# english tv



## domo (Apr 19, 2011)

hi all,in the near future we will be spending our time commuting between the uk and puerto de alcudia.if we took our skybox + card from the uk would it just be a case of connecting it to a tv and we would be able to watch the same programmes we are watching in the uk.also if we wanted to leave our skybox+card in the uk is there any way we would be able to get the 5 main english channels in majorca. thanks


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## sat (Jul 20, 2008)

domo said:


> if we took our skybox + card from the uk would it just be a case of connecting it to a tv and we would be able to watch the same programmes we are watching in the uk.


Well, you would also need a satellite dish to be conencted also to be able to receive the programmes also.

Reception of channels will be limited tot he size of dish you have.
Some UK TV hcannels can be received on an 80cm dish, others will not be available even on a 2.4m dish.



domo said:


> also if we wanted to leave our skybox+card in the uk is there any way we would be able to get the 5 main english channels in majorca. thanks


YOur option for UK TV in another country are:
via dish - for free but needs a "big dish"
via rebroadcaster - who wil charge a monthly fee for the free channels - but not big dish
via internet - need to find a suiatbel VPN, or server, or teleco providing this service.
via P2P - just download the programems you want from a p2p service like uknova or thebox.bz...why have / pay for all channels 24/when you can just DL the programmes you want


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## domo (Apr 19, 2011)

hi sat,thanks very much for your help


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## TheHendersons (Feb 22, 2011)

Hi

We have a "big dish" it cost us €300, we have a sky box but to continue your sky into Spain you need to have a UK address as sky do not allow there service abroad. So we just have the freeview channels and that's fine for us. OH bit hacked off without sports right enough!


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## The Crowman (Apr 22, 2011)

domo said:


> hi all,in the near future we will be spending our time commuting between the uk and puerto de alcudia.if we took our skybox + card from the uk would it just be a case of connecting it to a tv and we would be able to watch the same programmes we are watching in the uk.also if we wanted to leave our skybox+card in the uk is there any way we would be able to get the 5 main english channels in majorca. thanks


No problem, if you have a computer, an internet connection with more than 1 Meg (I would recommend 6 Meg), and a TV with computer input. Download SNIP /, sit back and watch to your hearts content. The program even has a record facility!! 
Internet TV is the way things have gone, no more picture breaking up as satelite TV does. Dishes are a thing of the past. Try it in the UK first.
If you want to use BBC iplayer & ITV player SNIP/, but the picture with this is reduced to 4:3 size.

Good Luck,
John.


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## Guest (Apr 26, 2011)

The Crowman said:


> Internet TV is the way things have gone, no more picture breaking up as satelite TV does. Dishes are a thing of the past.


Not quite yet I think! Even with my 15 meg connection I still have to endure buffering and drop outs when watching anything popular - and lets not mention the fact that it's often running a minute or two behind the actual live broadcast which for sporting events can be annoying when the whole street erupts and you are still waiting for Spain to score!


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## The Crowman (Apr 22, 2011)

ShinyAndy said:


> Not quite yet I think! Even with my 15 meg connection I still have to endure buffering and drop outs when watching anything popular - and lets not mention the fact that it's often running a minute or two behind the actual live broadcast which for sporting events can be annoying when the whole street erupts and you are still waiting for Spain to score!


HI Andy,
You must be very unfortunate. Using the programs I mentioned and 6 Meg, I don't experience any of the problems you seem to have, perhaps you should look elsewhere for your connection. Another good program for retrospective TV is "SeeSaw", and for sport "Everything On TV".

John


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## Guest (Apr 26, 2011)

My connection is spot on, the issue is the amount of people all trying to view the same live feed and the provider unable to cope with the load. Aside from the poor picture quality, especially smearing, when viewed on a decent sized tv I would be truly impressed if over a 2+ hour live broadcast from BBC1 that you don't get any buffering incidents/drop outs

I certainly would not be giving any money to any of these dodgy streaming providers that shut down once they've made enough money from expats. I pay for a professional VPN service, which gives me UK/US IPs that I use for work but obviously allows me access to iPlayer and some other UK streaming services that don't block out known VPN IP ranges, but I still wouldn't recommend it as a viable alternative to a decent HD freesat/sky setup. It is better than nothing but you can't beat a plug n play STB that just works without any IT knowledge.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

My OH works in TVs and HiFi stuff in the UK and never recommends computer streaming stuff, either there or here - he says they need to get it right before you can get anywhere near a good and realiable enough quality and he says it slows the internet down if anyone who's not watching the tv and "playing on fb"

Jo xxx


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## The Crowman (Apr 22, 2011)

jojo said:


> My OH works in TVs and HiFi stuff in the UK and never recommends computer streaming stuff, either there or here - he says they need to get it right before you can get anywhere near a good and realiable enough quality and he says it slows the internet down if anyone who's not watching the tv and "playing on fb"
> 
> Jo xxx


Hi again,

As I said, my internet TV is perfect, no buffering issues or any other problems. The Wireless connection allows me to work on the laptop in another room downloading programs, no trouble!
Perhaps jojo, your guy is a little behind the times, I know several Sat. installers who also don't want it to catch on. I wonder why?
I would recommend anyone to try internet TV, the payments are on a month to month basis (no contract), so if it doesn't work for you, all it has cost is one months payment (suck it and see).

John.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

The Crowman said:


> Hi again,
> 
> As I said, my internet TV is perfect, no buffering issues or any other problems. The Wireless connection allows me to work on the laptop in another room downloading programs, no trouble!
> Perhaps JoJo, your guy is a little behind the times, I know several Sat. installers who also don't want it to catch on. I wonder why?
> ...


My "guy" isnt a satellite installer, he runs a couple of high end TV/HiFi shops and an installation business in the UK - he's alot of things, but certainly not behind the times, in fact he's probably ahead of the times, he has to be, he deals with serious audio/visualphiles, builds home cinemas and dedicated music rooms in their houses. His argument is that if everybody in the country (the UK) were to adopt this method of streaming, it would grind to a halt. The bandwidths in the UK (even worse in Spain) simply arent big enough and the more who use them, the more flaky the signal. So we have satellite tv in our house in Spain and it works a treat - accept for when it rains lol!!

Jo xxx


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## The Crowman (Apr 22, 2011)

jojo said:


> My "guy" isnt a satellite installer, he runs a couple of high end TV/HiFi shops and an installation business in the UK - he's alot of things, but certainly not behind the times, in fact he's probably ahead of the times, he has to be, he deals with serious audio/visualphiles, builds home cinemas and dedicated music rooms in their houses. His argument is that if everybody in the country (the UK) were to adopt this method of streaming, it would grind to a halt. The bandwidths in the UK (even worse in Spain) simply arent big enough and the more who use them, the more flaky the signal. So we have satellite tv in our house in Spain and it works a treat - accept for when it rains lol!!
> 
> Jo xxx


Jo, I don't think I said your guy was a satellite installer, what I said was I know some who don't want it to catch on.
As for it grinding to a halt, at present it hasn't happened, not in Alicante area anyway (live for today, tomorrow may not come :clap2: ). At the price, it is a serious consideration for Domo.
SNIP

John.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Doesn't satellite reception depend where you are, too? We are in Cadiz in the bottom left hand corner of Spain. We only have Spanish TTD but other Brits round here with sodding great dishes on their roofs always complain they can´t get a decent picture after dark or when it's raining. Is it better further north or east?


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

The Crowman said:


> HI Andy,
> You must be very unfortunate. Using the programs I mentioned and 6 Meg, I don't experience any of the problems you seem to have, perhaps you should look elsewhere for your connection. Another good program for retrospective TV is "SeeSaw", and for sport "Everything On TV".
> 
> John


but here http://www.expatforum.com/expats/spain-expat-forum-expats-living-spain/48624-europa-network.html#post504645 you said you only have 1meg:confused2:


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## The Crowman (Apr 22, 2011)

Alcalaina said:


> Doesn't satellite reception depend where you are, too? We are in Cadiz in the bottom left hand corner of Spain. We only have Spanish TTD but other Brits round here with sodding great dishes on their roofs always complain they can´t get a decent picture after dark or when it's raining. Is it better further north or east?


Hi there,
The short answer is NO!
When we first came out here, we like everyone else had satellite TV. The biggest dish you could get, and had it checked for alignment every two months (the occasional strong wind moving it). There was no alternative, BBC2 impossible to get and about 10PM the picture starting to go, when it rained, forget it. It amazes me that people are still putting up with it. 
Two years ago I decided to investigate internet TV and to my surprise it worked and worked well, always a clear picture (even HD) and no maintenance.

John.


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## The Crowman (Apr 22, 2011)

ShinyAndy said:


> Not quite yet I think! Even with my 15 meg connection I still have to endure buffering and drop outs when watching anything popular - and lets not mention the fact that it's often running a minute or two behind the actual live broadcast which for sporting events can be annoying when the whole street erupts and you are still waiting for Spain to score!


Hi Andy,
I have just been to a friends house who is having a spot of bother with his internet supplier (no names no pack drill), and while he is waiting for it to be sorted, only has a 1Meg (800kbps actually) connection, and watched "The One Show" - no problems!
If you are paying for 15 Meg and having problems, I think you need to ask a few questions of your supplier.

John.


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## sat (Jul 20, 2008)

Alcalaina said:


> Doesn't satellite reception depend where you are, too? We are in Cadiz in the bottom left hand corner of Spain. We only have Spanish TTD but other Brits round here with sodding great dishes on their roofs always complain they can´t get a decent picture after dark or when it's raining. Is it better further north or east?


The short answer is YES.
In north east Spain, you can get all UK TV on an 80cm dish, as you are moving closer to where the signals are intended.
There are som ereal blackspots around tho - like 80kms inland from alicante, where 2.4/3.1m dishes struggle to keep some of the weakest of signals (ie free to air BBC and ITVs)
Buy all satellite dishes / systems have issues with rain - even in the UK!
Many UK TV channels can currently be receive on a small dish (like ITV1, C4 and Fives), and you only need a "Big dish" for the free to air BBCs, ITV2,3,4. In fact about 60%+ of the SKy pay TV package can be received on an 80cm dish over most of Spain 24/7.

I have tried and tested a few of the internet serives offered to me, and at the moment the quality and reliablily does not impress me yet. Lot of buffering, problems with shared connections speeds and also note that a lot of people do not have 6megs yet, and are still on 1 or 3m only, and a lot of the services on offer inthe local rags say min of 3m.

It may be the next thing, but for the broadcasters satellite is still the cheapest and easiest way of delivery of programmes, especially for HD. Just about all of the HD channels on satellite have a data rate of over 10ms..some even 15, with full digital sound. And for it to really take off network speeds have to improve...look at all the telcoms cos in the UK asking for money off the BBC to help upgrade their systems, as their systems are running slow due to Iplayer being used more and more!


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

for what its worth, this is what my OH had to say when I asked him earlier - he very kindly e-mailed it to me - well he's got nowt else to do lol

"Your guy ‘SAT’ is absolutely correct, Internet TV is still along way from being a high quality reliable source of TV.
There are still many issues even in the UK with better ‘mature’ connections, particularly from the cable providers like Virgin who (allegedly ) offer ‘up to’ 50 meg services.

There are several issues, the main one being that most folk just don’t understand what, for example, a 6meg service actually is. This is a theoretical maximum download speed from the provider. It is by no means a guaranteed speed and in reality (particularly in Spain) most of these connections only average about 2meg at best......this means for quite some time they may go as low a half a meg or less. Not enough for reliable streaming and this WILL result in buffering issues.
The next misconception is that everything revolves around the mythical ‘how fast is my internet connection’.
We tend to use the maximum download speed as a definitive measurement... This is wrong. There are many more factors involved, the contention ratio being the main one. Most ISP’s are very reluctant to tell you what this is. The measurement is a ratio and you’d be lucky to get better than 50:1 on most Spanish networks. This is another prime candidate for ‘stalling’ and buffering problems.
On top of all that there are various ‘ping’ rate problems from distant servers that change every few seconds with high network demand ......in the evening when everyone is home using their computers .....and watching TV?
Oh yes, and you’d better make sure you haven’t got a data cap on the internet service otherwise you’ll soon be hitting the limit.
Of course you could try talking to telefonica and explaining that you have a poor and erratic internet service ..... That should be fun. If you’re very lucky you may be dealing with a secondary company who sub contract the telefonica line. At least they might talk to you but they’ll have to deal with telefonica and frankly it won’t help.

All of this assumes you’re happy to watch heavily compressed standard definition TV...probably on your laptop?
Trying to get this kind of service running HD on your 60” 1080p HD LCD tv is frankly laughable in most parts of Spain.
The bottom line is that a huge number of people are successfully using satellite (SKY) or FreeSat and providing it’s correctly installed with a decent dish, LNB and properly aligned ...it works really well even on HD.
Why try and re-invent the wheel .... If you use freesat ..... It is FREE!.

There is no doubt that internet TV will become much more popular, indeed it may be the dominant source, but it’s a way off yet and let’s not forget that SKY will fight back with things like 3D ... And that requires even more bandwidth. - Mr. Jojo" yawn!!!

Jo xxx


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## VFR (Dec 23, 2009)

Thanks for that expert info regarding online streaming MrJo & even with 6meg at times I will often get buffering when viewing YouTube etc online, for me not an issue (bye & large) as i will give the program few minutes to load before watching.

Valencia is not particularly good for receiving Free to Air from Astra & i used to have a lot of trouble, so I bought a Prodelin 1.8 offset dish for around 650euro, this coupled with a Invacom Quad LNB gives us 24/7 on the vast bulk of channels with the new BBC2 frequency's.

The dish is though very securely mounted in a protected spot (from the wind) and I am often amazed that many big dishes I see are just left out in the back yard (for want of a better term) for the wind to play with.
If they were mine I would build a blocky shed for the dish to live in myself & give the thing half a chance.


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## The Crowman (Apr 22, 2011)

sat said:


> The short answer is YES.
> In north east Spain, you can get all UK TV on an 80cm dish, as you are moving closer to where the signals are intended.
> There are som ereal blackspots around tho - like 80kms inland from alicante, where 2.4/3.1m dishes struggle to keep some of the weakest of signals (ie free to air BBC and ITVs)
> Buy all satellite dishes / systems have issues with rain - even in the UK!
> ...


I must apologise to Alcalaina & to sat, it obviously does matter where you are!
I still maintain that with a companies like the one I use - "Europa" who offer 6 Meg and actually deliver on average 5.5 Meg and "FilmOn" (doesn't require an English IP and who supply 11 of the main English + film channels), might be a good option for "domo", which was what this thread started as. In the Campello area (near Alicante) satellite reception in the evenings is poor, that's why I investigated the internet. If I want to use BBCiplayer or ITV player where an English VPN is required, I use a company called "TVAbroad". Downloading BBCiplayer progs. should be no problem, I believe that if the speed drops off it stops , and resumes when it picks up again. Sounds as if it might take a long time though!
From what you people are saying, and I'm sure you've all actually tried internet TV and are not just relaying hearsay. I must be extremely lucky with my suppliers.
P.S :-
Andy, I'll put my money where my mouth is. Come up and see my system working, if it exhibits any of the problems you relate, I'll pay your petrol and stand you to a slap up meal. We can also discuss matters nautical. I have a Hunter Horizon sailing cruiser in England that me and my good lady (she's a "Yacht Master"), go and live on during the hot months :clap2:.

John.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

The Crowman said:


> I must apologise to Alcalaina & to sat, it obviously does matter where you are!
> I still maintain that with a companies like the one I use - "Europa" who offer 6 Meg and actually deliver on average 5.5 Meg and "FilmOn" (doesn't require an English IP and who supply 11 of the main English + film channels), might be a good option for "domo", which was what this thread started as. In the Campello area (near Alicante) satellite reception in the evenings is poor, that's why I investigated the internet. If I want to use BBCiplayer or ITV player where an English VPN is required, I use a company called "TVAbroad". Downloading BBCiplayer progs. should be no problem, I believe that if the speed drops off it stops , and resumes when it picks up again. Sounds as if it might take a long time though!
> From what you people are saying, and I'm sure you've all actually tried internet TV and are not just relaying hearsay. I must be extremely lucky with my suppliers.
> P.S :-
> ...



This is beginning to sound more and more like you're desperate - are you advertising your system per chance, is that why you are soooooo very biased inspite of the evidence????? would you make money if people take any notice of your system?

Jo xxx


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## Ettylou (Apr 22, 2011)

The Crowman said:


> Hi again,
> 
> As I said, my internet TV is perfect, no buffering issues or any other problems. The Wireless connection allows me to work on the laptop in another room downloading programs, no trouble!
> Perhaps jojo, your guy is a little behind the times, I know several Sat. installers who also don't want it to catch on. I wonder why?
> ...


I agree with John, my tv is on pretty much all day using the Internet. My husband works from home using the Internet and I'm constantly on my iPod using the Internet all at the same time  We have 8mg and never have a prob. We did use a different 'provider' than we do now who used to charge £10 a month & that one was rubbish especially when there were high viewing programs on so we cancelled that one & found the one we use now & it's cheaper  I even recommended to a friend in the US & she uses it too with no probs that I know of. I highly recommend it xx


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

I think the OP has plenty of options to consider now, so:lock1:


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