Off Topic Streaming

All,

With the new season nearly upon us, I thought I would share a new IPTV service I have found. I used to use (and still subscribe to) SportsMania, but they have had a few issues recently, though they say they will be back before the new season.

As a backup I have just subscribed to these guys http://ftvhost.com - they are only £35/year and at the moment there is a special offer of £25/year. To subscribe you need to do it via their FaceBook group, so PM me if you want details.

All I can say is that I subscribed recently and the support was instant as was the access and the streams are really good - no VPN needed, though being paranoid I would recommend it if you can. The bonus is that the subs is for ALL TV not just sports so you get all sorts, all in HD

I am not affiliated to them, nor getting anything for it, but thought I would share as we are always looking at ways of watching those 3pm starts. I have it on Kodi in the big screen and it is excellent quality!

Cheers

Mark

 

Pmd you....

 

No problem - I've replied

 

Hi 7

Thanks for this - I am tempted but wondered what your thoughts on the latest noises coming out of uefa about ordering isps to block such services? I know you are well up on the tech side and would love to hear your views. I already subscribe to Sky Sports/Movies etc and get BT Sports through Sky so my only interest is in Saints away games (as at last minute plumped for Season Ticket again!). Can usually (8 times out of 10) find a stream of varying quality but I’d happily pay £25 for a reliable source.

 

Yep I think it is going to be tough this year and there will be a lot of cat and mouse with the IPTV guys. As I said I have a SportsMania package too that has been down (though they assure us it will be back for the start of the season) so this is my backup; so far they seem reliable and good quality, but we will not know until the first game kicks off. They say you don't need a VPN, but in all honestly I would never stream without one - I have Virgin Media Broadband and really don't want them knowing what I am browsing. I too have the full Sky/BT sports package through Virgin, so I use this just for the away games and also other teams games if we aren't playing at 3pm on a Saturday.

My view was to give it a go for £25 as I also have my backup backup of using my daughter's US DirecTV Now package that has the full NBC Sports and NBC Sports Gold package included, so I can with smart DNS (www.unlocator.com) watch all US TV through apps on my Apple TVs.

I used this particular package last night in the Kitchen all night (I don't have a Virgin box in there) and it was flawless and great quality.

It is going to be tough though this year and it is true you can find a stream for most games, I just like watching the games on the big TV easily.

 

Does browsing through a vpn prevent the isp from blocking this content?

 

Yep as all browsing/network activity is tunnelled through the VPN connection. I use a service called NordVPN, and you can choose the country of your VPN connection when you connect. For streaming I normally use somewhere like the Netherlands or Ireland, sometimes I use the US if I need US specific stuff.

Using a VPN will slightly slow down your speed though - I have the Virgin Media 300 meg connection, when I VPN and do a speed test it drops to about 150 meg.

If you use Smart DNS to access stuff like I do in the US (Bravo TV, ABC TV, NBC Sports etc) using my daughter's cable subscription from there, there is no slow down as all you are doing is changing your DNS servers (these are the one that resolve the name eg www.google.com into an IP address), they mask your real IP so the website thinks you are US based.

 

The drop in speed from VPNs is generally pretty negligible unless you're doing multiple things simultaneously with a heavy load; I get a mere 40-50 mbps through my VPN (on wifi), but that's more than enough for streaming games. Enough so that I basically only turn my VPN off when I need to do something specific. Exceptionally useful for geolocked content, as well.

Also using NordVPN, as it happens. $100 US (£75) for a three-year subscription, with the added benefit that I can generally get US/UK Netflix, which isn't the case with most VPNs.

 

Yep for some reason I think Virgin Media throttle VPN connections here. I have two internet lines (I know total geek) for fault tolerance and if I VPN through my backup line (BT), it drops from about 45 meg to 38 meg. Actually my router is clever as I can send only certain traffic down the VPN from certain devices, but that is for another discussion

 

Used to have issues years ago with slow connections on VPN with my old ISP, so it's possible that they're throttling connections to known IP ranges of popular VPNs.

It's remarkable how much they've progressed, though; I ran a speed test a while back on a VPN server (think I had ExpressVPN then) in Africa, using a test server in freaking Siberia, and I was getting workable latency and decent enough speeds to do most tasks short of gaming. Half a dozen years ago connecting to a server within a stone's throw of home meant suffering from stuttering speeds trying to watch a 540p Youtube video.

 

Going off-topic slightly, but there seems to be a lot of technical knowledge here, I recently signed up for a new broadband provider here in the South West. Truespeed is a FTTP service with guaranteed minimum 200 Mbs download and upload. I’ll be paying about £48 per month for internet and landline. It requires 30% of the houses in the village to sign up before they will build, and one of the bonuses is the school and village hall get free broadband for ever.

The big BUT is that they don’t offer any TV bundles, and having had a look around I can’t find anybody offering a TV package with no internet. Does such a thing exist?

 

Probably not, but what do you need the TV bundle for? There is FreeView for a whole host of channels and (legal) streaming for others. Netflix & Amazon Prime show loads of stuff. I have one of these at home too:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07BFPWBNS/?tag=not606-21

It is a device that provides all the FreeView channels around your home - It isn't streaming as it is just a tuner. The clever bit is that it puts it on your network, so you can view TV on any device (I am talking FireTV apple tv, android box, smart tv etc) around the home, without the need to run an aerial cable to each TV. Basically you plug in your TV aerial to it and then the network cable to your home network. Your internet connection can go down and you still have live TV. I also have a NAS drive, so I can record, but if not you can use BBC iPlayer or ITV Hub etc to watch stuff.

The next step for me is to remove the Virgin TiVo boxes (I have 3) and the TV subscription from my Virgin package and just keep the internet. I am paying over £120 a month to Virgin and I reckon I can half that easily and still have the same service. It also means I can have terrestrial TV in any room - I dont need to run an aerial cable or Virgin Media cable anywhere

 

@thereisonlyoneno7

I have a question: when are you coming up to my place to install all these gizmos? Bringing Mrs No.7 is preferable but an option down to you and there will be plenty of red wine on offer!

I haven’t got a scooby and I want to ditch sky.

 

Lol I'll see what i can do

Whilst I am there I'll stick in all the home automation stuff I have here, so when you walk into a room the lights come on, you ask Alexa to boil the kettle and when it is boiled you get a text message and all you have to say is "Alexa, goodnight" and all your lights and appliances are turned off, the house alarm is armed and the thermostat is set to 15 degrees

Too much? oh, ok, we'll start with cord cutting and ditching Sky

 

I’m feeling a little nauseous now. And scared.

 

I even have this set up:

"Alexa, Turn on the lounge TV"
"Alexa, turn on ITV1"
"Alexa, record ITV1"

The only flaw in my plan was last year when I was really ill with my cough (turned out to be pneumonia), I couldn't speak, so had to use the remotes....

 

Just one question from me, if you have all of that set up why are you still paying £120 a month to Virgin...!!??

 

I won't be soon - just got the final bits in place and have to wait another 2 months to get out of the contract

 

whooosh! absolutely no idea what anyone is talking about! I pay 10 pound a month for an internet connection. That's all I know

 

but I have a question. If I buy an Alexa in the UK would it work in Serbia? (there's nothing like it for sale yet in Serbia and if I had one I would be super cool!)