Avtex smart TV

[clonkel]

I have an Avtex TV which connects to my mifi to give access to iPlayer, Channel 4, all of the streaming channels etc.

However I am unable to watch live TV on ITVX.

I contacted Avtex who confirmed that at present live tv on ITVX is not supported.

I guess this means either a firestick or laptop connected unless there are other options?

Thank you

 

[pappajohn]

Why on earth would you want itvx?
It drops faster than the drop of a hat.
It buffers all the time.
Completely disappears from time to time.
Waste of space.

 

[starquake]

Firesticks with the "dodgy" software on are far better than the itvx app. Find someone that can supply it -> it'll be better and with less adverts than the official way. I'm not saying this is legal, but it does provide a far better user experience than the official apps.

Given supplying such software may end up with the person doing so ending up in jail in recent times it is less available than it has been previously, but I can confirm you can still get it. Most people know someone who can get a contact who can supply it.

Should add we have it, alongside legtimate access to things like Sky which we pay for purely for the things you can't actually buy legally. For us, it's not about getting Sky cheap, it's more about being able to watch sport for which there is no legitmate way to buy in the UK. But we do use it for ITV as the catchup service is much like Sky Go, and allows ad skip etc.

 

[clonkel]

starquake thank you.

I will look at the firestick option and set up a VPN as well as we are due to go into Europe soon.

thanks

 

[starquake]

starquake thank you.

I will look at the firestick option and set up a VPN as well as we are due to go into Europe soon.

thanks

You need a VPN if you choose to have a dodgy app on there anyhow. You will find it works better with the VPN (but it also stops any mobile network from blocking the access to the enchanced channels).

I can reccomend ExpressVPN app for this, works well with the app we may have installed (ExpressVPN allows you to pick say Netflix to go via VPN, alongside say a dodgy app, but leave other apps NOT via the vpn). It's not the cheapest of the VPN's but works well from our experience on iplayer app at least.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Kups]

Dodgy firestick suppliers are being caught and jailed in the UK according to recent reports. Their "customer " records are also being seized. So make your own mind up about buying one.
The channels available on the Avtex smart TVs are those which they have been able to agree in their licencing deal.
A firestick is by far the best bet coupled with Express VPN, our choice also.
Don't forget that one hour of TV chews up about 1 Gb of data, so you may need more than available on most UK SIM roaming deals.

 

[starquake]

Dodgy firestick suppliers are being caught and jailed in the UK according to recent reports. Their "customer " records are also being seized. So make your own mind up about buying one.

Yes but their customers havn't been to date, and arguably they'd have little loss in our particular case given we subscribe to every single service we legallly can. (ie, Sky can't come after us for not paying as we do in fact pay Sky).

But I do agree it comes with risks -> but equally if you don't supply anything to a said supplier and pay cash locally is there any way you could be traced? It woudl be why I would reccomend finding someone local and paying cash.

But yes, ExpressVPN and Firestrick itvx app is the legal way to do it, but it does use more bandwidth per hour than some of the sticks too ( with the sticks you can deliberately pick a lower bandwidth version of any live channel, or catchup to reduce data use, a festure unavailable easily on the legitmate way). It really is quite mad that the dodgy software is better in many ways than the legitmate ways now.

I'm not saying it's the only way, but clonkel did want all the options, and I'm pretty sure quite a few on here don't have a entirely legit firestick setup. I am not equally saying all are using the dodgy software either!

 

[StillGoing]

Regardless that it’s illegal to use one of these hacked FireSticks and that the profits could be funding organised crime, you have no idea what malware is on the sticks. Personally,I wouldn’t touch one with a barge pole.

 

[starquake]

Regardless that it’s illegal to use one of these hacked FireSticks and that the profits could be funding organised crime, you have no idea what malware is on the sticks. Personally,I wouldn’t touch one with a barge pole.

I work in Cyber security and have decrypted the software supplied in my case. It's just a playback software grabbing playlists from a m3u source, nothing sinister at all there, but it does use a central service to supply the playlists, and I'm reasonably surprised the authorities have not tried to shutdown the central sevrvice involved given it's used by all suppliers I've come across . These days you install the software yourself, so can actually look at what is supplied if you are capable of doing it. I admit I am unusual in I have the skills to do this, but anyone could learn that.

There is a misinformation campaign on this claiming it's stealing credentials from other apps (which is prevented by the Android OS itself on a firestifck) and other such nonsense. Hate to say this but who is telling you this, mainstream media, do you not think theres a reason they are trying to discourage this? The Android security model (same one as on your phone) prevents apps stepping outside their own boundaries.

Ref; funding crime, yes it could be. But the tiny amount it costs per year isn't meaningfully anymore than the same groups make on a single sale of more illegal goods.

As said, personally my ethics are I pay for sky, netflix, disney, and many other services using the legal routes. But I don't equally limit myself to that for use to get obscure US sport (I like baseball, and you can't legitmately get that as easily over here).. We pay over £100 a month for the actual legitamte services. I have no qualms however where you cannot legally buy a service to get an alternative until such time they will sell it to me on a legal service. (Should add you can buy via a VPN in the US if you have a permanent US address which I do not). Edit, should add it's also the case that many many years ago my father introduced this to me with having a movabe satellite dish on his roof to watch German, French and Swedish TV. There have been shops in UK selling cards and equipment in shops for access to foreign telly via satellite for years now.

But saying it's malware is unfortunatly completely incorect, and a subject of a current disinformation campaign. Should add I can only comment on this on the services I have analysed... some obviously may have malware, but none I've presonally seen has had that.

 

[Lenny HB]

Why on earth would you want itvx?
It drops faster than the drop of a hat.
It buffers all the time.
Completely disappears from time to time.
Waste of space.

And uses 4 times the data of other streaming channels.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[starquake]

And uses 4 times the data of other streaming channels.

I think as mentioned this is a good reason you will see many people using the alternatives to get ITV conent.

Teh data is what costs us all money -> and using services which can use less data is the best advert.

another exmaple of how not to do it is the NowTV app these days -> we have a 4k stick so it will try to play on 4k UHD on some channels using ... 20-40Gb an hour at times. We want that yes when on a decent home connection, but do we want that on a 2-6Mbit 4g signal, nope. Can we stop it doing it, nope.

You can work around it on some apps by setting the firesticks options to medium, but some apps ignore this (NowTV looking at you). So to even be able to stream certain apps you may need the alternative.

 

[clonkel]

I have 2 unlimited data sims (EE and O2) which I swap between to minimise over use.

Thanks I will look at Express VPN, I was looking at Surfshark

 

[Manic]

I use Surfshark and it works for me on all streaming apps