get TV abroad

Well in this case not really! I decided to upgrade my Internet here in Australia, those who live down this way will know connections can be pretty poor!

I have been using DoDo for sometime, and while they have their moments the speeds back to the UK are often pretty awful, making watching iPlayer Abroad more difficult than it needs to be. So we have moved over to BigPond, one of the larger ISPs here in Oz, and their 30mBit cable connection… or at least we SHOULD have… what I actually have at the moment is a 3G mobile phone connection on my iPhone4 tethered to my PC… the amazing news is that even with this I am able, just, to watch BBC iPlayer here in Oz using Identity Cloaker. Yep thats right with the iPhones 3G connection hooked up via USB cable to my PC Identity Cloaker works a treat, I tried it vie bluetooth as well but it seemed to be a bit slower.

Anyway I have been promised a real connection on September 3rd (thats one whole month late) so I hope to be fully back online then and get those videos of SkyPlayer running for you guys!

I tested something today which I have been meaning to do for many months Sky TV in Australia!!!

Yep Sky TV abroad, not that awful Foxtel that people normally have to suffer here.

I have to say it works amazingly! Even better than BBC iPlayer abroad! Now don't get too excited as Sky Player requires a subscription, as it is of course a premium network in the UK and not free to air. It is possible to get a subscription just for Sky Player but the prices are pretty high, in fact they seem to be about the same as a full Sky TV subscription in the UK! However if you have friends or family back in the UK then perhaps they will let you use their accounts for free. A Sky TV account will support up to 4 PCs, they will however also need either multiroom OR Sky Broadband Unlimited.

And of course YOU will need a copy of Identity Cloaker to make it seem like you are still in the UK!

Once you have Identity Cloaker installed all you need to do is connect to any of its UK servers and then login to Sky Player, once you are logged in you can actually turn off Identity Cloaker and it still works! It would seem Sky Player only checks the IP address when you login (this may of course change in the future so if you have problems after turning Identity Cloaker off try running with it on).

I have found the quality is actually better than BBC iPlayer for On Demand, even in Australia on one of the worst ISPs in the country I can watch a 60 minute show without a single pause. Sky Player seems to buffer much more of the program than BBC iPlayer does, in fact it buffers the entire program if it can, and this really helps smooth out any connections problems you might have.

For Live TV it obviously can't buffer the same way and this gives a few problems, I am however able to run Sky Player Live on medium quality setting most of the time and the low setting always works. So if you want the best quality its better to watch On Demand rather than live (given the huge time difference between the UK and Australia the On Demand function is much more useful anyway!).

I will try and get a video up of Sky TV working abroad with Identity Cloaker this weekend for you all!

I have had a few emails recently about the ability to watch BBC iPlayer abroad for free and if this is a valid solution. Well…

Firstly it is 100% true you can do it for free, there are many things you pay for every day which you can get for free. You don't need to pay rent or a mortgage if you are willing to live under a tree, and you can always eat for free from the bins outside the supermarkets. While both options are free I don't think many of you would choose to live that way!

Watching BBC iPlayer for free generally requires the use of open proxy servers, which are both unreliable and a pain to find. There are various programs out there which will track these down for you, and then you can take the information and manually enter it in to your browser or proxy program and then IF the server is fast enough you will be able to watch iPlayer abroad for free…for a while… perhaps…

The issue is they are just not reliable, you will find that they only work for a very short period before they are either turned off or just simply swamped by the thousands of other people using them. So you will be forced to search over and over again for new proxies, wasting hours of time. Liken this to needing to retune you TV every time you turn it on and then again every 20 minutes of viewing. Annoying? Certainly!

There are also security risks, as you have no idea who is running the proxy and what they are doing with all the data you are passing through them (a quick look over at change-my-ip.com will reveal many of the dangers of public proxies!).

Running with a professional and secure private proxy company such as Identity Cloaker costs under $10 a month, saves you a lot of time and it works (you open the program, select UK, connect and watch iPlayer).

Sure give the free iPlayer abroad options a try, but you will most probably regret it.

It might well be a hung parliment but that fact is the massive amount of interest in the UK elections have resulted in many BBC services not working too well at the moment! If anybody tried to watch the BBC coverage of the Spanish GP online today they may well have been met with blank screens!

So if you are testing out Identity Cloaker to watch BBC iPlayer abroad and its not working quite how you would hope then give it some time and try again as the problems are at the BBC end of things!

 After a month, or was it several years, the close battle for who with run the next UK Government is perhaps coming to an end (well assuming there is not a hung parliament!). Those of you living abroad but with close ties to the UK may well want to enjoy the UK Election TV coverage abroad, and of course as always you can!

With most programs starting around 10pm UK time you can watch using Identity Cloaker anywhere in the world on:

• BBC iPlayer
• Sky News
• ITV Player

If you don't already have Identity Cloaker then don't worry as the signup process only takes a few minutes, and if all you want to watch is tonight election broadcasts then the 10 day trial for 5 Euros is all you need (and don't worry at the end of the trial the subscription DOES NOT auto renew). If you want to know how to setup Identity Cloaker to watch BBC iPlayer Abroad along with all the other UK TV channels then take a look at our simple guide.

The Formula One season has started, the first practice is already over as I write this and second practice about 40 minutes away.

Now not many TV companies actually bother to show the practice session, certainly here in Australia all we get is the race and qualifying. However have no fear as the BBC is showing everything!

Those in the UK can of course just turn on the TV and press the red button, but if you live abroad you can still view through the BBC website.

Normally when you visit the race pages from an IP address outside the UK all you will see is the text commentary, but if you fire up Identity Cloaker and select a UK location and visit the page as if by magic video will appear at the top!

You can also view directly through iPlayer  while abroad with the same method.

If the video does not start for you disconnect Identity Cloaker and connect again, as events like Formula One are so popular they seem to put a little more strain on the servers (I had to try 3 servers before I was happy today).

If you are new to the idea of watching BBC iPlayer abroad, or any of hundreds of other UK and US TV stations, then why not find out a little bit more.

As some of you have read the BBC has gone flash only for it's delivery of iPlayer, though it's still working fine on the non-flash iPhone.

So what effect has this had on watching BBC iPlayer abroad? None.

Please continue watching and enjoying BBC programs as before!

SeeSaw TV has just been launched and as always all you need to watch it outside the UK is a copy of IDC! Simply use the UK proxy from IDC, though you can use the VPN method too if you prefer, and start viewing UK TV abroad from this new supplier! They offer archived TV from several UK TV companies, including the BBC. Be sure to turn off encryption in IDC if you want the best quality video streaming experience.

.

SeeSaw uses technological know-how from Venture Kangaroo, the now defunct venture owned by BBC Throughout the world, Channel 4 and ITV plc. Kangaroo was blocked by the European Competition Commission in February 2009. In September 2009 all of Kangaroo's technologies and assets were bought by Arqiva for approximately £8m.

SeeSaw hopes to has around 3,500 hours of TV content offered, which includes a mix of free advertising-supported content material and paid-for programming. SeeSaw has already announced a content deal with BBC Worldwide, so shows like Cranford, Lark Rise to Candleford, That Mitchell and Webb Look and classic Doctor Who are going to be offered for viewers

I have been using this to watch iPlayer abroad on my iPhone for quite some time now but only recently have I been given permission to let you all know how to do this!

Firstly as always you are going to need an account with Identity Cloaker, no they don't have an official iPhone version (yet) but you can still use their service!

Once you are up and running with Identity Cloaker on your PC (or Mac, yes Mac version is almost ready!) just lookup the IP address of one of the UK servers (those are the sets of numbers that go XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX)

Now this only works with WiFi connections at the moment, a limitation put in by the guys at Apple, so if you don't have WiFi at home go to McDonalds and use their free WiFi!

One you phone go to 'Settings' then 'WiFi' and click on the blue arrow to the right of the WiFi point you are using. This will bring up all the advanced details of this connection, you want to scroll to the bottom where it says 'HTTP proxy' and change this to 'Manual'

You now have some new settings, which you should fill in as follows:

• Server: use the IP address you took from the program already
• Port: 4040
• Authentication: Change to 'On'
• Username: Your Identity Cloaker username, same as you would use when using Identity Cloaker on your PC
• Password: Your Identity Cloaker password, same as you would use when using Identity Cloaker on your PC

Now just click back to the WiFi section and press the Home button. Now you can open Safari and visit the BBC iPlayer Website and watch iPlayer on your iPhone anywhere in the world!

If you have problems try a different IP address, just be sure to pick one from the UK!

It was reported in several places in 2009 that Hulu would stop being free (Gizmodo, REWLS), with reports that this will start in 2010. Now nothing was officially said, and other quotes do seem to indicate that at least some content would remain free.

However right now its ALL FREE so enjoy it today and don't worry about what may come tomorrow!

Hulu employs slightly better protection than most online TV package, yes even better than the BBC as its really very easy to watch BBC iPlayer abroad compared with Hulu! However as always Identity Cloaker has the solution and all you need to do is use the VPN option to ensure you can watch Hulu outside the US. You can see a demonstration of how this works, and Hulu in action from the sunny climate of Australia, right here in the US TV section.