Help me do something which may or may not be illegal!

[tzikeh]

I know I've heard tell of these magical software thingies that let you watch video clips on websites that don't let people outside the host country watch them. I wanna look at clips and stuff on the BBC's Doctor Who site and it blocks the U.S. (among, I'm sure, other nations).

Isn't there some kind of plug-in or suchlike that sneaks around those barriers?

Comments

[ratcreature]

You can use open proxy servers to circumvent such country restrictions. Just put in a proxy from the country you need the field for preferences with the webbrowser. You can google for proxies, there are lists by country. The problem is that some sites (like for example pandora) block known open proxies, also it is frequently slow, which sucks for streaming. I think there are services who offer you proxy access for pay which are presumably faster, but I don't know about that.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying - I look for something called a proxy for England in google, and... what is it? How do I use it?

[ratcreature]

A proxy server means you don't access a site directly, but your net traffic will be routed through this other server, so the site you're accessing things it is that server loading the page, not you. So if that server is in England, the BBC thinks it is this English computer loading the video. Some servers allow anyone to route their traffic through them as a proxy server (for example to anonymize traffic) those are called "open proxies" because they are open to everyone. Anonymizing services do the same thing, only with many and changing servers. (You could also use an anonymizer web interface, but the free ones I tried are really slow, so I never managed to stream US tv network stuff through these.)

You go to a list with open proxy servers, like this one:
http://www.xroxy.com/proxylist.htm
or this one
http://www.openproxylist.com/
or any that turn up in google
the list usually shows which country the server is located in. You pick a server in a country allowed to see the content you want and try putting them into your preferences, in Firefox in the General Preferences > Connection Settings you can put a proxy server in. Then you try whether the BBC streaming will work with that traffic. There may be tools that allow you to only use a proxy for particular URLs or make it easier, but I haven't tried that, I just enable or disable this when I try to load a site that blocks my country manually. Often you have to try several servers to find one that will work, because not all will forward scripts or flash or video or are fast enough or not blocked.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

hm. Okay, I went to xroxy.com and found the UK proxies (http://www.xroxy.com/proxy-country-GB.htm), signed up, plugged in www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho in the search field up top, and clicked on the little video I wanted to see. As you warned, it doesn't forward flash. But I don't see how to change up servers? I don't even know which of those I'm on.

You'd think some 14-year-old kid would have figured out a better way by now -- isn't that what the internet is all about? ;)

[ratcreature]

Well, I never signed up for anything, I put it in the field manually, and I don't really know how to make it less hassle. With most video from tv sites in the US that don't let me see I just wait until some other fan is kind enough to repost the clips to youtube or some community. I mean, if you know a fan in GB you could just ask them to download the flash video file with some download utility and mail it to you?

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

if you know a fan in GB you could just ask them to download the flash video file with some download utility and mail it to you?

Sure, but I want to learn how to do this myself because there are so many sites in Europe I want to watch things on that block me. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong. V.v. frustrating.

Do you need to take the IP number and put it in your browser prefs? Or do you just go to the page and put in the URL?

[ratcreature]

You put the IP number and put them in the browser prefs.

Since you asked, I looked for tools to make this easier, and there seem to be Firefox extensions to configure proxies only for certain URLs and to make this easier, like Switch Proxy Tool:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/125
or Foxy Proxy:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2464
but I haven't tried these myself.

[bentleywg.livejournal.com]

You could also look for a UK-based anonymizer. e.g., http://freeanonymizer.co.uk/ Then paste the link you want and go on from there.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Wow, that didn't work at *all*. First it told me that the page had been permanently relocated, and then when I managed to get where I was going and click on the little video link, it told me I was leaving the bbc site.

...

Seriously this *cannot* be this difficult. I am certain I'm missing something simple.

[bentleywg.livejournal.com]

Yes, it tells you you're leaving the BBC site. That's okay. It takes you to the content, anyway, but because you're looking at it via the anonymizer, the BBC site thinks you're going elsewhere. That's the way I look at the Torchwood site. Yes, it's that simple.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Okay - here's what I did. I put the url in the box at the freeanonymizer --

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/

This brought up the Doctor Who site.


Then I clicked on what I want to watch - over on the right - "The Big Questions: Part 3".

That took me to the page where the video would be playing in the middle of the page (the rest of the page around it looks just like the main Doctor Who page) -- but the big grey box where the video should be says "Sorry, this content isn't available at the moment."

I've tried it in Firefox, Netscape, and IE.

[sensine.livejournal.com]

If you don't manage to watch it, tell me and I'll see if I can do something from here (Norway) to link you to it. (I need the help of my son, naturally, but I'm sure we'll find something)