get TV abroad

The US is perhaps the home of TV, with more channels than you could possibly ever watch!

If you want to watch everything from the US you are going to need to signup with a Slingbox hosting service, like A2BTV, as you will get all 250+ channels from DirecTV streamed in HD over a highspeed dedicated connection.

However if you don’t want every channel available, or want a much cheaper option then there are a number of services in the US which you can access with Identity Cloaker for less than 7 Euros a month (around $10). It is exactly the same software that allows viewing Canadian, French, German and UK TV, unlike other services which charge extra for each country you want to view Identity Cloaker has one flat rate price that covers them all.

Of all US online TV services perhaps Hulu is the most well known, with programs from NBC, ABC and Fox as well as Comedy Central, PBS, USA Network, Bravo, Fuel TV, FX, Speed, Syfy, Style, Sundance, E!, G4, Versus, A&E, Oxygen. Hulu can stream videos up to 480P resolution, so the quality is very good (though not as high as some iPlayer content!). To watch Hulu outside of the US, for instance in Canada, you are going to need to run a VPN solution, proxy solutions do not work for Hulu. Identity Cloaker has several choices of VPN servers in the US, and they keep rotating and changing them all the time. For best performance you will want to select a VPN server which is Mac compatible to get the best performance, and choose the one which is nearest to your location (e.g. if you are in Europe pick an ‘East Coast’ server).

From September 2009 Hulu will be lauching in the UK, with a limited number of US shows (approx. 3000 hours) and UK content, this could provide another method of watching US TV, though we will not know all the details until the official launch.

For best performance I find that once the video starts if you pause it and allow the buffer to build up, only takes a few seconds, it will smooth out any lagging issues.

Here is a quick demonstration of Hulu playing in Australia: