Comments on: Watching British Television in Poland

By: kev

kev — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:23:22 +0000

Hi, i just wanted to let people know it is possible to watch english tv via satelite, when i moved to poland nearly a year ago, i brought my sky decoder box, but left my mini dish in england, i bought a dish over here 80cm for about 48 zloty on allegro, after messing about for nearly an hour i managed to pick up about 60 english channels on my digibox, not all the popular ones but some, itv1, channel 4and channel 5, pick tv, sony tv plus others havent managed to pick up any BBC channels tho, im hoping to buy a bigger dish in the next few weeks upto about 100cm which im hoping will be big enough, the signal i have on my 80cm one is about 40% so im hoping 100cm one will give me that little bit more,so that i can hopefully get some BBC channels. I’ll keep people posted, because i was always reading that id have no chance getting any english channels unless i had a 2 meter dish which is abit extreme. Hope this helped some people. If anyone wants more info or wants to ask a question please feel free to email me. kev1uk@hotmail.com

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:43:52 +0000

If anybody wants to join up for the proxy server please see here: http://www.britishinpoland.com/blog/2010/02/uk-tv-via-the-internet-proxy-server/

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:18:12 +0000

Yes your TV should work here once you re-tune it of course. One thing to note though – digital TV in Poland is only being phased in as of this year (2010 – 2013), so that could be a problem if you have got a new digital TV with no built-in analogue receiver.

By: shane kurczewski

shane kurczewski — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:11:59 +0000

Great.. just listened to your podcast with Chris. really lovely. so is worth bringing the TV over do you think?

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:08:49 +0000

OK cheers Shane – I will pull my finger out and give them a call for a quote.

By: shane kurczewski

shane kurczewski — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:51:52 +0000

Hi Ben,

Cheers again for the website, moving to Warsaw in april and was thinking the same thing, definately interested in the proxy, by the way if I bring my new tv over will I be able to get Polish TV, sorry if thats a ridiculous question1

thanks

Shane

By: Harry

Harry — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:46:27 +0000

Hi Ben,

Im just about to make the move over to Poland (march 16th this year) and i have found your site so helpful already, especially the sections on motoring!! Im not a nervous driver by any standard in fact love driving but those poles are crazy!!
anyway i digress, yes i am interested in the UK proxy, it would be so useful for not just tv, so please count me in, and thanks again for a very useful and informative site.

Harry

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:21:25 +0000

Hi David

Thanks a lot for that info back. I don’t know how many we would need – at least 10 – 20 I guess in order to get a group discount. If a few people mention they are interested I will ring for a quote.

Thanks.

Ben

By: David

David — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:07:57 +0000

Awesome article Ben,

How many people would it take to make the VPN/Proxy solution happen at a reasonable cost?

Coming from the opposite side of the problem, I’ve recently had to research ways to get Polish television in the UK. Here’s my take so far…

== Satellite ==

If you can, install a dish and point it at 13 degrees east (the main Hotbird satellite) to pick up the free-to-air Polish channels. You’ll need a dish of at around 80cm to get a decent signal through bad weather.

For better channels – If you have someone with a Polish address who trusts you, you should also be able to set up a Polsat/Cyfra subscription, and once you’ve shipped the receiver box and decryption card to the UK you can get the premium channels.

Unfortunately, this option is closed off to me as I’m in a rented property and can’t drill the walls to install a dish.

== On the Internet ==

There are a number of websites that offer Polish language TV: usually via a client program. I haven’t found anything reliable that streams through a web browser yet.

We’re currently trying a service called IPLA – http://www.ipla.pl – and so far so good. It allows access to a large library of Polish programs by individual episode, as well as some live news and sports channels.

My wife is currently hooked on ‘Tylko milość’. It doesn’t have many of the popular series, but will tide over a homesick Pole for a while. The IPLA client also installs on multiple computers with the same login, which is ideal as she can still watch TV on her laptop when I’m working in the office.

It cost around 15 PLN to get the VIP version, which opens up a few channels as well as the live Polsat news.

It’s worth noting that you cannot play the movies and some channels as they are only available in Poland; those tech-savvy enough to set up a VPN may be able to get around this.

By: Jan

Jan — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 05:41:54 +0000

I wanted to add the option of adding a slingbox to receive television from the UK. This is a piece of hardware that sits next to a good friends TV in the UK (can be Sky). This acts a transmitter connected to teh internet. You can then login whilst in poland and receive the signal. It is a pretty inexpensive option if you have a good friend who is silling to share some of his Internet bandwith to you and you have a good connection yourself