Update on TV Services

what do you mean by usual channels?

one thing for sure is you wont get "up to date" uk tv with either Go or Melita....

short of a dreambox style box - it will leave you with using either
a) a sat box and pay subscription to a major broadcaster for those channels you wish to watch
b) a dedicated IPTV box such as the amino a140 or a540 boxes with subscription
or
c) www.filmon.com or the likes of it - these have HD content for subscription (SD currently free)

as for the speed they say 2mbps is sufficient but in my experience the faster speeds are better to avoid buffering - as you will soon get fed up with that....altho to be honest a simple trick is to start watching the programme - pause it - then go and make tea and then un-pause it and the buffering is should be much reduced

Thanks Toon and you're right, I should have stated UKTV channels.
Is there any particular satellite service you would recommend?

Personally I would wait - as the sats are moving in the 2nd quarter of this year and many currently receivable FTA channels will certainly disappear from tvs in malta by summer(requiring a 3m dish or larger to retain reception)...
Plus nobody knows yet what UK sky will do with their satellite platform transmissions....?

Filmon works fine and  covers most UK and european channels,you can pay for extra films / HD. We currently use a set top box (UK to malta TV) and watch via internet it includes all freeview channels and catchup plus PVR. Once you purchase the set top box its 20€ per month but you can suspend the service (by phone) when you go away and restart on your return. Broadband requirement is 10mbps min. I can send you the link if you want it (the guy lives in Gozo so it must be legal ).

I understand that the sat / dish  set up will be difficult to pick up as the beam is narrowed down this year. In Malta it will require a dish over 3mtrs to pick up Astra (however I may be wrong on this as I am no expert).

As for legal or illegal I have given up trying to work out what is or isn't.

Terry

for info - in the lower reaches of Spain the experienced sat users are failing to get anything from uktv on a 2.4m dish.....

Terry i think i tried this box on demo earlier last year..if its the one i am thinking of....i am assuming they've improved the service....do you know what the make and model is?

is there any such a thing as legal or illegal here?

Thank you both, I'm not getting anything yet not until the rights contracts are completed and my landlord's current agreement with Melita expires in August. At the moment I am using FilmOn and I have a particular device to bring out that will enable us to view FilmOn as HD on the TVs we are bringing out and do the recording too.
Thanks for confirming what I had read previously about the satellites moving.

Hi Redmik,

Not sure if this would help but you can get an addon for the TV in the form of a box which turns the TV into a smart TV then go on the net and from there you can stream films and BBC iPlayer etc.

Just search for smart TV box.

Regards

Thanks Ken, that's what I'll bring back with me.

toonarmy9752 wrote:

for info - in the lower reaches of Spain the experienced sat users are failing to get anything from uktv on a 2.4m dish.....

Terry i think i tried this box on demo earlier last year..if its the one i am thinking of....i am assuming they've improved the service....do you know what the make and model is?

is there any such a thing as legal or illegal here?

Its Mike at maltauktv, sorry don,t know what type of box it is (VEHDA? on the outside.) but currently working fine (Melita had to change the main cable that was causing problems with bandwidth).
We don't watch a lot of TV but it suits us to be able to opt in or out on a monthly basis.

Terry

just be wary of the smart boxes as some services (and espeically the uk iplayers) may be ip geo blocked...in other words they will work in UK as the ip address the box acquires on connection to internet will be a uk one but here it will acquire a malta one and most of the iplayers and on demand services are ip geo blocked and would need a private vpn service....

the boxes Tearnet speaks of dont have that problem as they run their own servers. I am also led to believe that these boxes maybe upgrading to HD quality by easter...

OK, thanks Toon :-)

http://www.maltauktv.moonfruit.com/

are they back-hauling the channels to malta and the re-distributing in country or just streaming direct from the UK? the first scenario would be much better!

FWIW, I happen to work for the UK largest independent streaming company and no we dont re-stream UK tele. For that get yourself a vpn provider and go to http://www.tvcatchup.com/ which is an ad funded outfit, which has been surviving years despite legal action from the broadcasters. His basic defence is that he isn't re-broadcasting (which is a mechanism of sending a signal to many people at once) but rather unicasting (as the server communicates to an individual user. Its a rubbish argument but frankly its working and he earns enough to pay some proper bejowled lawyers.

----nerd alert----
I guess the best way to do this would be to set up a dish looking at intelsat 907 and hack the biss codes, then pump the dvb-s(2) to say vlc for forwarding to wowza that would deliver rtmp and segmented streaming. Delivery internally to malta would be much much better than trying to all cram down the international pipes.
----end nerd alert----

Regardng the legality, it would be no more illegal than the tvcatchup which so far has not been proved that way in the UK courts. And since restriction could be based on the ability to insert a valid UK TV license every could be a winner.

streaming direct from their own servers i think

love to more about the stb they are using.. purely out of professional curiosity!

love to know more about the stb they are using.. purely out of professional curiosity!

Just tried http://www.tvcatchup.com/ - not available in Malta.

http://www.maltauktv.moonfruit.com/ is filed for future reference, thanks.

you need a uk vpn for tvcatchup!

Red..you need to use a VPN service for catch up tv

the set am thinking of has been sold here for quite a long time... (50-75euros  -with a 25 euro buyback offer originally) i demo'd one about 18 months ago - and i have to say i wasnt impressed at it not being even SD quality, the reception wasnt good and the pvr was very hit n miss - but it served its purpose then - it wasnt good IMHO - but it has by all accounts improved a lot...and am told it will be going HD by easter. There is an outlet in Gozo and one here on Malta (SHS).... am sure it was all started here by a chap called "jimiptv" i think - he used to be based in Qawra but has since moved back to Uk I think..... not 100% sure - its not a bad option and i suppose it depends a lot on expectations..... i did think about a dedicated iptv box when the sats move between april and summer - the box is the amino a140 - at 170euros delivered.. full remote pvr and HD.... then the subs on top - but like all these things there is or maybe a risk of being short lived...due to security technology advances.... and viewing rights etc.

OK, thanks all and apologies for any ignorance on my part.
I'm going to leave this until we return in July.
TBH it seems that FilmOn is going to fulfill our needs for any UK TV and that will not be much, we do not watch 'soaps' and that stuff and Eurosport HD and other channels will cover all the tour cycling we want.
There will always be changes in services and offers, so not rushing anything. Why rush to do anything out here

there is no need to rush here and ive seen no evidence of it...lol

brayster99 have you worked for tvcatchup.com or for another related company? Do you know what exact legal experiences did tvcatchup had? I would like to read about those cases.

Do you know what is the exact difference between re-broadcasting and uni-casting? (I mean how different is the connection between streaming server and client, etc. in comparison with the usual re-broadcasting).

Those channels available at tvcatchup.com are all available in the UK for free on TV or are they also "uni-casting" PPV channels?

Toon... You are right, it is Jim's service and the boxes are standard SD units. However, I understand that there are possibly streaming changes afoot that will use similar streams to our former ones (of last year), so there should be an increase in display quality without additional drain on bandwidth!

FilmOn is always a great option and you can acquire various STB offerings that now include the FilmOn services and the great thing about this service is that it is owned and financially supported by a hugely wealthy individual who has just committed to a global $100 Million advertising spend for the coming year and in conjunction aims to further increase the channel availability from both a linear and a PPV basis.

Out of interest, it would be quite difficult to provide a multi-cast local network in Malta due to the incumbents broadband providers having their own agendas, so uni-cast deployment is what it is and probably the best way currently available.

Finally, using VPN's for TVCatchup often will not work as most of the hosting centre IP ranges that provide these services are blocked by the TVCatchup servers and they are constantly tracking for further external to UK usage which is then also blocked...

cheers Mike - thats what i thought

Lusco wrote:

brayster99 have you worked for tvcatchup.com or for another related company?

No, we do more sports and corporate stuff. They started out as this and the guys who run it are now competitors to us.

Lusco wrote:

Do you know what exact legal experiences did tvcatchup had? I would like to read about those cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TVCatchup

Lusco wrote:

Do you know what is the exact difference between re-broadcasting and uni-casting? (I mean how different is the connection between streaming server and client, etc. in comparison with the usual re-broadcasting).

there is no difference, unicast isa  technical term, re-broadcast is a more generic term. Read the wiki, you'll get the picture. Their argument is my opinion is utter **** but they have the right lawyers.

Lusco wrote:

Those channels available at tvcatchup.com are all available in the UK for free on TV or are they also "uni-casting" PPV channels?

They only publish FTA otherwise the media lawyers would eat them for breakfast.

You thinking of setting up a service?

No, I am currently not interested on setting up a service like that one. I was just interested on the defense argument that you said they use. I already knew Zattoo's defense argument (which I think it is quite good; they basically register their company as a cable company and that "allow" them or even force them to broadcast public channels) but they ceased their activity in UK. Filmon BTW also ceased their activity in the US.

Lusco wrote:

No, I am currently not interested on setting up a service like that one. I was just interested on the defense argument that you said they use. I already knew Zattoo's defense argument (which I think it is quite good; they basically register their company as a cable company and that "allow" them or even force them to broadcast public channels) but they ceased their activity in UK. Filmon BTW also ceased their activity in the US.

Hi Lusco, not sure where you have your info from but FilmOn most definitely have not ceased in the US in fact they are building it up and next week start a massive promotion for their added channels and their new services. See this...

http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2 … GT50g.mjjo

mikea wrote:

Hi Lusco, not sure where you have your info from but FilmOn most definitely have not ceased in the US in fact they are building it up and next week start a massive promotion for their added channels and their new services. See this...

Looks like the source (http://paidcontent.org/2010/11/23/419-f … ges-order/) was wrong, "the judge did not order FilmOn to be shut down but to temporarily cease to broadcast 4 of the 32 channels in FIlmOn's lineup"

Lusco wrote:

mikea wrote:

Hi Lusco, not sure where you have your info from but FilmOn most definitely have not ceased in the US in fact they are building it up and next week start a massive promotion for their added channels and their new services. See this...

Looks like the source (http://paidcontent.org/2010/11/23/419-f … ges-order/) was wrong, "the judge did not order FilmOn to be shut down but to temporarily cease to broadcast 4 of the 32 channels in FIlmOn's lineup"

Yes... big, big changes since then!

Hi members...This is Mike Turnbull from MaltaUkTv. [moderated: advertisement]

So you do TV then Mike ?? who would have thought it

I see the uk tv channels see to have been removed from www.filmon.com

Hmmmmmmmm, may have to revisit my plans :-(

All the main ones are still there.
Terry

Copied from the site: Unfortunately due to a recent European court ruling, services such as ours have had to restrict the viewing of certain channels to their respective countries, therefore the only UK TV channels available will be the 4 main terrestrial channels.

The channels are indicated but do not play for me and I'm in UK for a while.

Watched BBC1 this morning no problem, all the main channels seem to be there and work OK.

Terry

knee jerk reaction to the EU ruling i would say

but it now begs the question why can they show the main ones (as theyre the ones most people watch) and not the others.....?