Thursday 2 June 2016

End Of Season Review




Ok so its the end of the season, and many people are not looking for places to watch at the moment
However, before you know it the next season will be here and the hunt will be on again.

My aim with this post is just to give people an idea of what could be the best place to go to next season based on what I have discovered / used this season. Here goes....


http://footyreport.net/ - gone, used to be my go to choice however now I dont think it even exists...move on

http://livespud.com/ - a good backup for me, also seems to have gone

http://sports1nation.com/ - gone as well

http://www.offsidestreams.com/ - just WAY too expensive.

http://www.hd-streaming.tv - Closed, I believe they are also part of footyreport, i dont think they are open to new subscribers.

http://www.247hd.tv/- a good backup but is very expensive. However, you can just pay for the month you need it for. (pay as you go monthly)

http://www.kingmedia.tv/ - just stay away, doesnt work properly and very expensive.

http://sportsmania.eu/ - I switched to this site and havent looked back since! everysport and channel that you could want and the pricing is amazing.









So in conclusion, as long as things stay as they are, sportsmania is the way to go. and 247hd as a backup.



Tuesday 22 December 2015

http://sportsmania.eu/

http://sportsmania.eu/

what do they offer? 

standard quality:
  • At The Races
  • Bein Sports USA
  • Box Nation
  • BT Sport 1+2 + Europe
  • Celtic TV
  • Chelsea TV
  • Eurosport 1+2
  • Fox Sports Thai 1-3
  • Golf NBC
  • LFC TV
  • MLB Network
  • MUFC TV
  • NBA TV
  • NBC Live Extra Time 1-5
  • NBC Sports Network
  • Premier League Pass
  • Premier Sports
  • Racing UK
  • Sky Sports 1-5 + F1 + News
  • PPV Channel 1
  • BBC 1+2
  • ITV 1
  • Kids Cartoons Channel
  • Sky News
  • USA Network

High quality:
  • Arena Sports 1-4 (Serbia)
  • Astro Supersport 1-3 (Malaysian)
  • Box Nation
  • BT Sport 1+2, Europe, ESPN + Extra 1
  • Celtic TV
  • CTH Stadium 1-6 + X (Thai)
  • ESPN USA
  • Fox Sports U.S. 1+2
  • Golf NBC
  • NBC Live Extra Time 1-5
  • NBC Sports Network
  • NFL Game 1-16
  • NFL Network
  • NFL Redzone
  • NHL Network
  • Premier League Pass
  • Premier Sports
  • Real Madrid TV
  • Sky Sports 1-5 + F1 + News
  • Sports Net 360 + Ontario + World (Canadian)
  • TSN 1-5 (Canadian)
  • WWE Network
  • Willow Cricket
  • PPV Channel 2+3
  • HBO (US East)
  • Random Movies Channel
  • Cars
  • Club Music
  • Gaming
  • Hi-Tech
  • ITV 1
  • Pop Music

Not all channels are live all the time, but usually are as their schedule is very full.

I would give a 10/10 in this section

How is the layout and ways to view?


 On theleft hand side are all the channel options, which are categorized by sports, entertainment etc.. Clicking one will provide a drop down option with all the channels in the that section.

Not the best layout as you would think that all sports related content would reside under the sports section, however channels such as skysports and BT have their own dropdown section, and often I would forget this fact and be scrolling up and down the 'sports' section trying to see where the channel was.

Not only that but the schedule page is not connected at all to the streaming page, causing you to look at the schedule, remember the channels it was showing on, heading over to the stream page and trying to locate those channels - annoying to say the least.

Android and iOS - No app but have a 'phone friendly site'
XBMC - Is supported(have not tried)


I would give a 7.5 - 8/10 in this section

So does it work?

Yes, however I have no idea where (which country) it is getting streamed from, and there is only one option for each channel. I have watched many a-game with no problems and some times games stop (for only a second) a couple of times in a match.

Is it watchable 100% yes... that is the short answer

I would give a 8.5 or 9/10 in this section

How much does it cost?

1 day pass - £4
1 week -  £6
1 month - £12
3 months - £17
6 months - £26
1 year - £50

this is a hard one to rate, compared to something like footyreport this is over-double the price.
However the content is much more than footyreport offer.

AND most sites are either down or not excepting new subscribers. So for what is available at the moment this is a good price.

I would give a 9/10 in this section

 Final Say:

So far this seems to be a nice site following in some ways in the footsteps of footyreport - being in the lower end of the price range.
Yet also having alot of content reminding me about some of the other more costly services out there.

They do have however a lot to learn about the layout.

My final rating would have to be a 8/10

Wednesday 18 March 2015

Update on streaming sites

new review on:

www.plus1hd.com or now known as www.247hd.tv

www.livespud.com

www.footyreport.net


At the moment livespud is NOT working and footyreport is NOT taking new subscribers.

please see below for the table review:

Click for table review

Wednesday 6 August 2014

DNS Services

OK, so you live in X and want to watch the BBC, or sign up to beinsports but don't live in those countries, where do you turn to? VPN at least that's what the Internet tells you, hundreds of sites selling you a service to change where you are located. Not only do they promise you this (which they do provide) they also claim that you dont lose alot of your speed - sounds great!
So you head on to the best VPN you have found on the Internet fire it up aaaaannnd..... the BBC site buffers and buffers and so you try a different location in the UK and it works a bit, but then stops. WHY!!! they promised me I wouldn't loose my speeds!!!!

Did they lie? did I do something wrong?
The answer is no, there is ONE real reason VPN's are made for..... security.
And how they do that is by changing your location so that no one can trace back to you (the government can so don't do anything illegal) (and even those VPN services that claim they don't keep logs etc etc.. they do, don't do anything illegal)

So lets say you live in London but dont want people to trace your IP back to you, so you log in to your VPN service and it finds the nearest IP location they have near you, so it gets you for example Swansea. Great you surf protected and your speed doesn't go down so much.
However if you wanted an IP address in lets say Miami the speeds suddenly go really slow. They were not really designed for that kind of job (although they can be used for that).

Which leads us onto the other option DNS, what exactly is a DNS?
here are two quotes to help you understand:

"DNS stands for “domain name system.” Domain names are the human-readable website addresses we use every day. For example, Google’s domain name is google.com. If you want to visit Google, you just need to enter google.com into your web browser’s address bar.
However, your computer doesn’t understand where “google.com” is. Behind the scenes, the Internet and other networks use numerical IP addresses (“Internet protocol” addresses). Google.com is located at the IP address 173.194.39.78 on the Internet. If you typed this number into your web browser’s address bar, you’d also end up at Google’s website.
We use google.com instead of 173.194.39.78 because addresses like google.com are more meaningful and easier for us to remember. DNS is often explained as being like a phone book – like a phone book, DNS matches human-readable names to numbers that machines can more easily understand."

"Domain name system servers match domain names like google.com to their associated IP addresses — 173.194.39.78 in the case of google.com. When you type google.com into your web browser’s address bar, your computer contacts your current DNS server and asks what IP address is associated with google.com. Your computer then connects to the IP address and displays “google.com” in your web browser – the connection to 173.194.39.78 happens behind the scenes.
The DNS servers you use are likely provided by your Internet service provider (“ISP”). If you’re behind a router, your computer is likely using your router as your DNS server, but the router is likely forwarding requests to your Internet service provider’s DNS servers."

( you can read more here at howtogeek.com )

OK, so now we know, humans use names/words, computers use numbers, and they use DNS to match names to numbers easily. depending on where the DNS is based (its gateway location), depends where the site thinks you are accessing it from... without slowing your internet speed.

Great so which DNS service is the best?

here is a roundup of the ones I think are best:

unlocator

unotelly

unblock-us

All three of them have free trials so try one, wait until your trial ends then try the next, etc.

unotelly has 260 channels they geographically unblocked
unlocator has 107 channels they geographically unblocked
unblock-us not specific but much less then the other 2

but it doesn't really make a difference they all unblock all the sites you could need. they just add more random sited you are never going to use just to boost up the numbers.

 Pricing

unblock-us charges $4.99 a month
unotelly charges $4.95 a month
unlocator charges $4.95 a month, $27.50 for 6 months, $49.95 for 12 months.

I would advice you to look up how to set up on the device you want to use it with, as some can be a bit tricky to do.

Devices

Theoretically they all work on every device, however some give better support / guides how to do it.
unotelly and unlocator support all sorts of devices, unblock-us says they support most of them.

IP Changing

DNS needs to know your current IP address in order to tunnel you properly, and depending on how often your ISP changes your IP address you will need to update it on the DNS services site.
 This is done through a 'key' the provide you that you can book mark and just click before you go on the site for example, click the bookmark then open netflix.

Who wants to do this every time they want to visit a site? or lets say you want the DNS service on your Roku? how are you going to update it?......

Apps

unlocator has an app for android
unotelly has a third party app for android
unblock-us has a third party app for android

I don't know about iphone for any of them.

What these apps do is automatically or manually update your IP address.

Final conclusion

 unblock-us really didn't work so well for me, it took so long to set up on a simple PC, and the app was just OK.

unotelly worked OK the set up was painless but setting up the automatic IP updater didn't, the app was good but is third party.

unlocator was the only one that worked flawlessly and the app worked as well.

But hey, dont trust me try them all out yourselves!!!

Just one final say on DNS Services, some ISP run everything through their servers, meaning the DNS services wont work as your ISP Hijacks your DNS to their own.... again this can be found out by using their free trials.

http://livespud.com/

http://livespud.com/


 What do they offer?

16 (not really) channels of HD and SD quality streams.
Sky Sports 1 HD

Sky Sports 1 SD
Sky Sports 2 HD
Sky Sports 2 SD
Sky Sports 3 HD
Sky Sports 3 SD
Sky Sports 4 HD
Sky Sports 4 SD
Sky Sports News HD
Sky Sports News SD
BT Sport 1 HD
BT Sport 1 SD
BT Sport 2 HD
BT Sport 2 SD
Setanta Ireland HD
Setanta Ireland SD
Racing UK HD
Racing UK SD
Livespud Channel 1 HD
Livespud Channel 1 SD
Livespud Channel 2 HD
Livespud Channel 2 SD
Livespud Channel 3 HD
Livespud Channel 3 SD
Livespud Channel 4 HD
Livespud Channel 4 SD
Livespud Channel 5 HD
Livespud Channel 5 SD
Livespud Channel 6 HD
Livespud Channel 6 SD

the Livespud Channels are for games that are not shown on the other channels such as BBC or American games. SkySports F1 is normally on Livespud channel 2 or 3.

I would give a 10/10 in this section


How is the layout and ways to view?

The layout is simple you get a main box where the stream is and a tab on the right hand side that slides in and out with all the channels, clicking one will change channels. Simple and easy the only one complaint is that you have to click the tab back in after choosing a channel otherwise you loose some of your viewing screen. I don't know why they couldn't make it slide in by itself. 

There is a separate page with the fixtures on although it doesn't link back to the stream page so is easier just clicking through the channels to find the game.

There is a link to view on tablet / phone, although I had no luck in getting it to work.
XBMC is not supported.

I would give a 8/10 in this section

 So does it work?

Yes, I don't think the streams paused once for me. (although I have yet to try it out when a lot of people are using it.)

I would give a 10/10 in this section


How much does it cost?

3 day pass £0.99.
30 day pass £2.49
60 day pass £3.99

I don't think you can find cheaper then this at the moment

I would give a 10/10 in this section




Final say:

This site has everything you need as long as you are happy using PC/laptop only.
Definitely worth using even as a backup as the price is the best you will find at the moment, this is definitely a good site for watching the game



My final rating would have to be a 9.3/10  

Wednesday 16 July 2014

http://sports1nation.com/

a 'new' site has opened!!

well really its plus1hd they have opened a new site called http://sports1nation.com/ for the new members wanting to join plus1hd. I assume this means that they will no longer be excepting members on their main site.

I can assume (I don't know for sure, as I haven't signed up to it) that it will be the same as plus1hd.

The one thing I have noticed though, the price is in British Pounds not dollars. (£5.99 for 30 days)

More updates hopefully to follow ... and if anyone signs up would love to hear how it is.

Sunday 22 June 2014

Major World Cup Update 2

Most of the world cup games are on bbc or itv.
so if you are in the UK using ITV or the BBC is your best option.

If you are not in the UK you can still use these services by downloading(not really) a add-on for firefox or chrome called Hola unblocker. Hola is an amazing free VPN that works in the background and can be set so that when going on a certain site it will give you a UK IP or one from the USA, or wherever you want.

It is a quick service - I haven't experienced any buffering when streaming from sites such as the BBC.
And I dont need to worry about turning on and off a VPN client.

When I go on BBC my IP changes to the UK, when I go on Netflix it changes to the USA (you can even have different tabs open with different IP addresses.

Check it out. and check out their settings page very helpful as it gives you the most commen pages people choose to change their IP on and a click tick will save it for future.