Only time will tell.

As I said on the SKY HD box, you can use the donwmlaod service, so fingers crossed.

Ed: have you tried copying a program from or to the freeSatbox?

I guess I should give this a try when I have a moment.

You can copy any SD program from the box onto a USB stick (or any other drive I assume) - you get a .ts file plus a couple of smaller data files, I do this all the time. HD programs appear to be encrypted, and can't be easily copied. There's probably a way to crack this but I haven't bothered trying.

I have also read that you can't get the box to easily read external files. Digital Spy has a few threads on these issues, e.g. http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...light=ts+files Do a quick search for .ts files, there's a bit more on there...

It looks like BBC have beefed up the protection and platform, when I tried to download Top Gear using windows XP. They have done away with the Peer To Peer download and gone direct, which gave me difficulties downloading the file to the harddrive. When I tried it on Vista, it didn't ask me to download the new software.

Also The BBC radio stations have also had a face lift.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcintern...bbc_radio.html

Giggle.

Does this not knock the crap out of Billag claiming that if you have ISDN you must pay radio tax?

For those who don't know, when I had ISDN, it was 2 lines at 64kbps, and if I enabled both lines, I was charged 2 phone calls. Even at the cheapest weekend/overnight rate, I was certainly not going to incur phone charges to listen the the radio.

I, for one, would love to knock the crap out of Bill AG. Thieving *******s that they are.

I got it working with free proxy easily, see my other post.

Lifehacker gives a breakdown on how to access the iPlayer from outside the UK.

The only problem there is that they are suggesting using proxies. Although technically there's no issue with that, on a practical level I've found it a complete pain in the backside to find a free UK proxy server with reliable up time. You end up finding that your latest one no longer works, and having to hunt around for another.

Like a couple of commenters on the article, I eventually gave up on this and now pay a small monthly amount to a VPN provider, and one year down the track have had 100% availability (PM me for details if anyone's interested). As I've said before I'd rather pay the BBC for a licence fee, but until they offer expats that option, then my money goes elsewhere.

The other option is to set up your own proxy if you have access to a machine in the UK, although I haven't yet found out exactly how to do this.

No worries, I just came across the article and remember people posting about it here. I get my BBC via cablecom, but if I miss something, I'll get the programme through other means, arrrr...

Got a sore throat there?

I have Cablecom with an HD Recorder, so don't really need iPlayer. But for those desperate to use it, there's a reliable VPN solution I know of for 5 GBP a month. No advertising here but I never had any troubles with it.

It is possible to setup BBC iPlayer to work in Switzerland for free and without using any "dodgy" sites. You can't watch live but anything recorded is available and live radio.

Just follow the instructions here,

http://hurwi.net/blog/?p=28

If you have any problems give me a shout as I have it working perfectly.

How's your speed with Vidalia / Tor? I always had trouble getting enough GB exit nodes when I tried it, but that was a couple of years ago so things may have improved...

I'm using Hide IP NG - as do a lot of my friends. It costs a few euros per year and with it you can watch BBC, ITV, C4 and C5. You can also watch catchup on the major American channels.

Works absolutely fine; very simple to set up and although I'm watching on the PC there is a way to watch on the TV if you have a special box or something.

The Freesat box will link via a modem to the the iPlayer. See http://www.freesat.co.uk/index.php?page=iPlayer.main for details...

BBC iPlayer also works on the iPad, if you use a VPN. Marvellous stuff, just like having a second recordable box/TV for the kids to watch all their squeaky CBeebies/ CBBC on (in another room, far from me...)

Sounds good for watching the telly while on the loo.