BBC iPlayer

jocko4 · 21-04-2009 1:21pm

Yep, I just tried HD through my Netgear wireless router & it works but a bit jumpy - I'm not running this router at it's highest wireless speed of 270mbps, just 54mbps. I'll try this & maybe a wired connection later. My broadband speed is 6Mb/s & I get download speeds in the BBC speed test of about 5Mb/s

Simon, be realistic - no part of our license fee goes to the BBC & I don't believe the BBC are paid for the piracy of their channels by UPC (NTL) either so they are perfectly entitled to restrict this service to only their licensees!

Spear · 21-04-2009 1:49pm

There's always RTE's new iPlayer clone.

http://www.rte.ie/player

pauly3 · 23-04-2009 12:31am

Has anyone out there (other than me) been able to enjoy the BBC HD iPlayer service without going through a proxy? The UTV gateway I connect through is 194.46.x.x and the DNS server is also 194.46.x.x . My fixed IP address is also within this range. A search throutgh RIPE shows that the entire 194.46.x.x address range is a registered to the GB country level domain

I found a list of free Proxy Servers by country here:
http://nntime.com/proxy-country/

2 proxies listed for Ireland and 35 for the UK.

Hope this helps some.

Simon201 · 23-04-2009 1:17am

I can view programmes on the BBC HD iPlayer site but by only using the methods I described above and it is pretty impressive, although rather large download amounts - 1.4gb for Jools Holland's Later prog!. I'm just wondering Pauly3, are you paying the extra for a fixed IP address and is that perhaps why it works for you. My (dynamic) IP addresses are always around 194.46.238.xxx which shows my location as Dublin, but something like 194.46.199.131 (also UTV) shows the location as Belfast (which would obviously enable the iPlayer to work)

pauly3 · 23-04-2009 4:30pm

My fixed IP address (194.46.200.x) cost me a once-off fee of €3.50, nothing more. I pay an extra €5.99 per month for no bandwidth restriction (fair-use policy, of course) which brings my total broadband cost per month to €29.98. That is, €23.99 for the 7.6mb package plus €5.99 for no caps.

I am connected to the UTV Internet gateway 194.46.193.66

How did you check the registered location of the IP address? I was getting my info from RIPE.

I calculate that by watching 2 hours of HD per day I would download around 90GB per month. Which I don't!

Simon201 · 23-04-2009 9:52pm

mmm.... interesting. So obviously the fixed IP address feature may be a loophole to be able to access the iPlayer programmes without all the proxy stuff for us UTVers. Although as you say, it's going to give you somewhat massive download figures if you watch it regularly.

I got the geo-location stuff from
http://whatismyipaddress.com/

byte · 23-04-2009 11:19pm

pauly3 wrote: »

My fixed IP address (194.46.200.x) cost me a once-off fee of €3.50, nothing more. I pay an extra €5.99 per month for no bandwidth restriction (fair-use policy, of course) which brings my total broadband cost per month to €29.98. That is, €23.99 for the 7.6mb package plus €5.99 for no caps.

I am connected to the UTV Internet gateway 194.46.193.66

How did you check the registered location of the IP address? I was getting my info from RIPE.

I calculate that by watching 2 hours of HD per day I would download around 90GB per month. Which I don't!

Hmm, that is most interesting!

I'd guess though that because you can access BBC iPlayer, you now cannot use the new RTE Player?

Or can you still use one of their other Irish IP for that?

It'd be worth 3.50eur, but only if I could swap and change IP at will.

godskitchen · 23-04-2009 11:25pm

byte wrote: »

Hmm, that is most interesting!

I'd guess though that because you can access BBC iPlayer, you now cannot use the new RTE Player?

Or can you still use one of their other Irish IP for that?

It'd be worth 3.50eur, but only if I could swap and change IP at will.

You might aswell pay for a proxy at that rate.

pauly3 · 24-04-2009 2:42am

Using whatsmyipaddress.com I see that my IP address's reverse DNS is
xxx.200.46.194.uk.dsl.sta.u.tv (Location: Ireland) and querying the RIPE server gives the entire 194.46 network (194.46.0.0 - 194.46.255.255) as allocated to UTV Internet, Ormeau Rd, Belfast with a Net ID as 'UK-GENESIS-940228' . Upstream the network seems to route via Esat.net (BT) and Cogentco (Cogent.com) in the UK.

Could someone on a dynamic UTV IP address check and see if their address is
194.46.x.x, or something outside of this range. It would be interesting to see if the dynamic addresses are allocated out of another address pool. After all, the UTV Gateway is a DHCP Server I would assume, and static addresses would be removed from the pool of available addresses.

I just checked to see if I can access the RTE Player, and I can.

byte · 24-04-2009 6:53pm

WAN IP, Default Gateway, DNS Servers all fall under 194.46.xxx.xxx

My WAN IP is 194.46.252.xx

Gateway is identical to yours.

On Samspade.org, I get this info:
inetnum: 194.46.224.0 - 194.46.255.255
netname: UTVI-INFRASTRUCTURE
descr: RoI Dynamic DSL Pools

From that, it seems 194.46.244.x and 194.46.255.x range is ROI.

PFL · 24-04-2009 7:27pm

pauly3 wrote: »

Has anyone out there (other than me) been able to enjoy the BBC HD iPlayer service without going through a proxy? The UTV gateway I connect through is 194.46.x.x and the DNS server is also 194.46.x.x . My fixed IP address is also within this range. A search throutgh RIPE shows that the entire 194.46.x.x address range is a registered to the GB country level domain

I found a list of free Proxy Servers by country here:
http://nntime.com/proxy-country/

2 proxies listed for Ireland and 35 for the UK.

Hope this helps some.

Many thanks Pauly - this worked perfect for me by using the ip addresses (that seem to be updated regularly) and following these easy instructions http://how-2-do.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-to-change-proxy-in-firefox.html - thanks again (I'm a Smart Customer)

pauly3 · 25-04-2009 4:29am

You're welcome PFL.

Now get this ..... this evening I could not access the iPlayer content for the first time since it launched. Got the standard out-of-area message. I guess the UTV admins are reading our posts, in fact I know they are (they told me so in a previous discussion). So they closed the loophole!!

Here's what I did to remedy this

I downloaded Firefox Portable from portableapps.com, extracted it and set the homepage to www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer. I added a good proxy from here: http://nntime.com/proxy-country . Now I only use Firefox Portable for viewing Geolocked content such as the iPlayer or 4oD. The rest of the time I use my installed Firefox as usual. Using the portable version of Firefox means you don't have to change the proxy info back and forth, unless your working proxy gets blocked. Of course, once you find a good proxy it should work for any ISP, not just UTV.

My iPlayer is working again .....

pauly3 · 25-04-2009 5:00am

Oh, I forgot to mention that you can have many portable Firefoxes in your Program Files folder, one for each country where you want to proxy into. You could name them, for example, Firefox USA, Firefox Australia, Firefox UK, etc.
Find working proxies for each country and then launch the corresponding Portable Firefox for that country (and setting each homepage to whatever channel you normally watch there and changing the network settings to the proxy you've chosen).

bigbadpat · 25-04-2009 3:55pm

Pauly3 thanks for the info and it works with Fixefox and my UTVINTERNET broadband connection. However if I try to download the programme to my laptop it says "This programme is only available to users in the UK to download"

Mikey23 · 25-04-2009 7:52pm

Cheers for the pointers Pauly3. Using this link's tutorial - http://www.showmethetelly.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2 - alongside FoxyProxy does away with the need to manually switch proxies as well for Mac users like me who can't go for a PortableApp.

dubmick · 29-04-2009 11:58pm

ongarite wrote: »

I view BBC iPlayer all the time using FoxyProxy also but not using TOR as in the link earlier in the thread.
I used this guide here and these proxy server lists:
http://www.showmethetelly.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2
http://www.samair.ru/proxy/type-19.htm

this worked great for me initially but now none of those proxies seem to work

440Hz · 14-05-2009 12:30am

dubmick wrote: »

this worked great for me initially but now none of those proxies seem to work

Yeah im the same. Used FoxyProxy and tried a few of the lists here, exhausting almost all the IPs but no joy. The first one worked for about 1 min and then cut me off, with no joy since then

FreedomJoe · 15-05-2009 2:00am

Try this guys.

I use this all the time works a treat.

With BBc I Player, Itv Player, and all the USA players.

It costs $35 USA for 1 year or $50 for 2.

You get a free trial.

http://www.hide-ip-soft.com/

I should note only works with Firefox or Explorer.

Cabaal · 15-05-2009 9:25am

FreedomJoe wrote: »

I should note only works with Firefox or Explorer.

More importantly its only Windows Only so no Mac or Linux users which is pretty poor.

sweeney1987 · 17-05-2009 9:18pm

i cant get this to work at all:(
spent the last ages trying a load of different ips and none seem to work
is there none available for free?
also in the box you enter ips do you need the http:// or not?
been trying both and none working still

Chong · 19-05-2009 6:42pm

Lads ,

Is the use of proxies and connecting to UK servers to view BBC Iplayer illegal or what is the story with regard to this?

hustlergraham · 22-05-2009 12:26pm

I tried this on monday gone using FoxyProxy. I was looking for a UK proxy for ages...finally on Tuesday evening i found one thats still working now! Most of them usually stop afer a few hrs....The iplayer is working grand now

runswithascript · 18-07-2009 10:36am

Is there a work around for non-UTV Irish customers that doesn't involve having to pay for a proxy or SSH/VPN tunnel in the UK?

Open proxy servers come and go.

caff · 24-07-2009 5:30am

Sent the following to NTL two weeks ago, no reply, not suprised really but it seems like something people would be willing to pay for so can't see why no ISP would open negotiations to try get it.

Would it be possible for you to enter talks with the BBC regarding adding an small extra to a tv+net subscription that would allow access to BBC iplayer. According to the BBC annual report 2007-2008 of a colour TV licence costing 11.63 a month 61 pence is used to pay for online content and 8 pound put towards TV each month. Surely a small charge that would be passed on to the BBC for such access could be negotiated the same way you pay royalties for BBC TV broadcasts?

long_b · 24-07-2009 7:30am

FreedomJoe wrote: »

Try this guys.

I use this all the time works a treat.

With BBc I Player, Itv Player, and all the USA players.

It costs $35 USA for 1 year or $50 for 2.

You get a free trial.

http://www.hide-ip-soft.com/

I should note only works with Firefox or Explorer.

Tried this just now - the trial version gets you past the Hulu main page and lets you select a show, but then Hulu gives an error saying something like "Cannot stream show - check your internet connection settings".

Had my anti virus off btw.

Did I miss something ?

babaloushka · 24-07-2009 11:10am

I've just installed this Hide IP and am on the trial version - I'm using Pandora radio no problem. I used to use this years ago before IP blocking and I really missed it - not that interested in the TV/IP Player bit, but would be interested on occasion.
It seems the trial version runs out in 3 hours or when you close the browser - I would like to pay for the full version, but wonder will it work for the long term and if there are any other caveats or concerns I'd need to know about? Anyone know?

OutlawPete · 09-08-2009 11:55pm

babaloushka wrote: »

I've just installed this Hide IP and am on the trial version - I'm using Pandora radio no problem. I used to use this years ago before IP blocking and I really missed it - not that interested in the TV/IP Player bit, but would be interested on occasion.
It seems the trial version runs out in 3 hours or when you close the browser - I would like to pay for the full version, but wonder will it work for the long term and if there are any other caveats or concerns I'd need to know about? Anyone know?

I became so tired of all this proxy stuff and have now signed up for an online VPN. It's €9.90 a month but I can now finally watch 4oD.

Are there any free UK VPN services out there?

By the way, why is everyone using Foxy Proxy when you can just change the IP in the Firefox settings .. the same with IE too.

Nic

cahirhennessy · 10-08-2009 3:55pm

Nico22 wrote: »

I became so tired of all this proxy stuff and have now signed up for an online VPN. It's €9.90 a month but I can now finally watch 4oD.

Are there any fre VPNs out there?

By the way, why is everyone using Foxy Proxy when you can just change the IP in the Firefox settings .. the same with IE too.

Nic

I'm using gotrusted (http://www.gotrusted.com) for the past few months. Its $5.99 per month and I use it for Hulu,BBC,Pandora and even as a VPN my iphone and htc magic. I find it very good and very helpful support. There's a free trial for a week if you want to try it out.

OutlawPete · 10-08-2009 6:08pm

cahirhennessy wrote: »

I.m using gotrusted (http://www.gotrusted.com) for the past few months. Its $5.99 per month and I use it for Hulu,BBC,Pandora and even as a VPN my iphone and htc magic. I find it very good and very helpful support. There's a free trail for a week if you want to try it out.

How do you watch BBC with GoTrusted? I thought all there IPs were USA based ones?

Nic

jor el · 11-08-2009 12:40am

Discussion on how to circumvent IP blockers is not allowed. Posts removed.

Yorky · 20-10-2009 11:06pm

I've downloaded Foxyproxy but the difficulty is finding a UK proxy server that actually works. I'm using one on a three day trial but after that I'd be reluctant to pay for a commercial proxy server.

Does anyone know of a website for reliable and updated UK proxy servers?

If not there's identitycloaker.com for €79.99 a year. Has anyone used this and is it any good?

cargo · 08-01-2010 4:43pm

Guys I can view stuff on-line (trough foxy-proxy) but if I try download the program I want to the pc it says it's for UK download only. So I'm half way there. Any idea how I can also download the program as well as view it?

It's a one off documentary from last night I want to show someone. Will to buy t from BBC but they don't seem to be selling it

clacks · 10-01-2010 10:51am

Which documentary are you looking for? Maybe I can help.

cargo wrote: »

Guys I can view stuff on-line (trough foxy-proxy) but if I try download the program I want to the pc it says it's for UK download only. So I'm half way there. Any idea how I can also download the program as well as view it?

It's a one off documentary from last night I want to show someone. Will to buy t from BBC but they don't seem to be selling it

cargo · 10-01-2010 8:27pm

clacks wrote: »

Which documentary are you looking for? Maybe I can help.

It was the "Jimmys Global Harvest" the other night which was focusing on Brazil and bioethanol production etc...

OutlawPete · 11-01-2010 4:39am

cargo wrote: »

It was the "Jimmys Global Harvest" the other night which was focusing on Brazil and bioethanol production etc...

PM sent.

Trevor451 · 11-01-2010 6:43pm

Would love to use the BBC iplayer channel on the wii to watch some top gear :mad: Is the bbc breaking the law by not complying to the television without Frontiers directive??

zynaps · 29-01-2010 12:19am

Works here now on my Mac, had to use a testing version of Vidalia/Tor to work around the recently broken SSL thanks to Apple.

holdemfoldem · 08-04-2010 1:26am

hey guys,

i have just skimmed / read the whole thread ( at least 80% ot it

) and all this proxy talk and vpn stuff is like double dutch to me..

I would love to have access to iplayer and hulu, can someone tell me of a free / moderately cheap and easy way to get this?

spare a thought for the technically challenged among us:p

Cheers

Fingleberries · 08-04-2010 10:46am

I've heard some people have success with HotSpot Shield "http://download.cnet.com/hotspot-shield/". I have not got it working myself, possibly because I have a different VPN installed on my laptop for work causing a conflict.

The laymans theory with Hotspot shield is that it reports to the Hulu, or BBC iPlayer that the computer connecting is not from the country you are, but from their allowed countries.

One problem that I have with something like Hotspot shield is that if it is left running all the time (which most Non-Technical people might do after installing it) all of your Web Browsing goes through their software. Depending on how honest, above board, trustworthy (or not) the company behind such software are, there's no telling what they could do with that information.

Think about it - if you've used your online banking, e-mail, or other password protected resource while connecting through their 'proxy' software. You have effectively allowed them to look over your shoulder while entring your Password. OK, it might be encrypted, but you've given them a big head start.

Or, they can build up a browsing history of the sites you visited and you can get spammed by loads of advertisers based on your browsing history.

Now, to be clear, I am not saying that Hotspot shield specifically does this. I don't know either way. But it is something to be wary of when using proxies run by unknown entities on the internet.

boardtc · 26-04-2010 11:07pm

holdemfoldem wrote: »

hey guys,

i have just skimmed / read the whole thread ( at least 80% ot it ) and all this proxy talk and vpn stuff is like double dutch to me..

I would love to have access to iplayer and hulu, can someone tell me of a free / moderately cheap and easy way to get this?

spare a thought for the technically challenged among us:p

Cheers

I did the same and gave gotrusted.com a go as one punter advised, I paid one euro for the free month but then found out the proxy was in the usa and the country could not be changed. I signed up to adtelly.tv for 6 euro for a month, east to use, really nice interface which wraps wraps viewing the bbc player, etc nicely and also has a connect uk and usa button to act change countries.

OutlawPete · 26-04-2010 11:08pm

boardtc wrote: »

I did the same and gave gotrusted.com a go as one punter advised, I paid one euro for the free month but then found out the proxy was in the usa and the country could not be changed. I signed up to adtelly.tv for 6 euro for a month, east to use, really nice interface which wraps wraps viewing the bbc player, etc nicely and also has a connect uk and usa button to act change countries.

GoTrusted has both UK and USA IP options.

bestie · 26-04-2010 11:46pm

A somewhat related question, why does RTE release media files in real player format when they could just use the flash like in their RTE player

boggling!

zynaps · 02-05-2010 6:24pm

One tip I've stumbled upon which simplifies this process is that you do not need to manually select exit nodes in the UK - you can specify exitnode countries in your torrc files by putting a two character country code in braces.

I'm running on a Mac with Vidalia, so the setting file (you can find the location of it in the Vidalia settings dialog's advanced tab - but it's probably ~/Library/Vidalia/torrc) ends with:

ExitNodes {GB}
StrictNodes 1

Note that the country code is GB and not UK, which a couple of posts/articles online misleadingly state.

There's another problem with the recent Mac builds - the geoip file is in the wrong place, leading to log messages like the following:

[Warning] Failed to open GEOIP file /Applications/Vidalia.app/share/tor/geoip. We've been configured to use (or avoid) nodes in certain countries, and we need GEOIP information to figure out which ones they are.

That was solved like this (from the terminal):

cd /Applications/Vidalia.app/
mkdir -p share/tor/
cp Contents/Resources/geoip share/tor/

Then stop and restart tor.

KeRbDoG · 02-05-2010 7:12pm

holdemfoldem wrote: »

hey guys,

i have just skimmed / read the whole thread ( at least 80% ot it ) and all this proxy talk and vpn stuff is like double dutch to me..

I would love to have access to iplayer and hulu, can someone tell me of a free / moderately cheap and easy way to get this?

spare a thought for the technically challenged among us:p

Cheers

Cheapish option and extremely easy option would be using the OverPlay service (linked in my sig below). Gives yea an option for VPN connection to many countries to give yea access to BBCiPlayer/Hulu and many other country locked services. Even gives those of us who travel access to an Irish VPN to let yea catch up on Irish TV from the RTE Player.

They have a one click setup/connect software app now for Windows and Mac. Can't get easier than that. Just select the country (UK, US, Ireland etc) yea want to use the local 'locked' services off and bobs your aunt

azzeretti · 03-05-2010 8:39am

bestie wrote: »

A somewhat related question, why does RTE release media files in real player format when they could just use the flash like in their RTE player

boggling!

At a guesss I'd say because Flash is a dying technology and most sites/companies are moving away from it.

ironingbored · 03-05-2010 10:02am

I use a programme called Ivacy Monitor.

http://ivacy.com/doc/user/downloads/index

I'm not overtly technical but this is simple to use and has a Firefox add-on that makes it even easier.

You have a choice of UK, USA or Russian (don't ask me why) IP.

I paid 10 Euros in October on a usage basis and have 7 Euros left.

zynaps · 03-05-2010 5:41pm

azzeretti wrote: »

At a guesss I'd say because Flash is a dying technology and most sites/companies are moving away from it.

I doubt it. RTE started using Realplayer a long time ago, and it's a far more "dying" technology than Flash.

Certainly interesting to see a gradual move from Flash to HTML5 and other technologies though - another good reason for Adobe to make the platform open-source before it's too late.

joeyamg · 07-05-2010 4:21pm

Looked at various ways of doing this, best free way I've found for getting iplayer to work:

Step 1: Download and install the latest stable release of Tor using the default options. Run setup and make sure you're connected to the network. Green onion will appear in system tray if it is working ok.

Step 2: Download and install mgeni, it's a browser that uses the Tor network to allow you to choose what country you want to route through.

Little bit slow loading webpages (maybe turn off image loading) but video feed is perfect (I've only got a 7mb connection). Much easier than messing with foxy proxy or whatever else.

*Doesn't work for hulu unfortunately

Myrddin · 07-05-2010 6:33pm

joeyamg wrote: »

Looked at various ways of doing this, best free way I've found for getting iplayer to work:

Step 1: Download and install the latest stable release of Tor using the default options. Run setup and make sure you're connected to the network. Green onion will appear in system tray if it is working ok.

Step 2: Download and install mgeni, it's a browser that uses the Tor network to allow you to choose what country you want to route through.

Little bit slow loading webpages (maybe turn off image loading) but video feed is perfect (I've only got a 7mb connection). Much easier than messing with foxy proxy or whatever else.

*Doesn't work for hulu unfortunately

If I ran TOR, would I be able to use iPlayer via the MCE interface? I have the sky player plugin running, all controlled by the remote meaning Ive no need for a keyboard/mouse on my media pc - was looking at iplayer but messing around with proxies on the media pc frustrates me...

xTanyax · 07-05-2010 11:03pm

joeyamg wrote: »

Looked at various ways of doing this, best free way I've found for getting iplayer to work:

Step 1: Download and install the latest stable release of Tor using the default options. Run setup and make sure you're connected to the network. Green onion will appear in system tray if it is working ok.

Step 2: Download and install mgeni, it's a browser that uses the Tor network to allow you to choose what country you want to route through.

Little bit slow loading webpages (maybe turn off image loading) but video feed is perfect (I've only got a 7mb connection). Much easier than messing with foxy proxy or whatever else.

*Doesn't work for hulu unfortunately

I Have tried this and it works perfectly! Im very pleased with it, thanks a mill for the post!

BBC iPlayer

Comments