I've been pretty happy with my gTab with the streaming video options I have used (Netflix, Crackle, Hulu, AmazonPrime and Fox TV) and then I read about the iPlayer from the BBC. Apparently residents of the U.K. pay a yearly tax on their television sets so the BBC makes all of this content available to residents. They have announced plans to allow non-U.K. residents to use the iPlayer for a monthly fee (which like Hulu and Netflix I would gladly pay for) but as of today they haven't launched that service. So I signed up for a VPN service which allows me to log on as if I am in the U.K. so when I bring up the BBC iPlayer webpage or the iPlayer app I am able to stream and/or download recent content for later viewing. You can even watch live tv feeds and pretty soon they will update the app to allow for more older on demand shows/episodes.
I signed up with StrongVPN ($55/year) but there are a lot of other providers out there. It pays to do a bit of research but I can log on from my Windows PCs as well as my android phones, the gTab running VEGAn 5.1.1 with Pershoot's 2632.43 kernel, or my wife's Color Nook running CM 7.
Thought some folks might find this useful.
Related
Sorry if this is an idiot newbie question but I'm curious: can one use Skyfire to watch flash videos from the desktop-PC version of BBC iPlayer? I've tried using Pocket Internet Explorer, and that initially looks like it's going to work - the counter starts to tick over as if the video were playing - but there's no actual picture. Using Skyfire it complains that I'm trying to access iPlayer from a non-UK site (presumably because the Skyfire proxy server is outside the UK) - is there any way around this?
And yes, I know all about using myplayer and the user-agent hack in Opera. It's specifically desktop (rather than mobile) iPlayer material I'm interested in.
yes u can play iplayer from skyfire but dont like to watch in there tho
The answer you want is 'yes', so long as you are in the uk, since Skyfire now uses localised proxy servers. Video quality isn't all that great in Skyfire but I watched a whole episode of BBC Click without any major issues.
myPlayer does a very good job of sorting out iPlayer streams for you; it can also download higher quality videos.
leoni1980 said:
The answer you want is 'yes', so long as you are in the uk, since Skyfire now uses localised proxy servers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay. How?
I've recently got my HTC incredible and I LOVE IT!!!!
I also have a bluetooth enabled car radio....so my fav thing to do while driving is stream internet music.
I have an xm radio subscription and don't want to pay the extra monthly fee to use the SiriusXM radio android app
I've had some luck with using ORB.com and streaming on my phone, but sometimes at the login to mycast.orb.com the web browsers (sky fire, dolphinHD and default web browser) get stuck in a http/https endless loop and it locks up my machine running orb.
anyone have a good app or ideas on how I can fix the endless loop?
btw, I did download the SiriusXM radio and it works fine, but one it's streaming using the lower bitstream and two it cost extra
thanks community....
As far as I know, if you use any of the smart phone apps then you only have to pay for the SiriusXM web streaming. ($2.99 on top of any Satalight Package) As I already had XM streaming no where did it ask for more money.
If you are using an XM or Sirius App on a feature phone, then you have to pay a fee to your cellphone company.
thanks for the replay....
right....i'm trying to avoid the extra fee. On my WinMo phone i had found a good app, but I think ultimately it comes down to android not supporting the WMA stream format which listen.xmradio.com is streaming in. In fact, as of couple months ago, the stream stopped on my Win7 comp
Hopefully someone in the community will come up with a solution.
XM ON Droid Incredible
Orb, and siriusxmstreamer. This is how I stream Howard Stern to my droid(s).
do you by pass or how did you fix the http/https login loop?
When I can get into orb, it works fine, but most of the time I get stuck in the login loop.
I used siriusxmstreamer to orb on my backflip without issue.
But I thought that is you have access to SiriusXM the website then you get Smart Phone streaming for free.
AKA If you pay for web streaming you can access it on iPhone, Blackberry and Andorid for free.
You only pay extra if you have a dumb phone with the XM app on the phone from the carrior. The you are paying the carrior, not XM.
so I found a solution that I think is better than Orb
XM Tuner + TVersity
XMturner has a tab under configuration to TVersity, so they work really well with each other.
I'm having tversity transcode the stream and broadcast it as MP3 and using Xiialive lite to play it on my incredible.
Hi
Happy with the Asus but video playback is a little less than I expected. HD youtube videos splutter and will not play smooth in full screen mode. Changed the browser settings to desktop and tried the bbc Iplayer site. Normal definition videos play OK but are poor quality in my opinion. HD just splutter even more badly than tube. Will honeycomb 3.1 solve this problem?
We can all only hope!
Usage outside UK
I really enjoy BBC programming and watch the iPlayer a fair amount on my PC. Now that I got the transformer I thought it might be a good idea to install it, alas seems the app is only available in the UK.
Are other routes available?
Kumabjorn said:
I really enjoy BBC programming and watch the iPlayer a fair amount on my PC. Now that I got the transformer I thought it might be a good idea to install it, alas seems the app is only available in the UK.
Are other routes available?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just access to bbc iplayer via the web browser if you have a uk vpn or proxy, it's working fine. No need for the app.
Proxy refused
Don't have a VPN (and don't know how to get one) but I do have Expat Shield that provides a UK IP adress, but Market said; No, no! Can't do that. I suppose I will need a different account setting?
If I'm not mistaken, expat shield is a program to be used on a computer, there is no android version. For a good vpn you should subscribe to a paid service.
aibo said:
If I'm not mistaken, expat shield is a program to be used on a computer, there is no android version. For a good vpn you should subscribe to a paid service.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahh, I thought I could log in to Market from my PC and just send it to the Transformer.
This raises a follow up Q; Is there a good service available for both PC and Android devices? Especially when you have multiple devices.
Hi, there is always get_iplayer and rtmpdump, check out...
infradead(dot)org/get_iplayer/html/get_iplayer
But since the update to 3.2 the stock video player doesn't seem to want to play HD content (SD is fine), I can transcode using handbrake, but on 3.1 they played brilliantly :-(
Now I'm from the UK so I've no need for a VPN for this content so I can't help you with info regarding that, but you might need a setting for get_iplayer get around a verify / sync error, I have the following lines in my 'options' file...
flvstreamer /usr/bin/rtmpdump
rtmptvopts --swfVfy h++p://uuuuuu.bbc.co.uk/emp/10player.swf
rtmpradioopts --swfVfy h++p://uuuuuu.bbc.co.uk/emp/10player.swf
Hope this helps.
I spent some time over the weekend trying out various ways to stream movies, specifically ripped BluRays, to my Android phone (EVO) and tablet (Galaxy Tab 7") when I'm outside my home. I thought folks looking to do something similar might appreciate a list of what's available, as in all my searching I didn't come across one.
So here are my thoughts on each with Windows based desktop server software in blue, and Android client in green when from a different source:
VLC server to VLC Direct and VLC Stream and Convert - $4-5
Best quality, seek!, streamed subtitles!, VLC & clients buggy, no security (should be used with VPN), complex setup.
Splashtop Remote Desktop- $5
A remote desktop app promoted as a way to stream video. I set my laptop to 1024*768 and tried various videos, including Netflix and Hulu, and video quality was tolerable. (MUCH better than LogMeIn Ignition, or the VNC/RDP apps I use.) A little cumbersome to use if you just want to watch video, but it's as flexible as the desktop computer you are controlling. I'd be interested in hearing how CrazyRemote compares, as that includes "joystick" controls. - For the $1 sale price, I'll be running this off my laptop for NetFlix and Hulu.
Plex - $5
Soso video quality, easy to set up, included posters with movie data and such, by far the nicest interface. If video quality improves, they'll be the one to beat.
PlayOn - $5 / month for "Premium Services" like Netflix and Hulu, $0 To stream local videos
Similar to Plex without the movie posters and such, but includes Hulu and NetFlix. Unfortunately video and sound wouldn't stay synched.
RemotePotato to Remote Media Center - $0
Set up was tolerable, video quality is acceptable, seek!, big wins on having a very nice desktop silverlight web player and some integration with Windows Media Center. If the (separately developed) Android client continues to improve, and/or they stream from my WMC TV tuners, Netflix, etc, I'd be in love. - This is the one I'm sticking with for now because I like the option of streaming to desktop OR Android, depending where I am at the moment.
Subsonic - $Donation of an amount you choose for video streaming. Audio only is free.
Similar to RemotePotato, but more complex to set up, better security, but browser based FLV playback had soso video quality. RemotePotato was just easier. - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=968774
TVersity - $0
Seemed complicated and I didn't want to re-encode anything, so after installing I just yanked it without testing. Other folks have had good luck with it though! - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=6085651
PS3Mediaserver - $0
Another one that I didn't test because it seemed complicated. Again worth mentioning because other folks have had good luck with it though! - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=898796
Other Android server/app solutions seemingly based off of VLC - $Varies
AndroStream - Server wouldn't install (on two Win7x64 systems)
MyTVStation - Server installed as Admin, but couldn't connect to it. (Dev replied via email that he's working on it.)
Video Source - I tested using a 40GB MKV file ripped directly from BluRay without recompression, including English subtitles and both HD and stereo sound tracks. - As I am NOT willing to spend hours/days/weeks transcoding my BluRay collection to the native resolution(s) of my mobile devices (or to re-transcode them when the devices are replaced) I specifically wanted to include in my testing on the fly transcoding capabilities. (Avatar in this case)
Connection Speed - I tested using WiFi at home, WiFi at another location across town (but with the same ISP) and WiMax at a location which tested as 6Mb down. (My home upstream is 5Mb, and the remote WiFi and WiMax results were comparable, because the streams were all set to around 1-2.5Mb.)
DLNA is interesting stuff, and bears investigating, especially for playback FROM Android to a TV without wires. Normally it will not stream outside of your local network, but I'm thinking of trying it via VPN, as my Galaxy Tab includes a native player.
I realize the reviews are brief and very subjective, and my requirements and testing won't match many peoples. That said, I still thought folks might appreciate just having a nice big list to refer to, with hopefully some good comments on other people's experiences, to save them some time digging around.
After a long weekend of fiddling, I'm using Splashtop for Netflix (not available on my Tab yet) and Hulu, and RemotePotato w/ the Remote Media Center app for my movies and recorded TV.
There also looks to be some development happening with Media Portal plug-ins for Android that could be quite promising for 2.3+ devices in a few months. If things pan out...you'll load your media one time into the server, and be able to watch it on any device, be it iOS, Windows, or Android.
What VPN services do you guys use for stuff like Hulu, BBC iPlayer etc?
How much do you pay and are you happy with the speed?
At the moment I am using StrongVPN Deluxe package which I am happy with. It's the second VPN service i have used, and is much faster than the first one. (UKiVPN).
Package: StrongVPN Deluxe package
Price: $15 per month
I use it to watch BBC iPlayer and 4oD mainly, but I can switch to a US server which allows Hulu too (haven't done that yet..)
I have used UKiVPN. Speed was a tab bit slow, but then again I was running 512 from my side.
Have not used one in a while, and was wanting to get another one. Downloaded BBC iPlayer. Better to watch the TOPGEAR eps when they launch rather than to wait for the torrent to download