But services in other countries are sometimes restricted as well. For the UK it is for instance most contents offered by the BBC iPlayer which is only accessible if the user connecting to the service has a British IP address. This does block expats and Brits on holiday from accessing the contents online. While it is possible to get access to TV and radio contents by connecting to a virtual private network (vpn) that assigns UK IP addresses, it is usually considered to be complicated to setup and not free as well.

Expat Shield is a free service by the makers of HotSpot Shield that simplifies the process greatly. In its core, the software creates a vpn connection that assigns a UK IP to the computer system, thus allowing the user to access UK-only TV and Radio contents from all over the world.

It works with all UK based services, including BBC iPlayer TV (offering access to BBC One to Four) and Radio, ITV Player, Channel 4 and others. And since it is a VPN connection it means that access is available through all programs, including web browsers but also standalone applications.

Expat Shield Download and Installation

Expat Shield is offered as a free download at the official website. The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. Actually, the program is not downloaded directly from the website. A download manager is downloaded first, that then downloads the application to the local computer system. The application includes a custom toolbar that does not need to be installed, so make sure you disable it if you do not want it to be installed.

The program places an icon in the system tray that offers controls to start and stop the service. Starting it actually means that the following window is shown in Internet Explorer that initiates the connection. It is probably possible to copy the url into another browser as well to initiate the VPN connection.

From that moment on the system tray icon shows that the computer is connected to the VPN.

BBC iPlayer

Just visit the BBC iPlayer website and start watching the tv shows that you’d like to watch.

ITV Player

Visit the ITV homepage to watch all available tv shows online from any location in the world. Available are ITV1, ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 for online viewing.

Expat Shield offers all the additional benefits of running a VPN connection, including protection from network snooping, encryption and a new IP address for increased privacy.

The quality of the VPN solution has been excellent during testing. All tv shows that we watched in the time streamed without interruptions or buffering issues. All in all, an excellent free solution to access British TV and Radio contents as well as other UK-only services and sites. (via, thanks Maik for the tip)

It is likely that the guys over at Hulu will sooner or later block this method from working, it did work perfectly fine at the time of writing.

watch hulu from outside the united states

Start by downloading and installing the Modify Headers add-on for the web browser.

Now lookup the IP of a US website, you can do that here. Just enter a US domain name and copy the IP that is displayed.

Configure Modify Headers:

1. In Firefox, click Tools and then Modify Headers.
2. At the top of the Modify Headers window is a little drop-down box. Select Add from that box.
3. In the first text field beside the drop-down, type “X-Forwarded-For” without quotation marks.
4. In the second text field, type “a US IP” without quotation marks into the field.
5. Leave the third text field empty and click Add to the right of it.
6. Click the Enable All button on the right.
7. Click the Configuration button and make sure “Always On: Enable modify headers when the window/tab is closed” unless you don’t want to for some reason.

NOTE: This may interfere with other sites that you WANT thinking you’re from Canada. You can always disable the rule in modify headers when not using Hulu.

Windows users:

This are MashallX’s instructions, thanks dude.

Step 3 – Block tcp/udp ports Hulu uses within Microsoft Management Console. This seems like a lot of stuff but it’s not too bad :P

Section A – Add an “IP Security Policies on Local Computer” snap-in to MMC

1. In Windows 7/Vista you can just click Start and type “mmc” minus quotes and hit Enter, but in XP you click Start > Run > type “mmc” minus quotes and hit enter.
2. Click File and then Add/Remove snap-in
3. Select “IP Security Policy Management” and click the Add button in the middle.
4. A wizard will pop up, leave it on “Local Computer” and click Finish.
5. Back in the Add/Remove snap-in window, click OK.

Section B – Create an IP Security Policy for Hulu

1. Back in the main MMC window, click to select “IP Security Policies on Local Computer”
2. Click Action at the top and then “Create IP Security Policy”
3. In the wizard, click Next.
4. Create a name for the policy, I chose “Hulu IP Security Policy”. Click Next.
5. Requests for secure communication? Whatevs, click Next.
6. Uncheck the edit box and click Finish.

Section C – Create an IP Filter List of tcp/udp ports you wish to block.

1. Back in the main MMC window, click to select “IP Security Policies on Local Computer” again.
2. Click Action at the top and then “Manage IP Filter Lists and Filter Actions”
3. Under the “Manage IP Filter Lists” tab, click Add.
4. Give the filter a name. I chose “Hulu TCP/UDP Block”.
5. Click Add. When the “Welcome to IP Filter Wizard” comes up, click Next.
6. I didn’t bother with a description…click Next.
7. For the source IP address, choose “Any IP Address” and click Next.
8. For the destination IP address, choose “Any IP Address” and click Next.
9. For protocol type, choose “TCP” and click Next.
10. Choose “To this port” and enter 1935 in the box and click Next.
11. Click Finish.
12. Back in the “IP Filter List” box you should have 1 IP filter for TCP port 1935.
13. Follow steps 5 to 11 once more, substituting UDP instead of TCP.
14. Back in the “IP Filter List” box you should have 2 IP filters for TCP and UDP on port 1935.
14. Click OK.

Section D – Add an IP Filter Action so MMC knows to block the above tcp/udp ports.

1. You should now be back in the “Manage IP Filter Lists and Filter Actions” window.
2. Click the “Manage Filter Actions” tab at the top and then click the Add button.
3. Welcome to the IP Security Filter Action Wizard, click Next.
4. Give the action a name, such as “Hulu Block” and click Next.
5. On the “Filter Action General Options” screen, select “Block” and click Next and then Finish.
6. Back in the “Manage IP Filter Lists and Filter Actions” click Apply and then OK.

Section E – Create an IP Security Rule combining the IP Filter List and IP Filter Action from above.

1. Back in the main MMC window, right click the new IP Security Policy and click Properties. (e.g. Hulu IP Security Policy from Section B.)
2. On the Rules tab, click Add.
3. Welcome to the Create IP Security Rule Wizard, click Next.
4. Leave the Tunnel Endpoint on “This rule does not specify a tunnel” and click Next.
5. For Network Type, select “All Network Connections” and click Next.
6. IP Filter List? Select “Hulu TCP/UDP Block” (put a dot in the little circle :P) and click Next.
7. Filter Action? Select “Hulu Block” just like above and click Next.
8. Click Finish.

Section F – Assign the Hulu IP Security Policy and try it out!

1. Back in the main MMC window, right click the “Hulu IP Security Policy” and click “Assign”
2. After closing Firefox and opening it again, I am able to use Hulu!

Mac users

To block the port on OS X use:

sudo ipfw add 0 deny tcp from any to any 1935
sudo ipfw add 0 deny udp from any to any 1935

Linux users

Thanks to Got Milk4 for the instructions

Third-party firmware routers (Tomato, DD-WRT, OpenWRT) can use these commands:
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp –dport 1935 -j DROP
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p udp –dport 1935 -j DROP
Similarily, Linux users can use these commands (requires the proper kernel modules to be compiled & the iptables package installed):
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –dport 1935 -j DROP
iptables -A INPUT -p udp –dport 1935 -j DROP

TV stations in most countries of the world show the games live but there might be some countries where not all games are shown, or where a pay-tv station broadcasts the football games. Watching the Fifa world cup online can also be the last resort for users who do not have access to a TV which is the case for most work environments for instance.

The following guide explains how to watch the world cup online. Streaming media has bandwidth requirements. A broadband Internet connection is recommended to view the sports event online.

Step 1: Finding out which channels and programs are needed

Each world cup match is broadcasted in several channels which are accessible in various freely available programs. That sounds complicated at first but it is not the case. The best website to get a match listing is MyP2P which is offering all the information needed to find the game, channel and program. The website lists all of the games on their overview pages.

world cup online

A click on the TV icon at the right of each match will open the page for that match listing all TV channels and programs that are broadcasting it live on the Internet.

watch world cup

Channels are displayed with the language of the commentary, signal quality, bitrate and program needed to watch. It is recommended to find a native TV channel first and fall back to the always working Chinese channels if none of the native ones work. Here is a list of programs that are often needed to view live football.

TV Streaming programs

• Streamtorrent
• TVAnts
• Sopcast
• Veetle

Some broadcasts can be watched in Windows Media Player, embedded on websites or in other media players. Some will not be working properly, if that is the case just switch to another station.

Each MyP2P station listing offers a Play link. Clicking on that link will either load the TV channel in the installed software program, media player or on another website where the stream is embedded. It is highly recommended to install the program before clicking on links that require tv streaming programs.

world cup live

football live streamtorrent

The quality of the stream depends largely on its bitrate, the source and the connected users. A higher bitrate on the other hand requires a faster Internet connection. It is usually a good idea to switch tv stations if the image quality is bad or if it requires lots of buffering.

And that’s how you can watch the world cup online. Do you have additional tips, programs or websites that can be used to watch it online? Let us know in the comment section.

TV Gorge is an online TV viewers dream come true. The service streams episodes of popular English TV shows such as Dexter, Criminal Minds, 24, NCIS or Numb3rs to users from around the world.

Even better s the fact that those tv shows are offered in high quality and do not only offer the latest episodes that have just aired but also previous episodes.

TV Gorge will for instance provide access to all episodes of all seasons of 24, Californication, Dexter, CSI or Fringe. Every episode of every season is available and just a click away from being viewed online. It cannot get more comfortable than that.

The amount of TV series, episodes and seasons is incredible, many will call it the perfect solution for watching tv online.

But is the service legal? It is hard to say as there are virtually no information about the service itself on the website. Hulu and tv.com are listed as a partner on the site which could indicate legality. The service could be legal but it could also not be legal.

This is however not a problem of the user watching the tv shows online. If you are looking for a great place with an enormous amount of tv shows then TV Gorge is the place to be.

Users start by clicking on File > Search in the menu to open the search interface which can be used to list all available channels or filtered channel lists either by keyword or pre-selection (e.g. sports, top 100). It is also possible to enter a keyword which will search for and return all channels matching that keyword. A good start is probably the top 100 channel list.

It takes a few seconds to populate the channel list which displays one channel per row. Each row includes the name, bitrate, quality, audience and other values. The most important are the bitrate, quality and audience as these are indicators on the quality of the picture and the bandwidth that is needed to watch the channel fluently.

A click on a channel with open an internal viewer that is connecting to the selected tv channel. This process can also take some time as the StreamTorrent begins the buffering process.

The player offers basic status information and controls including a buffer bar, changing to full screen and changing the volume.

Watching tv is probably the most popular use of StreamTorrent. It is possible to add new channels to the application and to start a live stream from the local computer system.

Update:

Streamtorrent is no longer available on Google Code. The project has been pulled citing terms of service violations. We have uploaded the latest working version of the program to our servers. You can download StreamTorrent from the following link: StreamTorrent (516)

TVU Networks, the maker of TVU Player, have created a web platform as well which can be used to watch the very same channels on the website without having to download and configure their PC TV client. An add-on was required to make the service work in Firefox and the same happened when trying it in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. After that it worked perfectly though.

The interface lists the channels on the left side. Don’t expect to see many popular US channels in the mix with a few exceptions like the Comedy Channel. The majority of programs offered are in Chinese though. The channels can be filtered by language to only display channels in a selected language. That filter is not working correctly. Selecting English from the language selection will also yield different language channels. Not many though but still noticeable.

Other options provided in the interface are a search form to find specific channels faster and a TV guide that is available for some channels. The verdict is that TVU Networks provides free access to a working Internet TV platform that concentrates on non-English TV stations. It does however offer a great way for sport fans to watch their favorite sport events over the Internet.

It is more a convenience than something revolutionary because programs and websites that do the same already exist for some time. The biggest advantage of RevoluTV is the no frills no thrills interface that is clean and easily accessible. It makes use of Windows Media Player to stream the TV contents to the computer screen which unfortunately means that the software program will only run on computers with Windows XP or Windows Vista.

Channels are divided into themes like News, Games or Kids which list the available TV streams. A click on a network name will load the channel immediately which works well and without lags. It usually takes a few seconds to buffer the stream before a picture is shown.

Playback quality depends a lot on the user’s Internet connection but also on the type of backbone the TV network is using to stream their contents.

Channels can be added to favorites for faster access. There is however no settings menu of any kind. Basic controls for volume and playback are offered but nothing beyond that. The only way to change settings would probably be to change them in Windows Media Player.

Recently, many websites have started to show shows free online but do so in a legal fashion, paying for the shows using advertisements.

Different websites seem to work in different jurisdiction but it is fair to say that a large amount is available to viewers from the United States only. Here are a few resources to watch tv shows online.

South Park Studios famously provided their shows online free of charge because the show’s creators were annoyed of people watching their shows illegally. Unfortunately, South Park Studios is not available in Great Britain; I suspect it is North America only.

Joost, the much hyped IPTV service which recently has recently made the transition from software to web-based, boasts a number of titles, both mainstream and online-only. In the UK, and possibly other countries, titles such as Babylon 5, Peep Show, Shameless and Robot Chicken.

YouTube has recently announced it will start ‘serving full-length TV dinners‘ including shows like Star Trek: The Original Series, MacGyver and Beverly Hills 90210. Unfortunately, this is unavailable in Europe.

Hulu is a site which offers free, ad-supported streaming video of TV shows and films from NBC and FOX, amongst others. This includes shows like The Simpsons, The Daily Show, Family Guy and even The Office! Predictably, this is also only for Americans.

BBC iPlayer is a free streaming video service kindly provided to people in the United Kingdom. iPlayer allows Brits to watch most shows broadcasted on a BBC channel in the past week on-demand. The BBC even admits that iPlayer technically does not require a licence fee, a type of tax which any British person with a TV set pays to help support the non-commercial BBC.

Insufficient bandwidth means that there is not enough bandwidth available to transport all the date from the Zattoo server to the client PC. The effect is a distorted pictures from time to time that is showing artifacts and interrupted sounds.

The major problem with this error message is that you cannot change the quality settings currently in Zattoo. It sometimes helps to switch the channel for a few seconds and go back to the channel that did display the insufficient bandwidth message. It happened more than once that the message will not appear again. That’s unfortunately the only fix that I was able to find for this problem.

Zattoo is currently available in many different countries in Europe including Germany, England, France and Switzerland.

Miro can also download and play Bittorrent videos. The process is pretty easy and straightforward. All you need is a url that points to a torrent file that contains one or more videos. Click on file > download in Miro to download the files automatically with Miro which does all the configuration meaning that you do not have to fiddle with Bittorrent settings at all.

This is great for the majority of people who simply do not want to configure thousand options to be able to download torrents. You can configure a handful of options though in file > options by clicking on the downloads tab. You may limit the upload or download bandwidth, select the ports that should be used for Bittorrent transfers, automatically forward ports and select if you want to reject unencrypted connections.

Once a video has been downloaded it is available in your library where you can watch it or move it into one of your channels. Downloads can be paused or canceled at anytime and users have the option to stop seeding the video when it finished downloading.

I can’t see many changes in this version. TVU Networks are unfortunately not publishing release notes so I have to compare the old and new version by myself. The only change that I was able to find is a link to the program of that network that you could click on. Some stations are not there for the moment, I’m missing ABC for instance.

If you run into errors with TVU Player you should take a look at my tvu player faq which addresses some of the most common problems that are encountered. Please note that you do need a broadband connection for most channels, only the channels marked with low could probably be viewed without one.

They have also added a forum where everyone can discuss the series and read the announcements when new episodes are released. The following excerpt was taken from Wikipedia “Arrested Development is a character-driven Emmy Award-winning American comedy television series that ran from November 2, 2003 to February 10, 2006, about a formerly wealthy and habitually dysfunctional family. The series is presented in a fashion reminiscent of documentary film/cinéma vérité, with omniscient narration (by Ron Howard), archival photographs, and historic footage. Although set in Newport Beach and Balboa Island, California, it was primarily filmed in locations around Culver City and Marina del Rey, about an hour drive north.”

I will describe three freeware programs that let you connect to channels that stream tv and especially live sports events. This includes all major european football (soccer) leagues, champions league, uefa cup, espn, wrestling, national team matches, boxing matches aso.

You also find regular tv stations like mtv and custom stations like gamers tv there. On with the PC TV programs.

PC TV

All you need to watch pc tv is a computer with the latest windows media player and / or real player. A broadband connection is desired for best results. All three PC TV programs to watch TV on the PC have been produced in Asia making it hard to read the websites. Those websites offer tv program lists among other information.

First, let us take a look at some options in media player and real player:

Start the media player, make sure you use the latest version. Right-Click and select Options from the menu. Click on Performance and Change the Buffer Size of Content to 30 seconds.

In real player you select Tools -> Preferences and click on the General -> Playback Settings. The setting Buffer up to 30 seconds is at the bottom of this window.

Stream formats:

mms:// and .asx open with windows media player
rtsp:// and .rm / .ram open with real player

Starting Streams manually:

Sometimes you need to start streams manually. Use the stream formats information to figure out the program to use.

On windows media player choose File -> Open Url or the shortcut ctrl + u
On real player choose File -> Open

PC TV Programs

This is a list of free PC TV programs that can be used to view TV on PC.

Sopcast

Download from the above link, unzip, start. A channel list will be displayed. Double-click a channel and windows media player should start and begin buffering and displaying.

Pplive

Just download and run the installation script on pplive. Its all in English, no need to worry. You need the pplive channel list for it, it does not come with a loaded list.

Ppstream

Download from the above location. This one has an installation script that is unfortunately producing lots of gibberish. The buttons are designed like in every other windows installation script. (left button, choose a directory, 3x middle button). The Channel list is on the left, you see the channel name, the quality of the stream in Kb per second and the users connected to the channel.

If I had to choose one of them I?d defiantly choose ppStream which has the best interface and good user rates and a nice overall stream quality.

Popular PC TV Channels:

Additional Information:

Live Football Streams Schedule

More P2P TV Tools:
Coolstreaming
QLive
TvAnts

Using PC TV programs on your computer has never been easier than in today’s Internet. Users can pick a wide variety of applications that bring pc tv to their computer without having to pay a dime.

If you feel the same I have a nice software for you that uses P2p technology to provide free TV streams. Its a Chinese program but you will be able to watch most of the big US leagues like NHL and also European soccer games live.

The quality of the stream is ok, you should have a broadband connection to enjoy the games though. Please also note that the TV stream quality depends largely on the source and the number of users who are watching the channel at the same time.

You can download the tool at sopcast

After your download has finished simply unpack the software to a location and start sopcast.exe. The channel list will be populated, click on a channel and windows media player opens and tries to connect to it.

The most interesting channels with good quality for sports events are:

CCTV 5 (currently german bundesliga live)
Star Sports
Soccer (demo)

You can also provide your own stream to the crowd, for more information on additional channels visit the sites forum.

Check out the following articles for a list of sports related sites that keep up to date lists of sport events, the programs they are streamed in and the channels that you can watch them: Myp2p.eu Alternatives and Wiziwig.tv.

Both sites are updated several times a day with the latest information. It is often easier to go to one of the sites to find out where a match you are interested in is broadcasted. all you need to do then is to click on the link to open the channel in the software, provided that it is installed on your computer.