There is a lot of great content available online, including Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, iTunes and much more.  Some of these services are free.  Others charge by the show or with a monthly subscription.

Learn the best way to access these services, and to watch them on your TV.  Also, learn how to watch these services when travelling outside the United States.

 

Premium Video Streaming Services

Some of the most popular video streaming services are:

Netflix ($8/month)

Hulu Plus (get 1-week FREE trial, then $8/month)

iTunes (cost per movie/tv show)

Vudu (cost per movie)

BBC iPlayer (free in U.K.; about $10/month elsewhere where available)

 

Note that most of these services have geographic restrictions.  The section below describes how to overcome those restrictions, such as when you are travelling overseas.

Note that if you want to watch these services on your TV, as opposed to your computer, you will need to have either a “network” TV or a media player that you attach to your existing TV.

 

Access These Services When You Are Overseas

A lot of online subscription services are “geo-protected”, in other words, they can only be accessed when you are in a specific country.  For example, Hulu and Pandora are only available in the U.S.  The BBC iPlayer is only available in Britain.

But what about when you are travelling overseas and want to access your subscriptions?

There is a way that you can get access.  What you need to do is use a “proxy server” when accessing these services.  A proxy server is a gateway through which all your internet traffic flows.  The proxy server sends out the request to the websites you visit, so those websites think you are based in the country where the proxy server is based.  In other words, if your proxy server is based in the U.S., you will be able to access Hulu or Netflix wherever you are.  Or if your proxy server is based in the U.K., you will be able to access the BBC iPlayer wherever you are.

Without a doubt, the best way to do this is with a “virtual private network”, or VPN, service.  A VPN service, such as HMA Pro, allows you to select a proxy server in a wide range of countries, so you can choose an appropriate one based upon the service you are accessing.

The other thing that is really good about a VPN service is that it encrypts your web browsing and prevents anyone else from seeing what you are browsing.  This is especially important if you use public wi-fi hotspots when travelling.  With a VPN, you can use free public wi-fi spots and browse securely.  You don’t need to worry about anyone spying on you as enter your passwords, which is a very real possibility if you use open wi-fi networks without a VPN service.

VPNs are a paid-service, which will typically cost somewhere around $75 per year.  In choosing a service, a few key criteria to consider when choosing are the following:

• Multiple servers in multiple countries: you want a VPN with servers in multiple US, European and Asian countries, giving you access to a rule range of content and access to the fastest (closest) servers wherever  you might be in the world.
• Flexibility to change VPN servers at will: some VPN services limit how often you can change your proxy server.  There is no technical reason why your VPN should not allow you to change servers as often as you like.  Steer clear of any VPN providers that do this; it is simply a marketing effort to get you into a higher priced fully-flexible package.
• Support for multiple platforms:  make sure the VPN service works on your desktop operating system (Windows, Mac, Linux) as well as any mobile systems that you may use (iOS, Android).
• Support for concurrent users: most VPN platforms only allow you to access their servers one device at a time.  However, with the proliferation of devices we use, you will really want the ability to be able to use a VPN on, for example, your computer and your smartphone, at the same time.

While there are a number of VPN services available, HMA Pro is one that we have found that meets these 4 criteria.  HMA has servers in over 16 countries; users can switch between VPN locations whenever they want; it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux desktop platforms, as well as iOS and Android; and, it allows two devices to access the HMA servers at once.

 

Netflix.com for Canadians

If you have a Canadian Netflix account and login to your account, you’ll have access to all the content available on Netflix.ca.  If, however, you are travelling in the U.S., and if you login in to your account, you will be taken to Netflix.com and have access to that much larger library of content.  The same thing would happen if, at home, you used a VPN service and routed your traffic through a proxy servers in the U.S.

 

iTunes International Stores

There is a lot of great content available on the different iTunes Stores around the world.

Unfortunately, different content is made available on each of the stores. So if you love British TV shows, you may need access to the the British iTunes store to get that programming. Or if you live outside the US, then you’ll find more content on that store than you will on any of the other iTunes stores. In addition, the free “Singles of the Week” are usually different for each country. That is another reason that you might want to get access to some of the international iTunes Stores.

To access international iTunes Stores, scroll down to the bottom of the home page of your iTunes Store and click on the flag in the bottom right hand corner. You will get a list of all available international iTunes Stores (see photo). Pick the one that you might be interested in.

The process to access a foreign store can be summarized as follows: get a gift card for that country, and then open up an account in that country without providing any credit card information. Let’s go through those 2 steps now.

First, you need to get a gift card for the iTunes store that you wish to access. Either you can get this from visiting that country and purchasing an actual gift card or, maybe, you know someone who lives there who can purchase one and send it to you (by mail or as an email). Once you have got that gift card, go into that iTunes Store and click on the “Redeem” button under Quick Links on the right hand side.

Once you do that, you will get the “Redeem Code” page. Enter in your gift card code, and hit “Redeem”. Once you hit redeem, you will be prompted to open a new account.

The second step is to open an account with the iTunes Store of your choice. First, find a local address for that country and type it into the address fields. Where it asks your credit card information, chances are that you do not have a credit card with a billing address in that country. So leave that section blank. Hit the “OK” button, and you will get an error message from Apple telling you that there is missing information required to set up the account.  Go back and input your information again. Enter the same address, and, again, leave the credit card information blank.

When you hit the OK button, again you will get an error message from Apple.  Enter in all your information a third time, again with the local address and with the credit card information blank. Hit “OK” and third time lucky, Apple will let you create an account for that country. You are now free to purchase anything from this store, up to the amount of your gift card. Spend until you are out of money and then get yourself a new gift card to replenish your account.

Anything you purchase will show up in the iTunes application on your computer, and will sync with your iOS device if you want. Once the content is in your iTunes application, Apple does not care which iTunes store it came from, with two exceptions.

The first exception deals with Apps. Whenever an app is updated and you wish to download it, you will need to be logged into the store from which you bought it to get the update. You will be logged in to that foreign store to download the update, but you do not need to be logged in to that store when you want to sync your iOS device.

Second, content from the iTunes music store can only be played on 5 computers (plus any iOS devices that you sync with those computers). This will be the case for content that you buy from each iTunes store. So, for example, content from the US store can be played on 5 computers (and each of those computers needs to be authorized). And content from, say the Spanish iTunes store, can play on 5 computers — the same computers or a different set of computers. But the first time you try to play anything from the Spanish store on a second computer, you will need to go into the iTunes Spanish store and authorize the computer.

One final important point is that you need to use a different email address for each iTunes account; otherwise, Apple will bounce you back to your original iTunes Store.  That is what is involved in setting up an iTunes Music Store account in a different country, in order to get access to all sorts of great content.