I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do? • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#41

Post by kevinburke » Sat, Jul 28, 2012, 10:41 PM UTC

I'm in London for the Olympics and have been blown away by the BBC - from the usability of their website, the lack of commercials, the generally high quality of commentary and online material, to the 24 hi-definition channels of Olympic coverage live on TV in the flat we are renting.

I wrote up some instructions about how to use EC2 as a web proxy here - http://kev.inburke.com/kevin/how-to-use-ec2-as-a-web-proxy/ - not sure if it would work in Amazon's Ireland data center, but worth a try.

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#42

Post by Wilya » Sat, Jul 28, 2012, 10:43 PM UTC

rmc wrote: post #34

It is illegal if you live in the UK and consume TV to not pay for your TV license. Legally, I’m unclear of if an American connecting on a VPN to a live stream in the UK is breaking the law. I would guess that it hasn’t really come up with the TV license people yet. I don't know about the UK law, but nearby Ireland has a similar "TV Licence". The law there is not "you need a licence to watch TV", but "if you're in Ire…

According to Wikipedia[0], the UK is actually more like "You need to pay if you have something you use to watch TV". This is quite better than some other countries.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#43

Post by cdcarter » Sat, Jul 28, 2012, 10:44 PM UTC

jsaxton86 wrote: post #38

To me, the confusing part is why NBC only lets cable subscribers stream the content for free. I would guess that the cable companies are paying them to do that, but that is pure speculation on my part. If I can stream everything online, why would I purchase cable?

By confirming your cable subscription, you confirm you have access to MSNBC, CNBC, and Bravo, where the majority of Olympic events are broadcast. Only a small number of events are broadcast on NBC affiliate stations, mostly only in primetime.

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#44

Post by excuse-me » Sat, Jul 28, 2012, 10:45 PM UTC

rmc wrote: post #34

It is illegal if you live in the UK and consume TV to not pay for your TV license. Legally, I’m unclear of if an American connecting on a VPN to a live stream in the UK is breaking the law. I would guess that it hasn’t really come up with the TV license people yet. I don't know about the UK law, but nearby Ireland has a similar "TV Licence". The law there is not "you need a licence to watch TV", but "if you're in Ire…

A license is required in the UK to watch "LIVE" TV - this distinction was made (and has been upheld in court) when VCRs were introduced.

But has been regarded as applying to the BBC's iPlayer - you can watch the "watch again" (PVR function) but need a license to watch the live stream.

The iplayer is only available in the UK - but that's a contractual deal with the BBC, not a legal point - so if you had a VPN that worked in the UK then it's a civil matter between you and the BBC

All the BBC radio content is available for free worldwide. Although Americans should be aware that Radio4 contains dangerous levels of sarcasm, satire and irony and might not be suitable for FOX viewers

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#45

Post by kalleboo » Sat, Jul 28, 2012, 10:45 PM UTC

sudonim wrote: post #37

kalleboo wrote: post #23

> Sure! In fact, if you’re in the UK, you can legally stream every event of the Olympics live, and commercial free. Note that I believe you need to pay the licence fee to legally watch iPlayer (IIRC it pops up a dialog the first time you run it to confirm you've paid). So even in the UK you have to "pay for TV" to get this service. It costs approx £12/month.

Cool - I talk about that at the bottom of the article. But I added a note in that section that you need to pay for a TV license to stream legally. Thanks.

I saw that but it read a bit unclear.

Some European countries' laws haven't caught up the same way the UK has. For instance, you can legally watch the Swedish SVT's live streams without a licence fee. Other countries have gone further - in Denmark they either implemented or were just debating a law where you have to pay the license fee if you own a PC or Mobile phone that can watch streaming video.

All Europeans can legally watch the EBU/Eurovision steams though, I believe. http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#46

Post by justjohn » Sat, Jul 28, 2012, 10:47 PM UTC

sudonim wrote: post #7

frozenflame wrote: post #3

Ask a friend or family with the required cable package for their login info. A more social than technical hack, but it works very well.

Out of curiosity, is there just an advertisement for 20 seconds at the beginning of a live stream? Or do they have commercial breaks?

They run every few minutes, it feels kind of random. But they have a very nasty habit of running right at critical moments during the games.

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#47

Post by kennywinker » Sat, Jul 28, 2012, 10:47 PM UTC

As a Canadian, I run into this bullshit all the time.

Comedy Central embedded videos, hulu, etc.

The whole thing seems like a perversion of the promise of the internet: to connect us all... It's double ironic in the OPs case, given the stated goals of the olympics.

Going around via VPN is well within my technical means, but I don't want to support the people who behave this way online, so I usually don't view the geo-walled content, or turn to the pirate bay.

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#48

Post by dave84 » Sat, Jul 28, 2012, 10:48 PM UTC

kevinburke wrote: post #41

I'm in London for the Olympics and have been blown away by the BBC - from the usability of their website, the lack of commercials, the generally high quality of commentary and online material, to the 24 hi-definition channels of Olympic coverage live on TV in the flat we are renting. I wrote up some instructions about how to use EC2 as a web proxy here - http://kev.inburke.com/kevin/how-to-use-ec2-as-a-web-proxy/ - n…

BBC iPlayer is restricted in Ireland unfortunately. I haven't specifically checked from Amazon's data centre though, but I'd imagine it has the same geographical restriction as my home broadband.

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#49

Post by dave84 » Sat, Jul 28, 2012, 10:50 PM UTC

sudonim wrote: post #16

OmarIsmail wrote: post #5

Sign up for www.unblock-us.com or www.unotelly.com and watch the amazing BBC coverage on iPlayer. Super super simple setup. Personally, I prefer www.unblock-us.com

Not sure why others downvoted you. I just tried unblock-us.com and it works... basically by changing your DNS servers. I added it to the article as another option. I'm confused because I thought that geo-restrictions were handled by IP address, so I'm not sure how this gets around that.

It's still based on proxy servers, but their DNS server returns the address of their proxy server instead of the real IP address.

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#50

Post by Posibyte » Sat, Jul 28, 2012, 10:54 PM UTC

ConstantineXVI wrote: post #9

frozenflame wrote: post #3

Ask a friend or family with the required cable package for their login info. A more social than technical hack, but it works very well.

We have the relevant package; but Insight won't even acknowledge our login to use the app. They can keep their streams and ad-views if they don't want to make it even half-usable.

I have roughly the same problem. I spend around $140/mo for internet and cable, of which I receive the full NBC suite of channels. However, the app refuses my provider's login information. When I contacted my provider, they just sent me up to an NBC support clerk who told me essentially "Wow, that really sucks." and that was it. There was no recourse, simply re-acknowledging that I had a problem and they would attempt nothing to fix it.

I normally wouldn't be overly concerned about it, probably just a bit flustered, but this is a global event that occurs twice a decade. I feel this should really be something public broadcasters should control, not mega-corporations.