Originally Posted by ovbg:
“Year, but NZ is at the very bottom of the world, and the furthest possible place from the UK. It is a long way to tunnel.
That, and last year the stream originated in Canada, so you will need to VPN to NZ, and then the stream must bounce of NZ and up to Canada, a long, way around.
Smart DNS will just do the "handshake" to NZ, but then a direct line to the live stream.
Good luck with VPN.
By the way, Smart DNS can also be used on a variety of foreign services, and all at the same time.
While you VPN into NZ, all traffic must go through NZ including when you browse the BBC news or something.
Using Smart DNS, you can have the PLP streams from NZ arrive on the same computer as Netflix from the US, ABC iView from Australia and NPO from the Netherlands, all while watching the BBC iPlayer - granted, not a common thing for one PC to do, but very common on a single network with many devices.
And that leaves the other advantage of DNS over VPN. With smart DNS, you can use streaming services on STBs or Smart TVs without the need of a DD_WRT router, and just an easy config on your TV's network settings.”
When I said "foreign services," I wasn't talking about programming. I was talking about access to foreign versions of websites, the ability to order good form those sites, find information that's geo-restricted (e.g. pricing of items, etc.)
If all you want to do it watch programming, DNS has some advantages but you're also at the mercy of the DNS provider granting you access to that programming. With a VPN, if you can select a server in that country, you can immediately access that programming.
I remember last year, I had wrote to Overplay a few times about accessing Star sports, which at the time wasn't supported by smartDNS. It was a few weeks before they set it up. I believe you actually convinced them to do so after we spoke via email.
Even then, picture quality via my VPN was far better on StarSports, than it was via SmartDNS.
I setup access to both VPN and my DNS service on every machine I use (where possible,) Not on my router, so there are no network issues at all.
There's no hard and fast rule. The ideal solution depends on many factors and and most importantly on how you want to use smartDNS/VPN and the performance you get out of them!