End to Sky tv in Spain

[rdjohn]

Thanks for that info, I have had a look at Strong VPN website.

I am only renting down here for a few months and the owner is going to provide his own system. (In the fullness of time). While I am waiting, I am just wondering if I can get my own VPN and watch the rugby tomorrow and other stuff on the iPlayer using my laptop?

Does that seem feasible to do right away?

[ESDavey]

This appears to be a good site : http://skyinmadrid.com/pages/news.html

So far we have only lost BBC 2 HD ... Keep 'em crossed !

[Chimune]

Yup - old man confirmed he lost BBC channels end of last week.
He is about 2 miles from a small town called Rute and as mentioned Movistar are a bit sheeite.
Will a bigger dish get it back or are we really looking at satellite bband / vpn now ?

[beanbag]

Chimune said:

Yup - old man confirmed he lost BBC channels end of last week.
He is about 2 miles from a small town called Rute and as mentioned Movistar are a bit sheeite.
Will a bigger dish get it back or are we really looking at satellite bband / vpn now ?

A bigger dish won't help. There are reports of 300cm dishes not working.

The best solution is iPlayer with a NOWTV box running on a VPN connection.

Only you need a constant 3Mb/s connection to make this work well.

[el romeral]

I am 15 minutes from Malaga, all BBC gone. ITV most likely will go tomorrow from what I have heard.

Not sure if Sky News will remain or not? I do not have a Sky package it just comes free with the other channels.

[el romeral]

As expected, all ITV and Channel 4 channels now gone. There is not much left out of our satellite channels. Sky News and CNN are still there and some CBS channels. It is a bit of a wilderness now

We also (much to my daughter's annoyance) lost MTV from the terrestrial TV? I am rather delighted about this though, as no more Geordie Shore and numerous other awful shows.

[eybic]

Is the only solution to this using a VPN? My Dad lives in Mallorca and struggles to get 2meg internet so I doubt any kind of streaming will work for him.

[rdjohn]

No, our agent has installed this box here http://www.ebay.com/itm/IPTV-Set-Top-Box-MAG-250-B...

It seems to do all the things you would expect of FreeSat but I think that you can record things to view again later. I have not got my head around it yet, but it certainly does the basics, and I think that it is HD

[beanbag]

rdjohn said:

No, our agent has installed this box here http://www.ebay.com/itm/IPTV-Set-Top-Box-MAG-250-B...

It seems to do all the things you would expect of FreeSat but I think that you can record things to view again later. I have not got my head around it yet, but it certainly does the basics, and I think that it is HD

This works over the internet and they are popping up left right and center. My girlfriends mum has one and they're pretty good, albeit a little expensive.

[Leadfoot]

Same in Sitges, BBC channels were gone when we got here on Monday, ITV/CH4 went yesterday.
All of sky's channels still OK.

[Yetski]

On the positive side, looks like I'll have to spend more time out in the car & on the bike when I get back down, rather than sitting in front of the box

[mickrick]

I only put a satellite dish and sky box in two months ago. Bugger! Should have thought about that shouldn´t I

Whatever comes along now, people will be paying through the nose for it. So I´ll wait for the dust to settle. More time in the shed I think

[rdjohn]

beanbag said:

VPN is no problem. I highly recommend Hide My Ass or StrongVPN. The latter have EXCELLENT customer support.

Your real problem is a decent ISP in Spain. Unfortunately Movistar dominate the market and are in a word...st.

We use Satellite internet which works well when it's working but the reliability is very poor in bad weather. There are then cable options which are better but limited to built-up areas like cities.

Good luck!

I bought a StrongVPN yesterday, as mentioned the support was good and at $55 for 12 months pretty cheap. Self installed and could not be easier to use. Now I am all set for the start of the F1 season.

[mickrick]

I had to look it up. So could someone explain in layman's terms what a VPM is, and how it works?

What other options will be available?

I heard today, a bigger dish is all that´s needed, and some folks are still getting the English telly in the daytime. We´ve lost all BBC and ITV channels, I couldn´t get channel 5 before anyway, then I found I could have got it if I´d gone slightly bigger with the dish.
The Guy that fitted it for me didn´t seem very clued up, and bullst me, saying channel 5 couldn´t be got anyway. Just to palm me off with the dish he had I think.

I only have 3 Mb internet speed.

Cheers,
Mick.

[Cupramax]

VPN is a virtual private network, basically you're logging onto a server somewhere with a UK IP address so the service youre using doesnt know youre in Spain. Bobs your Uncle you can view uk tv via the net.

[Chimune]

so whats the minimum bandwidth needed for the vpn / internet box option?

[rdjohn]

The apartment I am staying in has a 3Mbps from Movistar. It is adequate for non HD TV. If you are watching TV then anyone else on the net at the same time will suffer. The upload speed is very poor.

Someone else has mentioned Movistar not being great and in my view they are not wrong. I must be very close to the exchange in San Pedro and my actual download speed is 2.54Mbps and upload is only 0.26Mbps

Using the StrongVPN from a Manchester server reduces the the speed slightly.

[dtmpower]

Rather than use a paid for service, if you know a friend/family with FTTC or Cable Internet in the UK, setup a VPN with them. The only bottleneck is all traffic comes to the IP and then 'uploaded' to you, hence the upload is critical, ADSL is just too slow for streaming.

I use pfSense which has a very easy to setup VPN: PPTP or OpenVPN

[eybic]

We have a decent fibre optic speed at home, how would my Dad "tap into" our connection as above?

[audi321]

Rather than pissing around with VPNs (which is extremely complicated if setting up your own, and unreliable or expensive by using the others) why aren't you guys using www.filmon.tv? Should work fine with 3mbps connection?

Can someone test it who is in Spain?