recording quality and vpn

[Owen Smith]

At work I am in the UK. We pay a TV licence at work of some sort. And I pay a TV licence at home. And yet because our company network exits in Amsterdam all sorts of crap happens. We can't play any video on the BBC web site. Some web sites display Dutch despite our browser preferences saying en-gb. amazon.co.uk thinks we are ordering from abroad. 

It's a complete pain. If we could VPN back to the UK from work we would, but as you say most places block it. Talking to the network admins in the USA to get anything done about it is hopeless, we exit in Amsterdam because it's cheaper.

-- 
Owen Smith <owen.smith at cantab.net>
Cambridge, UK

> On 27 Aug 2017, at 18:48, michael norman <michaeltnorman at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 27/08/17 17:34, Vangelis forthnet wrote:
>>>  On Sun Aug 27 14:18:36 BST 2017, cc wrote:
>>> can the use of a vpn limit the number of recording qualities available?
>>> (snip) I managed to get1280.x720  def  on 25 aug
>>> (snip) it is now proving impossible for the various downloads I have tried. 
>> ... Probably the same issue (unless cc=Gautier) :
>> https://squarepenguin.co.uk/forums/thread-1488-newpost.html
>> i.e. hlshd not appearing inside available tvmodes for an overseas user (and inferred use of a VPN...). FWIW, many UK inhabitants and licence fee payers do use a VPN service for privacy and other reasons; this is also not allowed by the BBC:
>> https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/in_the_uk_message
>>> If you are using a VPN and are in the UK, try disabling to see if that helps. If we detect you might be using a VPN, you'll be unable to play programmes. This is because we're unable to detect the end point of your private network; we need to be confident you're in the UK. 
>> For the past two years, after news broke that several millions of Chinese netizens were (ab)using iPlayer, the BBC is under a constant battle against commercial VPN/ VPS/Proxy/SSL Tunnel services - remember, it's quite easy to spot a VPN server (since in the UK the commercial ones are usually to be found in known Data Centres with known IP pools), especially since a lot of iPlayer traffic appears to be requested by a single IP address. If you're using a VPN service or like, expect it to be blocked at any time; it's unwise to post about it here in the list, am afraid no help could be (/is allowed to be) offered to you... And it's certainly most unwise to post about it in the Forums, where 1. it's against their rules 2. they do IP checks of registered members (if not in the UK). Take your issue directly with your VPN provider...
>> FWIW, when the BBC blacklist VPN IPs, they usually start with their mediaselector API URLs, so you do get blocked at the door, resulting in no streams at all offered to you... Selectively blocking only hlshd but allowing other streams to appear sounds a bit iffy; that means that the Akamai CDN server (serving the hlshd stream) itself blocks the VPN IP, but why would the BBC do that, if other streams could still be accessed? Most probably it's an issue with the VPN itself and its configuration, so as Gautier surmised
>>> So clearly there must be something wrong on my end. 
>>> On Sun Aug 27 16:43:21 BST 2017, d.lake wrote:
>>> Don't use a VPN - use an HTTP proxy. That way you'll get full download speed from a local CDN at the full range of bit-rates.
>> Hi, you appear to be in the UK, so I suspect your recommendation to use an HTTP(S) proxy is for those in the UK with privacy concerns... In the very remote chance your advice is for non-UK users, then in that case there's not a big difference between a UK VPN and a UK proxy speedwise; all TV streams are blocked currently at CDN server level, so they have to be redirected fully through the VPN/HTTP server... The above info is disclosed for pure "academic" reasons... I suppose I (and other members) should stop this discussion here, so as to not upset even further the high powers that be...
>> Regards
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> 
> Surely the point of all this is that if you are in UK and pay the license fee you should be able to access BBC content  and GIP without using a VPN to do that.
> 
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