sky tv in malta

you can get it, but its illegal

It's also horrible!!!!...I don't think I've seen one movie from beginning to end without it freezing.

This says it is legal:

satelliteonline.co.uk/sky_abroad

Near the bottom of the page it says:
"NB: One question we are frequently asked "Is it legal to purchase an unsubsidised receiver for use abroad?" the answer is yes. Although they are the same receiver as those supplied in the UK these receivers have been purchased at a higher price to allow for payment of any Sky subsidies which may be owed. Because they are purchased outright you may use them wherever you wish. It is the Sky cards that can only be sent to UK addresses."

As ever with such situations, do your own due diligence and determine if the costs and any associated risks are worth it to you.

Tim

Thats the truth, but not the whole truth

It maybe legal to buy, but its illegal to use overseas a Sky card intended for the UK

OK - but that's not "illegal" - it's violating the terms and conditions of the contract that got you the card, which is a civil matter and the consequence would be that Sky would discontinue the service if they found out...though I am not a lawyer so I am not giving advice, just my understanding.

Tim

A civil offense is just as illegal as a criminal one.

As well as having the service disconnected, you could also be sued (for theft ?), and have the equipment confiscated. If you have paid for the service upfront, you risk losing your payment.

...as I said I'm not a lawyer.

It would certainly seem safer to heed George's warnings.

Tim

I used a service which provides you with the address in the UK, your contract is with them ( the service provider ) So technically its not with SKY directly.

Only problem was when something went wrong with a connection you could never phone SKY, as I learnt the hard way and they politely disconnected me after taking the card no. :-)

What TV services can you get in Malta then guys?

the software laws in Malta are enforced with less efficiency than traffic violations....   Even Microsoft windows license's in Malta only 3% are legal....

I am not condoning anything, I am just stating documented fact per Microsoft....   

I know software is another topic, but the stat's say a lot about computer related law enforcement here in malta...   Something tells me sky tv is not a high priority...

Do you guys not watch TV over there? lol

Sorry - im a soap lover (Hides and awaits the groans) mainly Eastenders!

Eastenders is shown on both Melita and GO TV services here in Malta on the "BBC Entertainment" channel - but as I understand it they are a couple of weeks behind the current happenings in Albert Square.

Alternatively, you could watch via BBC iPlayer and a UK based VPN or Proxy Server...allegedly.

Or download torrents from your favourite torrent search site/tracker.

Tim

demonoid!

try dream box, there is a dreambox supplier on andrews road, and rental is cheaper than those of most,

There was an article in the times very recently saying the authorities were looking at the usage of dreamboxes to stream tv in Malta, and it sound ed as though they were serious in closing down this loophole.

this isn't the article, but is interesting

timesofmalta.com/business/view/20110120/news/melita-to-launch-new-premium-tv-content-from-february-1

Melita, he stressed, also had to compete with Dreambox, the satellite platform which was distributed in Malta illegally.

“The service providers are not licensed and the content they are handing out is not licensed by the content owners to them for distribution in Malta. Anybody who makes an investment in Dreambox is engaging in an illegal activity,” Mr Torriani said.

He warned that the providers of these services were breaching international and Maltese copyright law and putting their own customers’ viewing of channels at risk as they had no guarantee they would be able to continue to enjoy them in six months’ time.

He insisted it would not be Melita which would act on this situation but the channel and content owners who had recently taken firm measures in Belgium and Cyprus.

He said a Belgian association safeguarding content owners’ property rights had taken legal action and Dreambox providers were jailed while equipment distributors were fined heavily. The Cypriot regulator declared Dreambox illegal and equipment had been seized by police.

I found this also intersting on this topic: timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100913/local/legality-of-satellite-reception-questioned

If you want British TV in Malta, the best solution IMO is to use torrent sites to download programs. It's not 100% legal, but no solution is and I can't see the BBC coming after you for downloading episodes of Eastenders or Question Time or Match Of The Day. It's no worse than paying to use a VPN to watch stuff on BBC iPlayer with a fake British IP address. And it's nowhere near as law-breaking as Dreambox. Obviously downloading movies or music is another matter, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over TV programs.

I just bought a new Blu-ray DVD player which has a USB port at the front of it. Now, after I download my programs I then just transfer them from my computer on to a 4GB flash drive pen thingy, plug that into the DVD player and I can watch the avi or mkv files upscaled onto my HD TV. The quality is amazing.

The best two sites for UK stuff are TheBox and UKNova, but demonoid is also very good as me3512 has already mentioned above, although it's probably better for American programs.

Why in this day and age anyone would consider installing a 1.2 or 2 metre satellite dish on the roof just to be able to watch Coronation Street and Emmerdale is beyond me. There are much easier methods, and it's free too.

I dont know if you can buy them in Malta or not, ( mine is a US model I had shipped to me in Iraq ) but I use a slingbox connected to a friends entertainment center in the states. 

http://www.slingbox.com/go/slingbox

Works great, and is good on my bandwidth.

Pigeon Kicker wrote:

it's nowhere near as law-breaking as Dreambox. O.

an "interesting" interpretation of the law....

its either law breaking or it isn't

Pigeon Kicker wrote:

it's not 100% legal,

- so that would be illegal then

If you want to break the law, go ahead, but don't try a fool yourself or others that its only breaking the law a bit

There's nothing illegal about the downloading process with torrents (ie the technology) - the question is on the content. Some content is public domain so that of course is ok to download. uknova take the view that aired BBC programs that are not yet commercially available (ie on DVD) are ok to download eg Eastenders (except the specials that are released on DVD). uknova is well known and has been around for several years so my personal conclusion is that their position has merit or the BBC would have got them closed down ages ago.

Tim

Thanks Tim - will give uknova a spin

georgeingozo, get off your high horse mate, I'm only trying to post some useful information which might help fellow expats. The vast majority of the world population must break the law every week, even if it's just driving at 35 mph in a 30-zone. I apologize if my original post was too vague on the law-breaking side of things, but I didn't realise the message board was going to be so anally retentive.

With regards to UKNova, if you still have a British TV licence then for sure it is 100% legal, you are just downloading what you have already paid for. If you DON'T have a UK TV licence, it might possibly be construed as illegal, but as I said the chances of the BBC taking legal action against you for downloading an episode of Eastenders are fairly slim. And if it is illegal then why is there still so much BBC content on youtube which hasn't been removed?? As Tim has already pointed out, if something is commercially available then it is immediately removed from UKNova, since making available something which is on DVD or will be released soon on DVD would break copyright laws.

TheBox on the other hand does have a huge selection of commercially available material, mostly BBC DVDs, so if you download these then yes you are almost certainly breaking the law. Although TheBox's arguement is that if it has previously been aired on UK terrestrial TV, then it's OK, but that's one for their lawyers to argue in court IMO.

There, my conscience feels much cleaner now.

s**t...   George looks like you have a fight....

As for the rest of it... thank god for my Iraq Proxy server and god bless the torrent site I use as well as my MASSIVE storage array at home.

32Tb and counting......

George if you want anything specific... let me know in a pm..

please

I just don't like people jumping down my throat when they obviously don't understand all the facts. Bringing a UK registered Sky decoder down here to use is not permitted, and using a VPN to watch BBC iPlayer is also apparently not allowed. If it was allowed, the BBC wouldn't block non-UK IP addresses, would they?? I consider using torrent sites to download TV programs the same as the above scenarios. Are you likely to get thrown in Guantanamo Bay for doing it?? Probably not, there's more chance of getting locked up for jaywalking.

Dreambox is a different kettle of fish though IMO, you can watch all of Sky Italia's channels without paying for them, well without paying Sky anyway, so I would personally feel more worried about using one, that's something you could be charged with, but they are very, very popular in Malta!! So if you want to use one, that's your choice.

If anyone needs any more info on torrent sites, check out the websites below which I found a while back:

anglotopia.net/brit-tv/how-to-get-british-tv-worldwide-part-1-getting-it-for-free/

filesharefreak.com/2008/04/11/specialized-private-bittorrent-websites-tv-trackers/

And if anybody is interested in documentaries / educational films, check out DocuWiki:

ocuwiki.net/index.php?title=Main_Page

You have to register with the MVGroup site to start downloading, but there is a mass of really interesting stuff on there.

Damn Y'all calm down....

Does apple TV get live sports????   Easy 75 euro fix if it does 

i use a vpn proxy, watch bbc, itv , channel 4 and 5 no problem at all. I  am then also am registered with sky player , were i can watch anything sky offers - this does buffer occasionally, but for €10 a month for the vpn, i am not complaining !!!!!!

If you use a vpn, do you have to sit at your computer and watch your programs though??

nope, you can connect you computer to you tele with a vpn cable - about €3, depending on how new your tv is, it will that adjust the picture size - etc etc. It works for us, but we dont watch huge amounts of tv

You probably meant VGA or DVI cable not vpn cable. That's the way we do it too...use the TV as monitor for the PC.

Tim

OK cool, I only asked because I got one of those free advert magazines stuck through my letterbox the other day, it was from some German company selling various electronics equipment. The front page had a new piece of kit where you can transfer/stream media wirelessly from you PC to your HDTV, I hadn't seen anything like that before. It costs €100 euros though, so it's probably better to spend €3 on a cable and save the rest for more important things. Cisk for example.

Wifi media streaming has been around for a while and is getting better....but they are not all good, so do your research first if interested.
Also a lot of people really like the Acer Revo which is a dedicated media player small form-factor PC that you plug into your TV...it has tiny power consumption, lots of memory and the NVIDIA ION graphics chip all for a low price.
And a lot of people stream from PS3s (though they have trouble playing some container formats) and other game consoles.
And of course Apple fanboys will gush about Apple TV too.

Lots of options.

My Landlord hasn't provided us with an HDTV so I'm firmly in the €3 VGA cable camp at the moment, but we had HDTV in the USA a couple of years ago and enjoyed streaming content to it via various methods and its only got easier since then.

Tim

Potentially interesting development regarding TV Satellite Systems being used in the EU:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12355022

On a related note I went to a website yesterday to look for a streamed Football match (for research you understand) and discovered that the website had been seized by the US Dept. Of Homeland Security for alleged copyright violations - I was able to sleep better last night feeling much safer ;-)

Tim

Here is a free movie site, all the latest movies and also TV-Shows. You will get a load of pop up windows you need to close down and some have broken links, I have used Putlocker, sockshare, wisevid and videoweed and they have worked great. Dont download anything just stream it. Im on a slow broadband and it works great...For sure its illegal...lol...but who's gonna catch u...ENJOY!
[Moderated]

hammersfan wrote:

Wifi media streaming has been around for a while and is getting better....but they are not all good, so do your research first if interested.
Also a lot of people really like the Acer Revo which is a dedicated media player small form-factor PC that you plug into your TV...it has tiny power consumption, lots of memory and the NVIDIA ION graphics chip all for a low price.
And a lot of people stream from PS3s (though they have trouble playing some container formats) and other game consoles.
And of course Apple fanboys will gush about Apple TV too.

Lots of options.

My Landlord hasn't provided us with an HDTV so I'm firmly in the €3 VGA cable camp at the moment, but we had HDTV in the USA a couple of years ago and enjoyed streaming content to it via various methods and its only got easier since then.

Tim

O.K. so can you use a VGA cable on some old T.V. (like our 'cheap' landlord provided us that has scart plugs only!) to link to your computer and watch your favorite USA programs?  We find the T.V. channels very limited!  We download some stuff to the computer, put on a memory stick and plug into our DVD player or burn to a DVD.

If the TV only hs a SCART you will probably have to get a VGA to SCART cable - see amazon.co.uk or ebay.co.uk or maybe locally if you don't mind paying the prices and they have them in stock!

Also VGA only carries the video signal so you'll need a seperate cable for the audio - just a simple RCA cable should do it.

May be other options depending upon the connections on both your PC and your TV.

Tim

Thanks Tim.  Will check it out.

timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110206/local/football-on-tv-may-become-cheaper

"in Malta many were already watching football illegally through the Dreambox system."

No. You don't say. That is a shock.

"We are also seeing a surge in people accessing these games on the internet. Although this will not last long as all these illegalities will eventually be blocked"

Yeah right, in the few months it takes to block half a dozen of these illegalities, another twenty new ones will appear. After all the years of trying, have they done anything to even try to stop all the illegal music and movie downloads. No. So why do they think they will succeed with internet TV??