IPTV, The way forward for football fans?

It was being a fan of football that originally got me into this "satellite" malarky, but it is becoming harder and harder to watch what I want, when I want and in the language of my choice. For the last few years I have had a B**n Sports subscription that provided everything that I required. But since they changed the satellite that the English channels were transmitted to I have only been able to pick them up with my B**n Sports C*nn*ct account online via a smart DNS, which was sort of ok and is basically an IPTV setup. The thing is, it has been made more difficult by B**n Sports to set this up for the likes of me, even via third parties sited on foreign soil, this means that it is unlikely that this is still going to be an ongoing option for me, especially at the prices now being quoted! So I've been investigating other options, one being IPTV!. . . . . . I have discovered a multitude of sites offering all sorts of packages of channels. With a bit of research I've delved into the background, company history, reviews, ratings etc of some of the more credible looking sites as much as I've been able. Some sites look downright dodgy, others seem ok, there does appear that some of these "better" sites might be able to provide me with what I am looking for. I am thinking that I will try an initial 1 month subscription to see how it goes as at worst I would only lose about £15, especially as I have some major reservations about this regarding;

• Is it reliable, will they disappear off with my money after a while?
• Is it legal?
• Picture quality?
• Buffering, general lagginess?
• Are some of these sites basically a dressed up cardshare?

Does anyone have any experience of IPTV subscriptions, setups etc? I know that there are a lot of these sort of setups being used in Spain and on the continent in general for the expat community, anyone like to share their views or opinions?

Thanks for any advice or opinion offered

Riverblue said:

• Is it reliable, will they disappear off with my money after a while?
• Is it legal?
• Picture quality?
• Buffering, general lagginess?
• Are some of these sites basically a dressed up cardshare?

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• Is it reliable, will they disappear off with my money after a while?

As reliable as your internet is.
All "third party" IPTV suppliers are a risk.
Some do not offer their services to the UK, via IP address checking.

• Is it legal?

IPTV direct from the broadcasters usually yes.
IPTV from third party suppliers.... to provide streams is illegal. To watch those streams is not. To record and save those stream is illegal.

• Picture quality?

Depends on internet speeds. Many offer channels in HD, which is somewhere between 720 and 1080. Some offer "low res" options for those with low internet speeds, which is comparable to lower quailty satellite transmissions - i would say better than the picture quality on the "True Movies" batch of channels.... which may not be saying much really since their res is shite...

• Buffering, general lagginess?

Depends on your Internet provider and speeds. Most IPTV boxes allow you to adjust the buffer.
Not ideal for "in play" betting as IPTV does seem to be many seconds behind live... about 30 to 60 seconds in some cases.

• Are some of these sites basically a dressed up cardshare?

Most do not use cardshare, some do. I even know of one IPTV provider who offers a subscription service which used the free FILMON streams for some of its UK TV channels!!

Hope that helps

I had a one month IPTV subscription few months ago and I was very disappointed with the video quality.
The number of channels was quite a lot and from several satellite providers, but to me quality speaks louder than quantity.
If a foreign channel transmits the satellite channel in two languages, expect to hear only the foreign language, although technically it is possible to send both in IPTV. Same thing with subtitles.
My advice is to not pay anything and insist on a 24 hours free test.
I think most of these services come from the same servers only different sellers.
Nothing beats a 1920 x 1080 video quality and for this it is worth paying the full price.

Thanks for that, Woborny.

I will be using Kodi on my mini pc running windows 10, so not a specific IPTV box. I have fibre broadband with decent speeds, see below;



I was more concerned with the sites themselves, how good/reliable are their servers etc, the only way to find out is a short subscription.

They all seem to be third party suppliers, so I assume that they will all be illegal then, but how legal is geo unblocking via a smart DNS or VPN?

HB13DISH16 said:

I had a one month IPTV subscription few months ago and I was very disappointed with the video quality.
The number of channels was quite a lot and from several satellite providers, but to me quality speaks louder than quantity.
If a foreign channel transmits the satellite channel in two languages, expect to hear only the foreign language, although technically it is possible to send both in IPTV. Same thing with subtitles.
My advice is to not pay anything and insist on a 24 hours free test.
I think most of these services come from the same servers only different sellers.
Nothing beats a 1920 x 1080 video quality and for this it is worth paying the full price.

Click to expand...

These are my concerns. I haven't seen any that offer a 24hr free test yet.

Unfortunately the last line of your reply is no longer available me, that is why I am enquiring about this.

Riverblue said:

These are my concerns. I haven't seen any that offer a 24hr free test yet.

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I think you will find more IPTV services if you google them in other languages for example in French, German or Spanish. Just translate your keywords into these languages and see what I mean.
Try not to give you email address unless you must. I did that with a French site and shortly afterwards I got many spam messages.

HB13DISH16 said:

I think you will find more IPTV services if you google them in other languages for example in French, German or Spanish. Just translate your keywords into these languages and see what I mean.
Try not to give you email address unless you must. I did that with a French site and shortly afterwards I got many spam messages.

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Thanks for that, I will give it a try.

I don't give out my e-mail address readily.

I am using Ruya IPTV streams have played play very well up to now today is the big test i will let you know later today if there's any buffer.

Channel list here.

IPTV is not the way forward the picture quality is extremely poor when compared with my HD feeds,

Check out the feed quality here Just Sharing This - Hull v Leicester

blademedia said:

Channel list here.

Code:

http://kodicommunity.com/ruya-iptv/

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So basically illegally streaming many pay TV packages

I tried a few Russian IPTV services such as Kartina and Sovok. Despite my generally good connection, I find that even then I will get the occasional buffering. Picture quality on those is very good and some do a direct retransmission of satellite steam without reencoding, so you can select languages and subtitles just like on a real channel.

I will still always take a slightly worse satellite feed than IPTV one because of buffering issues and delays

One of my customers went for Bein sports included within an Arab package just over a year ago.

Two channels out of around 150, just for the football, only one with English commentary.

HB13DISH16 said:

I had a one month IPTV subscription few months ago and I was very disappointed with the video quality.
The number of channels was quite a lot and from several satellite providers, but to me quality speaks louder than quantity.
If a foreign channel transmits the satellite channel in two languages, expect to hear only the foreign language, although technically it is possible to send both in IPTV. Same thing with subtitles.
My advice is to not pay anything and insist on a 24 hours free test.
I think most of these services come from the same servers only different sellers.
Nothing beats a 1920 x 1080 video quality and for this it is worth paying the full price.

Click to expand...

Resolution is relative in terms of quality, you can have a 1080 streamed channel in rubbish quality if bitrate is low.