new ROKU user, need advise on channels

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Klipspringer

2385 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#740013 4-Jan-2013 08:51

I have been using a Roku for sometime now. We use it for Vudu, Hulu+ and Netflix. It works great with unblock-us and Snap as my ISP.

However. When we moved house we changed to telstraclear cable. And thats when our problems started. Our Roku channels refused to work. Netflix/Hulu sometimes worked on the PC, but overall it was very problematic. See this link.

Problem was solved when we switched back to Snap. I would suggest you check your ISP.

And follow the guides here and here

arghhh

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#740034 4-Jan-2013 09:14

lchiu7: Just a stab in the dark but perhaps your ISP is using a transparent proxy service (I know TelstraClear does) and so if you are using a DNS service like Unblock-US to simulate being a US customer, then the ISP's transparent proxy will intercept the DNS call and do its own DNS lookup and provide as the source IP, your original (NZ) one.

An easy way to check this is to use Tunnelbear as a VPN as the transparent proxy cannot intercept a VPN service. Once the channels are added in the Roku site, they will appear in your Roku device.

Transparent proxies seem to only work on port 80 (possibly 443) but given media players like the Roku or smartphones use apps to play content which don't use port 80, they are unaffected and something like Unblock-US works fine.

Thank you for your reply.

I'll actually try this and see if it works.

price seems decent $5 a month or $50/yr.

fingers crossed

lchiu7

6476 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#740070 4-Jan-2013 09:57

arghhh:
lchiu7: Just a stab in the dark but perhaps your ISP is using a transparent proxy service (I know TelstraClear does) and so if you are using a DNS service like Unblock-US to simulate being a US customer, then the ISP's transparent proxy will intercept the DNS call and do its own DNS lookup and provide as the source IP, your original (NZ) one.

An easy way to check this is to use Tunnelbear as a VPN as the transparent proxy cannot intercept a VPN service. Once the channels are added in the Roku site, they will appear in your Roku device.

Transparent proxies seem to only work on port 80 (possibly 443) but given media players like the Roku or smartphones use apps to play content which don't use port 80, they are unaffected and something like Unblock-US works fine.

Thank you for your reply.

I'll actually try this and see if it works.

price seems decent $5 a month or $50/yr.

fingers crossed

You should only need Tunnelbear to get the channels registered. After that your Unblock-US service should work. And you only need the free Tunnelbear service which provides 500MB/month or if you Tweet how great the service is, you can get an additional 1GB free.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

lchiu7

6476 posts

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#740071 4-Jan-2013 09:59

Klipspringer: I have been using a Roku for sometime now. We use it for Vudu, Hulu+ and Netflix. It works great with unblock-us and Snap as my ISP.

However. When we moved house we changed to telstraclear cable. And thats when our problems started. Our Roku channels refused to work. Netflix/Hulu sometimes worked on the PC, but overall it was very problematic. See this link.

Problem was solved when we switched back to Snap. I would suggest you check your ISP.

And follow the guides here and here

That is the problem with the TCL transparency proxy. As I noted earlier with TCL cable I can watch all the streaming services on a Roku, Android phone, PS3 etc. with Unblock-US but cannot watch on a PC.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

Kyanar

4089 posts

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#740266 4-Jan-2013 20:26

lchiu7: Just a stab in the dark but perhaps your ISP is using a transparent proxy service (I know TelstraClear does) and so if you are using a DNS service like Unblock-US to simulate being a US customer, then the ISP's transparent proxy will intercept the DNS call and do its own DNS lookup and provide as the source IP, your original (NZ) one.

An easy way to check this is to use Tunnelbear as a VPN as the transparent proxy cannot intercept a VPN service. Once the channels are added in the Roku site, they will appear in your Roku device.

Transparent proxies seem to only work on port 80 (possibly 443) but given media players like the Roku or smartphones use apps to play content which don't use port 80, they are unaffected and something like Unblock-US works fine.

A transparent proxy cannot intercept SSL traffic (port 443). Doing so would compromise the encryption and result in error messages in browsers and on devices. They could re-sign the traffic, but they would need a trusted root CA certificate in your browser to do it, and no ISP can do this.

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