We’ve come full circle at this point, Xfinity is advertising a live streaming package now… so cable, they will sell you cable TV under a new name.
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You can implement the VPN at various levels, either at the end device or at the router level. I’m not sure about the apple TV specifically though.
Yep. DirecTV no longer requires a satellite dish.
The one that drives me insane is I live in a MLB city and the only way I can watch my home team is if I get DirecTV. They even blackout the AppleTV games.
Local blackouts are stupid. I live in the Indy market. They blackout the Indy 500 unless they sell out all 350,000 tickets. Edit to add that it’s happened only once that I’m aware of; 2016 for the 100th edition of the race.
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With AppleTV you need to either:
- run VPN on phone or computer and use screen mirroring to send the video to your AppleTV
- run VPN on computer and connect computer directly to your TV
- buy a router with special VPN client support. The VPN providers have a list of routers. Then setup. Some routers support having a single device - your AppleTV - as the only user of the VPN (which is what you want IMHO).
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If you work remotely this is ideal, your IT staff may get alerted when someone attempts to login from a VPN exit node as this is a common attack vector.
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Another note, some routers may not support VPN out of the box, but can run DD-WRT firmware which can support VPNs.
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Vyper VPN is $60 a year / $5 a month.
I run it on my Mac and iPhone, and use when traveling and in coffee shops for security. As a bonus, it opens up the world to different broadcasting options.
SBS in Australia has the spring classics and grand tours w commentators including Robbie McEwen, Simon Gerrans, Birdie O’Donnell, and Gracie Elvin. Live broadcasts have ads, so maybe someday I’ll buy a Skoda car and a refrigerator from Harvey Normans, but the ad breaks are minimal and tastefully, there are none during the last 20k or so (whenever the race is heating up). Also, many of the rebroadcasts have no ads. Plus, TV shows that in the US are only on Hulu or otherwise not available.
I’ll subscribe to Eurosport for winter season to watch World Cup xc skiing.
And in Olympic years, we watch the games on CBC (Canada) (or SBS) to avoid Bob Costas and all the NBC human interest sap.
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Thank you. I think this confirms my suspicion…which is that messing around figuring out a VPN isnt worth the payoff for me 
FWIW its pretty simply on a mobile Apple/Android phone.
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Depends on how much you hate messing around but I’m a luddite and it’s pretty easy. Any racing I can’t immediately watch on my TV, which has no VPN, I just run it on my computer and cast or hardwire with an HDMI. Takes seconds. Sounds more complicated than it really is and worth it to watch pretty much every race.
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For me the dealbreaker is having to run it off my computer. I can of course hook that up to my tv…but more logistical trouble than it’s worth to me…dont want to be messing around moving the laptop around and digging cables out…
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Fair. I always have an HDMI hooked up to my TV anyway either loose or plugged in to another device.
No apple products in my house but looks like apple just announced third party VPN apps for apple tv. Any of those apps should require no setup just log into your account. Maybe need to switch it on and off for different content but no real setup.
I haven’t tried yet but appears I can run a VPN app on my sony/android tv. Will try and download something in the next few days and report back.
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Not in time for TdF - announced last week, and coming in the fall with tvOS 17.
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its silly easy to run a VPN client on my MacBook Pro and iPhone. And then AirPlay / mirroring to your AppleTV although you might lose some video quality depending on your TV and network (WiFi vs Ethernet).
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Yea that was the issue I had with airplay…used to do that with GCN before they got the apple tv app…the quality was sort of crap.
I’ve already got a pile of cables hanging out of my macbook, 2nd monitor, etc. it’s not like this stuff is not able to be overcome of course.:it’s just not worth the cost of admission for me when I’m hopping on the trainer at 6am and just want to hit 2 buttons on my remote.
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Hey, twenty years ago I was a beta tester for a business class vpn router. While its easy to setup these days (compared to 20 years ago), I’d rather just record and watch on FuboTV app on my AppleTV. But seriously if your AppleTV is connected via Ethernet, and your MacBook is connected via Ethernet, the video quality is great. But yeah, if the computer is in the other room you likely will be watching without any controls.
I havent got an ethernet cable in the whole house haha
I could potentially have a second HDMI cable running from my TV to my computer
Actually no…it would be a cluster %&$@ anyway…I’m out of hdmi slots on the TV anyway.
First world problems…
I think when I want to watch bike racing I’ll tell my 9 yr old to ride circles around my basement…
WiFi works. I’ve got a video switch from Monoprice connected to my AppleTV. Last night my daughter plugged her Nintendo Switch into the spare cable, and the video switch “magically” did its job.
Not that I’m saying its worth the hassle, I can’t even bother to do it myself. However if you ever need help, it should be clear a bunch of folks on the forum are capable of lending assistance.