Getting iplayer on smart TV

General Discussion
21

I am now thinking that (as I don't need a blu-ray player) those clever people somewhere out there in the far east have produced a little box - perhaps available at Maplin or somewhere - which gives me the exact feature I need from the smart blu-ray player - but at a fraction of the cost?

Any ideas please before I spend £70 on a blu-ray player;

thanks

geoff

22

thanks Julian

now I'm not g"tting any reply facility !

thanks for that

so do you think any smart blue ray player will work - i.e. can i buy the cheapest (- or do you think i should go for one we know we have the facility to change its DNS rather than take a chance on an old cheapo?)

23

thanks for your very detailed reply. Much appreciated;

so can I sum up by proposing that I buy a UK smart blue ray player, in the uk and then linking then linking that to my wifi?

Am I correct in thinking that this will give me what I need without changing the DNS of my TV?

cheers

geoff

24

I think the region can't be manually changed but it will be automatically detected. I expect that if you take the Panasonic telly to the UK it will show you UK services without any configuration alterations. As I believe it would if you plugged it on to my router.

25

Why won't it help with his Panasonic? All the router does is give him a UK IP address.

What I should have said initially is that I built the router specifically for the TV rather than it was anything special. It is just a standard cheap router in fact, however, it is able to run the required DD-WRT build that my setup required so check that first in you intend to buy one. Not all routers will handle the processing requirements of VPN either.

26

The quality of your VPN service plays a big factor too. I tried a couple before I settled on StrongVPN.

Good luck!

27

This is the speed I get which although slow suprisingly works fine http://www.speedtest.net/result/4104426746.png

28

I mean that I bought the router and configured it for the sole purpose of providing a connection for the TV. This router connects to my existing Orange broadband router and is not a replacement for it. It is secondary and does not alter in any way my existing setup.

The only devices on my network that connects to it are the TV and my iPad.The VPN setup on the router makes the last hop of my IP connection a UK location which is what the server is expecting to see when you access a UK streaming service for example.

Altering DNS setups is unreliable at best and I don't recommend it. I pay 85 USD per year for the StrongVPN setup and the router was about 30 euros on Amazon.

The setup is quite involved and will require you flashing the firmware of the router prior to setting it up. You'll also need a minimum of a 2 to 3 meg download speed for it to work properly.

Check that here http://www.speedtest.net/

29

what do you mean James "specially built for the TV to connect to" ?

30

thanks Julian for your reply.

I understand most of this and indded use a VPN sometimes with my computer so thaty side of things is ok.

The problem is (as I understand it anyway) my TV will only use the on board browser which I believe uses a server provided by Panasonic and this is limited and although I can search for and find anything, some addresses (like iplayer) cannot be selected (clicked on) so yes, I do need to get the TV to talk to a VPN.

I have tried this by changing the DNS on my TV to that of 'unblock-us.com' but got myself into lots of problems. The Tv would not find the inet at all.

Are you saying that my TV should have the address of my router, and that if possible, I should direct my router to the DNS of 'unblock-us'.com' (or another VPN) ?

31

I use StrongVPN setup on a router that is specifically built for the TV to connect to. So I get all the UK stuff, iPlayer, 5, ITV, Sky etc

It's great!

32

This is quite an old thread (given the pace of change of technology), but is it still relevant?

We have a Humax box, which serves our purposes really well and has been for well over a decade via satellite

However, now the BBC (and presumably the other main UK TV channels) only stream some of their content, we’re unable to access any of that. Despite being in the middle of no-where (which is probably typical of most ex-pats living over here), in the last two weeks (yes, during ‘lock down’!) we’ve noticed a team of Brazilian telecoms engineers working in our lane, installing the infrastructure ready for fibre

We were wondering ,if we upgraded our existing internet connection (once fibre is fully installed), whether additional investment in a ‘flashrouter’ (presumably these are only available for purchase from the USA?) and a subscription to a VPN provider, such as the ones mentioned on this thread would enable our ‘smart’ TV (purchased in the UK) to access BBC iPlayer?

Is anyone who posted on this thread still having success with this set-up, enabling UKTV streaming on smart TV as if you were really located there, rather than in France?

We appreciate that due to international broadcasting licencing law streaming UK TV in France is actually illegal, however we still pay a UK TV licence (due to a combination of conscience; enjoying UK TV via Humax satellite box and laziness; never quite getting round to cancelling the direct debit)

Also, just to get it clear, does adding a flash router to the existing modem router change the wi-fi connection signal for all devices, or does it create an additional signal? (So existing devices may continue to use the original local signal that they are all connected to at the moment and just the TV pick up the ‘hidden’ one from the flashrouter?

33

We just use the ipad, and then “cast” it to the smart TV. Only works on days when we have enough bandwidth but we too are hoping that fibre will appear soon.

34

Hi Paul,
I have recently fixed the issue of viewing services such as BBC Iplayer on my Humax satellite receiver.
I purchased a very small and cheap router (usually used for travel) that allows a VPN config and subscribed to ExpressVPN.
The router info is here (Amazon,fr - about 23 euros) >> https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-mt300n-v2/
I have connected it to the Orange Livebox (via ethernet) and basically point the Humax to the VPN SSID rather than the live box SSID. I have not seen any performance issues and it does in fact seem to have a stronger WIFI signal than the Livebox in most parts of our house. I have also connected our smart TV to it and that also successfully connects to BBC Iplayer and other georestricted services. It means we can connect devices to the VPN if we want to use things such as Iplayer or point to the Livebox if we don’t need VPN.
Hope this may be of help !