Well I have to admit I am surprised that we are now entering our 8th year of service, to enable expats and clients from all over the world to access restricted sites in the UK and the BBC Iplayer which is how it all started.

When I started this proxy server, it was just for me to use at first, more down to the fact that I heard the free sites were run by the Russian Mafia and would steal my data. After which I then offered to friends and family and slowly the people using the proxy grew, taking up a large amount of time to manage. Since then many things have changed in ways to watch TV, in particular IPTV but a good stable proxy or our VPN is still safe to use, with many of my original clients still using and some of whom have become friends.

The last couple of years I have not needed to do any promotion, in fact come to think of it I never have. But that was because when I started the server I thought it would have only lasted a few months! So as Christmas comes I know that there will be a few Expats wanting to watch a few familiar face from England. So if you are one feel free to get in touch and a Merry Christmas to all my users past and present

Regards

Stephen

1. Locate the Video Add-ons list and search for the iPlayer icon (Note NOT the iPlayer shortcut found along the bottom of your XBMC home screen)

2. With the BBC iPlayer Add-on icon selected click the Menu button on your remote. This is the centre on the three buttons directly below the OK and navigation buttons.

3. Select the Add-on Settings option from the available list of options.

4. You will now be in the iPlayer Add-on settings screen where you should select the Proxy tab at the top of settings screen. DO NOT ALTER ANY OTHER SETTINGS UNLESS YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

5. You will now be presented with the Proxy setup screen. Firstly you need to enable the proxy service if not already enabled by using your remote to navigate down to the first option “Use Proxy” box and click the OK button on your remote. This will switch on the proxy service showing a now blue lit round indicator on the right and you will see all the remaining 5 Proxy option fields no longer greyed out.

6. Simply go down the list and fill in the new ip details I have sent, noting your current ip address so you can check which of the two ip address you have been moved to. NB the first option should in most cases simply left in the default HTTP setting.

7. Once you have correctly entered all the details then you must go to the bottom of this set up screen and select OK or else your carefully entered settings will be lost.

8. Return back to your XBMC Home screen and now run the iPlayer add-on using the normal shortcut at eh bottom of your screen. Voila it should now work perfectly if your internet connection is up to what is required (minimum 8 to 10 Mbps broadband downlink). Enjoy.

Yesterday my hosting company for the proxy and a few other websites of mine went offline a DNS issue apparently, hopefully you was not affected by it!

Given that I thought it would be a good time to mention that behind the scenes I have been trying to make the proxy service more efficient, as started back in May. I am pleased to say a lot has been achieved and a few tasks have become more automated and as a result I have been able to give www.iplayerproxy4u.com a bit of a facelift, but more importantly I have invested in a support section for the proxy and the Internet TV boxes. This I think is more important than anything as I know I have lost a few emails with my last update. The advantage with the support site is that any issues you may have will not get lost, deleted by accident or fall into a spam folder etc. Here is the link to support https://support.zoho.com/portal/iplayerproxy4u/home

I have to admit that replying to each email keeps that personal touch, but I would hate to have missed one. NB also with the DNS issue above seems I have lost a few emails yesteday too!!

One of the main reasons for the support site is for the TV Boxes that we now supply, because they are basically a small PC linked to your TV there are often updates and new great apps (Recently we came aware of how to record TV if required) here is the video link http://youtu.be/pzXMM0I5pNI put together by Ray my technical guy! Also while on the subject it became obvious that I never included a link where you could buy the box or find more info which is here http://www.iplayerproxy4u.com/shop/

On a completely different front, but something that should appeal to Expats like me is Bitcoin, I gave it a mention a few years ago and not sure who bought any at the time but if you are into sending money abroad then it is worth considering for many reasons. If you want to test it out then signup up for a Xapo account they will give you some free bitcoins and if you are not interested you can always send them to me, every little bit helps if you can pardon the pun ;). Here is the link http://xapo.com/r/YAT250G

Although I have written about our small Linux box connected to the TV before, all my presentations to date have been using screen capture software on the PC.

So the other day having been away for a few months I switched on my original box, which I must have bought more than a year ago to find it worked just as well the first day.

As a result I decided to make another video using my mobile phone so that you can get a better idea of how this incredibly small the box is and how nice it is to work with a remote.

So why would you buy one of these boxes, well obviously if you are a British expat and want to watch UK TV in your country and a little fed up having to watch from your PC or laptop or if you have your Laptop connected to the TV then I think you will be more than happy. Finally you will have that feeling of relaxing on the sofa in front of the TV again.

I also want to mention that these boxes are different to most you can find on the internet, as these are not Android systems with XBMC and they are not just boxes with XBMC installed either, these are pre-configured and plug and play.

You will be surprised what you will need to do even if XBMC is already installed it is time consuming and frustrating if you get it wrong. In addition they are configured to update automatically and we are always on hand if anything goes wrong.

Also to give you an idea the video playing in the video above was with a connection speed of 7-10 mbps

Well it has finally happened, the big switch off by the BBC in moving their broadcast to another Satellite. Having been listening to the community, many have been unsure if this would be the case and as a result I will expect quite a few people to now rush for our TV boxes.

I have to admit I wondered if it would happen or not so never really wanted to push the box or scare people into buying before the rush.

So we shall see how this all pans out, but it will have to be a case of first come first served.

List of Live channels available

Just a quick update as I noticed that I had not included the TV channels that are available live via ExpatTV on the xbmc programme.

Basically you get the main terrestrial channels which are as follows

BBC 1 and 2
ITV 1 2 3 and 4
Channel 5
5 USA
Dave
Film 4
Pick
Cbbc
BBC News
4 Music
Viva
Filmon Football
BBC 1 Northern Ireland
Really

Apart from these via other plugins and a bit of searching you can find most channels live including some of the Irish channels too.

On top of this most series can be found using Mash Up TV or 1 channel, in fact recently I managed to find the series Orphan Black, plus the episodes which had not even aired yet on the BBC

Watching Premiership football on xbmc live

I think this is the first time I have ever written two blog posts on the same day 😉

Anyway just wanted to add to the previous blog post on watching the premiership games on your xbmc TV set top box. This is mainly because that is virtually all I did this weekend, not that I obsessive about football, well when you support Crystal Palace there is not that many exciting games apart from going up or staving off relegation (this year)

So this week I was able to watch the England game from my sofa, how enjoyable beer and nuts and we win, what more would one want. That was the easy part as it was playing via the ITV player and fortunately ITV have over the last few months improved the quality of their streaming which meant you could tell who was who!

So with this recent success I thought I would spend the weekend seeing how easy it is to watch some of the live premiership games. So first thing Saturday morning I was trying to watch every live game, with varied success and as a result produced a small video of my experience below.

What I learnt was that every game was available this weekend whether it was on BT Sport or SKY or even Setanta sports. Some streams were better than others but if you work at it you should find something with a decent stream. If not it is worth waiting for the following day when you can watch the recorded game where you can build a buffer if needed and watch in HD generally via the Football Replays addons on you xbmc

In regards to live I think it is easier to get the best stream if you after one game, then search via navi-x when the game is about to start. Otherwise and this may be worth testing as I did not get a very good stream, but try the sport channel on Mashup TV.

Although this may not be as good as being at hope in the UK at least I can finally watch a game without having to go to my local expat bar.

Yes a strange statement if you live in the UK, but as an expat living in Spain or any country then I suspect you will understand. We have been living here for 9 years and with my wife being Spanish and my daughters bilingual then we tend to watch the TV in Spanish, which is fine but there is only so much you can take of game shows.

BBC Iplayer on your TV

So about 4 years ago I discovered the BBC iplayer and the proxy and I then found myself in the office for what feels like 24 hrs a day. I did try to persuade them to watch the great BBC documentaries but there was no convincing the girls, I suppose this is the youth of today. I cannot understand it I loved to watch David Attenborough when I was young.

So when Ray a fellow expat suggested I try one of these new TV boxes he had configured for me for the Iplayer and live UK TV , I thought why not. Oh my god I did not expect the effect it was going to have on me or the family, finally I felt included once again.

As a result I said to Ray that I am sure my fellow expat friends who use the proxy would love this too (I say friends as after 4 years there is more than a customer relationship these days. I like to think that maybe it is the Chocolate that I get sent now and again or the those who sponsor my odd race that makes it feel that way) So these last few days we have been configuring set top boxes, which have started to arrive.

What has really pleased me is the response from our first customer Mike, which I will quote below as it is more or less my reaction.

Hi Stephen – This Box is a fantastic piece of equipment – All working well, and I find new features  every time I switch on.

Then a little later he says

This machine gets better every time I use it.

Mike.

It is difficult to explain why one would have this reaction, but to try to give you an idea it is not just the fact you can now watch the TV on your TV, but you get the iplayer and then you find you can stream virtually any movie in HD or TV series for free.

So then this weekend I wanted to see if I could watch any of the football over the weekend, with my surprise every game was available in the premiership also the England game with Poland was on ITV. OK some of the stream quality was not brilliant and took a little bit of time to find, but if you struggled the next day there was a chance you could watch the full game in HD.

Saying that earlier today I managed to watch Aston Villa v Spurs this afternoon live in virtual HD, just crazy.

OK I have to add a warning here as these streams are illegal, so I have to say that I am not responsible for what you decide to use your box for, but what I will say is that as an expat we have no choice. I think most of us would love to pay our TV licence and watch the BBC and the same goes with SKY to a lesser extent, but we cannot so as a result we have to resort to slightly different route to be able to have a resemblance of normality in our chosen country.

If you want to know more then details on how to watch the iplayer on your TV can be found here.

When you work from home you do not get to test other scenarios using the proxy, but this week I finally get away from home and work in a cortejo which is a bit like a small farm house in Orgiva on the outskirts of Granada.

I have to admit I was a little worried as it is in the middle of nowhere, no wifi and no TV. I could cope without the Spanish TV but no internet connection would be a disaster. So as soon as I arrived I asked if I would get a decent connection on the 3g and the answer was no!!

Anyway checked the phone and emails were arriving no problem and the signal looked strong. So set up the laptop using the iphone as a wifi hotspot, how amazing was that! Within seconds I was using the laptop for emails and browsing the web. Come the evening I thought what is the chance I will be able to watch the BBC iplayer via a 3 g connection, otherwise it was going to be a boring night on my own.

To my surprise I was streaming without any issues ie no buffering, fortunately I have an unlimited connection with orange, otherwise this could be expensive.

So this triggered my curiosity into what actual speed I was getting via 3g and it turns out over 7 mbps almost as good as my connection at home. Anyway I was so chuffed I thought i would be worth a blog post.