get ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 too, not to mention Hulu.
I live in Bangkok but, tonight, I’ll be watching three episodes of Dr Who back-to-back from behind the sofa.
BBC iPlayer allows viewers to watch, on demand, almost any BBC TV show screened within the last seven days. Hosted on the BBC website, it works very much like YouTube. Video is streamed at anything up to full HD quality so it’s not confined to some crappy little window on your monitor. BBC iPlayer is big-screen entertainment.
If your connection is too slow for streaming (under 500 kbps), you can download your favourite shows to the BBC iPlayer Desktop and watch them up to a week later.
For the discerning viewer, this package is a big step up from the popular but narrowly focussed BBC Entertainment channel recently dumped by TrueVisions. In a previous article, I also explored a couple of other UK TV options available to Thailand’s satellite TV subscribers.
In the past, telly-deprived British expats used a variety of techniques to circumvent the BBC’s mean-spirited restrictions on overseas viewers, but the broadcaster has worked tirelessly to stop them. These days, the only bulletproof way to access BBC iPlayer from abroad is to connect via a computer located in the UK. Fortunately, this is easy to arrange and impossible to detect.
Later, you just connect to the Internet as usual via your Thai ISP and then click open a network connection to the UK. No special software is required and everything on your PC or Mac works exactly the same as it did before – except that you can now watch your favourite TV shows.
The set-up is called a virtual private network (VPN). As an added bonus, Thailand’s official nannies and snoopers can no longer censor your web browsing or read your private emails.
My True Internet broadband connection (allegedly 4Mbps) will stream UK TV at all but the busiest times of day. Actual connection speeds rarely exceed 1Mbps but the screen resolution is no worse than TrueVisions’ satellite TV. Some buffering usually occurs during the opening credits but the picture quickly settles down. Downloads to the BBC iPlayer Desktop play flawlessly at full HD resolution.
To begin watching UK TV in Thailand, the first and most crucial step is to find a specialist UK-based VPN hosting provider (not to be confused with the ubiquitous shared web-hosting providers – which don’t allow VPN). Fortunately, new VPN hosting companies are springing up all the time and monthly subscriptions start from as little as five pounds. It’s a great option because all you have to do is sign up, change a few settings on your computer and start watching UK TV.
In theory, you can do all this for free by installing an Apache server on the computer of a broadband-connected friend or relative in the UK but it’s a lot of work and your download speed will be limited by their upload speed. Furthermore, when she’s making a cup of tea, your mother will almost certainly unplug the computer during the FA Cup final.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post. With all the goings on out here an English VPN is clearly the way to go – interested to know if you have any recommendations or experience of any that are proven? So many cowboys out there on the web I rarely trust an internet subscription when I see one.
@ Jon
I didn’t recommend a particular VPN hosting company because I didn’t want readers to think that this article was an advertisement. In my own case, I tried two companies and both were satisfactory. Neither were recommended to me – I googled them – but, if either had turned out to be rubbish, I would only have lost a fiver.
You are right to be concerned about Internet cowboys. I would never access my Internet banking facilities or make a credit card purchase through an unknown third-party VPN service. For added security, you can configure the proxy settings in Firefox to connect via VPN only when you are browsing UK TV and then to default to your regular connection for everything else.
The only way to guarantee 100% security is to set up your own server in the UK. A shared hosting plan won’t cut the mustard, however. You need root access and the cheapest way to get it is through a virtual private server (VPS). Setting it up is a lot of work though.
I’ve just gone down this route and it’s working reasonably well, except for the slow Internet speeds. Saving the programs is a better option, for me at least.
The other benefits are being able to listen to, for example, the BBC Radio 5Live sports broadcasts that are normally only available inside the UK. Royal Ascot and Premiership commentary would be two examples.
This is excellent. On my last trip to the UK I got dear ‘ole mum a shiny white Mac with Wifi.
But you are right, there is a problem with good her unplugging the computer.
I Know this is late to comment bu if anyone is still reading this here’s how I did it last week and it works fine, some buffering at the very start but then uninterupted streming.
Go to the following : http://hurwi.net/blog/?p=28
and follow the simple instructions.
However when you try to connect you’ll keep getting a massage to say you need to install flash.
The fix is: Open firefox and right click on the enable/disable Tor buton in the bottom right hand corner. click on prefferencesand then security settings. Uncheck the first box in the list.
it now works fine…happy viewing