VPN for android tv and BBC iPlayer

VPN
1

Hi every one!

I am living out of the UK and I am interested in watching the Wimbledon tournament with a VPN service and BBC iPlayer.
I have tried ip vanish for a month in the past, but not for bbc iPlayer. There are many options on Google play store, so I am asking for your experience.

I usually don’t use VPN services, so I am looking for a 1 to 3 months subscription. There is a great offer these days from Pure VPN for $12 for a year but I don’t know the quality of the service…

Thanks

2

I’m in the USA and use NordVPN and it works decently for the BBC iPlayer and the BBC News apps on my Nvidia Shield. I sideloaded the iPlayer and News apps from APKPure and used Sideload Channel Launcher 2 to add them to my Shield’s homescreen. Buffers occasionally but not bad.

3

I use Cyberghost VPN, but there’s a catch.

The official BBC iPlayer app is auto hidden on the Shield if you’re outside the UK. Even if you side load it.

You need to side load a modded version from here https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1011733/shield-tv/how-to-fix-the-disappearing-bbc-iplayer-app-for-out-of-region-/ Read the thread; it’s pretty clear.

Apart from that; works fine for, it’s just a little slow to start streaming.

4

Where are you located right now? Wimbledon is broadcast globally on multiple television networks (ESPN and TSN in North America)… it might be easier for you to get a local broadcast of the tournament instead of messing with a VPN.

5

I’m in Ireland. The only one I could get to work with ITV, BBC and C4 was ExpressVPN. Couldnt get IPVanish, Nord or HideMyAss to work at all, just kept getting errors in BBC iPlayer. Also, if you are trying to do it on an Amazon Device you need to connect your VPN in the UK, then set up a UK Amazon.co.uk account with a UK Address and Credit Card otherwise you won’t see any UK TV apps. Also, EVERYTIME you visit Amazon store under that account you need to do it via your VPN because Amazon tracks your location Amazon wide.

6

I found it on my phone Google play store ,not sure sorry ,would have to say phone app hola VPN and stream to tv.

7

I am using PrivateVPN. It passes Netflix and BBC iPlayer.

8

A DNS based service could also work. Benefit is you don’t need to send all your other traffic through the proxy as well. I’ve had reasonable success with Getflix, though I do have to retry the stream initiation on occasion, as it seems to timeout from time to time.

9

Goose VPN works a treat and you can buy the £2.99 per month for 40GB

10

ipvanish. hands down

11

How do you watch Wimbledon through the BBC iPlayer app?
I am outside of the UK as well and use a smart DNS to access the BBC iPlayer app (works great). However nothing in the BBC iPlayer app is sports related.
I know the BBC iPlayer app does come bundled with a separate sports app, but I can never figure out how to launch it as there is no icon for it anywhere.

Edit: nevermind, I did find a sports category, but it’s all FIFA Women’s World Cup related.

12

Thanks everyone for the comments!!

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I decided to give PureVPN a try, because of the great offer for one year plan. I had already created a BBC account and I activated on my shield without problems. The first try to stream something was unsuccessful though, as I got error messages on every stream. I reboot my Shield and reconnect the VPN solved the issue. Navigation through the BBC iPlayer app was a pain for my eyes, but streaming was smooth without any buffering.

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Then I decided to give iplayer’s addon for Kodi a try. The menu of the addon looks better than original app for me, but streaming was very bad. Does anyone use Kodi addon to share his experience?

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That’s all for now.

Thanks!!!

13

TV Tap for firestick

14

I put nord vpn on an android box(Mibox) and firestick last night and BBC iPlayer won’t work at all… Itv hub works but strangely not iPlayer… Is there a special setting in nord vpn that I haven’t turned on?

15

i believe the bbc have blocked the IPs from VPN providers

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edit: some still working, https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/best-bbc-iplayer-vpn/

16

Try Hola Android free Geo blocks choose country ,watch chosen network

17

Yap, I know that. Thanks

18

I live in Greece. The Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam tournament that is served by a Greek satellite provider called Nova. The other three major tournaments are served by eurosport player that I am already a subscriber. I’m also a subscriber on the other sat provider of my country (Cosmote tv), so can’t pay for everything I need to watch…

19

i have that and it doesnt work for me with bbc iplayer, can you confirm it works for you? did you have to do anything extra than just setting the location to uk?

20

I haven’t use Nord VPN but let me share my experience with Pure VPN and Nvidia Shield during Wimbledon tournament last month.

First of all I have to say that I don’t use VPN all the time, so when I wanted to watch iPlayer I was connecting VPN service to UK and then launched the iPlayer app. A few times that worked fine, but most of the times I was getting an error message when I was trying to watch something. Rebooting Shield and connecting VPN sometimes worked, but after the fisrt days of use I was getting error messages, so I could not watch anything even after a reboot. Things were better late at night than it was at noon and this is something that I can’t explain.
All these days, if the Shield failed to stream I was using my android phone with iPlayer app or my chromebook with web player. My phone never failed to launch the stream and my chromebook failed only a few times.

Conclusion: I can’t blame the VPN service because it works fine on my phone and chromebook most of the times. Of course I don’t know if this the Android tv’s platform fault or there is something on iPlayer app on android tv that is detecting better if you are connected with a VPN service.

PS: what version of BBC iPlayer are you using on Mibox? As far as I know the Android tv version is designed to work only with nvidia shield. You can probably use the phone version of the app but you probably need a mouse for control…