English TV in Germany

[SportsFan]

Not sure this is the right place - if not, the mods can move it - but I thought that some of you might actually be able to help me with this and give me some ideas.

I used to live in the UK but have now returned to Germany and am trying to figure out as to what the best options are to watch English TV over here. 

Any feedback, idea, suggestion, advice welcome.

Thanks.

[jumbler]

Depends what you want to watch, really. Most of the main 5 channels can be seen, usually on cable.

[Bangle1]

Not sure this is the right place - if not, the mods can move it - but I thought that some of you might actually be able to help me with this and give me some ideas.

I used to live in the UK but have now returned to Germany and am trying to figure out as to what the best options are to watch English TV over here. 

Any feedback, idea, suggestion, advice welcome.

Thanks.

I'd suggest the simplest way is to get a VPN and set it to UK. You'll be able to watch iPlayer, All4, ITV Player etc without issue.

[jumbler]

For a decent VPN, they tend to have a monthly subscription, too.

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Is it really necessary to watch live tv any more?? Most things can be watched via catch-up (see above), or via Amazon Prime, Netflix, iTunes and so on.

[ken_85]

If you REALLY want to watch, I've been playing with an IPTV last few days. But I don't think there's any legitimate, legal and low-cost way of doing it for the sake of just a "something on in the background" vibe

[jumbler]

One of the things they kept banging on about in the early days of Brexit was losing access to online content. The EU had released a new directive that guarantees the same levels of content provision in each member state (I’m quoting from memory, no idea what that means in practical terms).

So, in theory, if you have a British Netflix, or iPlayer account, you should (have) be(en) able to watch the same continent in Spain, or Italy and so on.

All moot now, of course. But still worth a try. I’m not sure that iPlayer works abroad, but that’s not to say that ITVHub won’t.

You could also set up a UK iTunes account, as long as you’ve got a UK-based card, or Paypal account. The Apple tv box let’s you switch between them (but Family Sharing doesn’t really work).

[9in]

iPlayer doesn't and they also employ VPN detection on some VPN services, so it's hit and miss whether a particular public VPN will work.

However a VPN on a private VPS setup for a couple of quid with a UK IP does work just fine.

[SportsFan]

Thank you everyone so far. I have just glanced at your responses and you also appear to have raised a few things I had not thought about. I will read through everything carefully later and might have to ask questions as I am not a very technically minded person. Thank you.