Windows 7 Media Centre – US & UK TV here we come

I never thought I'd see the day when a piece of free software got me reaching for my wallet and singing the praises of everyone involved - but here it goes... It's a quick story over two days... So bear with me.

The story starts with the stark realisation that even after shelling out for the Platinum $100+ per month cable premium package for the last few years, the companies in Australia are still peddling junk and it's getting worse.  Don't even get me started on the rapidly increasing advertising volumes.  Or mention the 'insult-to-your-intelligence' "Download" feature you can now get on your PC - Where you can't actually "Download" anything - or move content to your PDA or movie player!   Despite these gripes, as a family, we have traditionally wanted to do our bit to keep the Australian industry alive using legal movie services, local DVDs stores and so on.  Let's face it - free to air TV in Australia has a long way to go before it's going to keep a family of five entertained.

So - grumbles aside - I turned off the cable box and happily upgraded my buggy old Vista Ultimate Media Centre to Windows 7 - Which, by the way, has been a fantastic experience.  My fanatacism for Microsoft operating systems has returned and I retired that embeded Media PC permanently.  Having worked out the movie and music collections again and connected up the old NAS boxes (thanks to a Buffalo blog!) things were looking up.  Even the old TV tuner worked out of the box! (Three cheers again Microsoft - Good work after the XP Media Centre nightmare!) 

On this high, I discovered this crowd - http://www.milliesoft.co.uk - and subsequently their eye-popping plug-in called TunerFree MCE.  "Not another software review..." I hear you scream !

Did you know that there are literally hundreds of legally streamable free-to-air high-definition TV programs ready to watch via your Windows 7 Media Centre - all for just a few coins a month... Interested now?  Here's where the fun started.

Installation from Milliesoft was the simple bit...  in it went with an expectant air of nervous excitement.... Starting up the "Extras tab" and clicking TunerFree MCE lands you to this...

Amazing looking array of programming when you discover that each channel has stacks of programs and each program often has multiple episodes... But clicking on a show throws an omminous error about "this program is only available to UK viewers!!"

After reading the forum notes HERE - It became quickly apparent what the issue was... We're not in the UK!! Or the US for that matter for US's Hula... And all of these free-to-air services expect your IP address to be "local"... Soon fix that!

VPN services to the rescue...  

After testing a few options, the most reasonable so far seems to be www.ukivpn.com - Signing up for a single month to test the US and UK VPNs was painless and about $12 (unlimited bandwidth and US + UK VPN logins) - A darned site cheaper than the $100+ we're paying for cable.  Off went the PayPal details and a unique VPN login was provided just hours later... Impressive setup.  They even provided nice neat instructions.

First up, I created a couple of Windows 7 PPTP VPN tunnels (remembering to just set CHAP2 and switch "AUTO" back to PPTP in the VPN type (otherwise Windows 7 sits there trying to negotiate an IPSEC VPN for ages)...

Secondly, I created two simple batch files which can be called in the TunerFree MCE settings page:  

StartUKVPN.bat

RasDial USVPN \disc
RasDial WORKVPN \disc
RasDial UKVPN username password

and EndUKVPN.bat

RasDial UKVPN \disc

I needed to make sure my US and Work VPNs were disconnected first, before hitting the UK VPN - All too easy - and to my amazement - it all worked!  No more error messages.

Now we're enjoying a full selection of UK TV content from within Windows 7 MCE and couldn't be happier.  Now onto Hula from the USA.  It worked too.  Not the same picture quality and more advertising - But the US VPN setup works nicely despite some mouse-work needed.  Possibly some room for improvement in the Hula dept...

If you get stuck with anything, drop us a comment and I'll post more detailed notes in the area that you're having issues with.

If this article helped out, don't forget to visit our sponsors banners.

Have fun
Andy

P.S. I'll add notes and further screenshots as they come to light.

Filed Under: Product Reviews • The Internetz