Hey!

One of my brothers recently emigrated to Australia. I was thinking it would be a good present to fund the international version of the BBC iPlayer for them.

Finding out anything about the player is ridiculously difficult.

I wonder if anyone has any good links about the service. Of if they have any views about the service - please only if you have used it.

Many thanks.

Couldn't he just get a DNS service such as http://www.unblock-us.com/ which for $4.99 a month will give him access to all UK (as well as other countries) catch up services?

Not sure about Australlia, but filmon works well across Europe, as long as your internet connection is reasonable (not super-fast, just reasonable).
It's free, but you can pay for the ability to record and to watch in HD.

@Gormond - I think you could be right. A VPN might be the easiest way forward.

No, not a VPN. Australia is a long way from the UK, and a VPN will be very unlikely to cut it for high quality video.

A DNS service is much better, and usually cheaper. The advantages here are the follow:
* Faster bandwidth: DNS services don't tunnel everything like a VPN does. All they do is the smart bit where the service asks where you are located (via IP address), and gives the answer they want to see. The video then takes the fasted route.
* DNS services can be configured directly on many devices, or easily in most routers for complete coverage. It doesn't need any fancy router.
* DNS services can also work perfectly with local traffic or other countries. If your brother tunnels by VPN back to the UK, he will have to switch off the VPN to access local stuff, or all of that will travel to the UK and back as well, slowing it down. DNS services will traffic local Internet the shortest route, as with any other country.

There are a lot more reasons to choose DNS services.

My suggestion for a gift would be this.
First ask some discreet questions about the brand of router he has. Get the exact number, then either ask folk here, or google the manual and check if it is possible to enter manual DNS servers (that is all that is needed).

If so, buy him either a UK Roku box, or if your budget is a bit lower, a Now TV box and ship that to him, gift-wrapped. Buy him also a years sub to a DNS service, but make sure it is one that works with the UK Roku & Now TV box (I use OverPlay, and that works - I'm in Germany and use it all the time).

Send him instructions on how to enter the DNS servers in his router (this is really easy to do), and get him to follow these instructions for the UK Roku (Now TV box is even easier. He should then have access to all of the main UK catch-up services from the BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4oD and Demand 5 (as well as BBC Sport).

If he uses OverPlay, FilmOn should also work in Australia, as their Smart DNS service unblocks that as well (FilmOn's UK channels are normally only accessible in Europe).

If his router can not work with DNS services, no worries. An alternative is a Samsung Blu-Ray player. It may have to be bought from an Australian online shop like Amazon AU, but the F-6500 or higher models also have all the UK catch-up services, and the DNS servers can be installed directly in the Blu-Ray player. He will have to do a very basic change to the Smart Hub (see here) to install the apps.

The same DNS service will work on his Smart Phone (Android or iOS) in Australia, so he can also access those apps there.

Australian TV is pretty good and in English. Are you sure he wants pommy TV now?

Seriously? I thought it was truly dire.

Very helpful info there, ovbg. Thanks.

Now wondering if my Panasonic bluray (BD79) can be modded so I can use it as a dedicated Netflix US device?. It's a sub £100 machine - I think it was £60 - so I don't mind having a go if it can be modded.

Add: No is the answer to that. Changing the DNS and IP settings only removes all apps and the standard UK/Ireland country setting. Or it just makes the box freeze.

I do not know if this would work for your device, but it works on chromecast which has fixed dns set and cannot be changed.

say your device dns was 01.02.03.04

then on some routers you can set up IP static routes (which override the device dns).
(many guides on web)

If the router was say 192.168.1.1. you set up static IP which routes primary and secondary IP address to 192.168.1.1 .

The router dns setting are suitable smart dns settings from overplay or similar.

If your router does not support static ip routing, buy one that does and connect to to exsiting router (many guides on how to do this on web).

This is why I always plug Samsung TVs and BluRay players for people who are interested in the app side.

It is so easy to change regions, especially on the F or H series.

I think Samsung is the only one that makes it easy.