BBC iPlayer forces stream quality to SD or even lower

monni

Hi,

 

I just acquired 1 year freedome subscription to watch BBC iPlayer live stream while in Finland.  As iPlayer faq states, stream quality is set automatically and is based on your detected bandwidth:

"High quality BBC iPlayer programmes stream at up to 5 Mbps or megabits (5000 kbps) and our standard quality version is 1.5 Mbps (1500 kbps). You'll actually need a little more bandwidth than this to watch programmes on BBC iPlayer."

Speedtest gives steady 30Mbps down, so the problem must be somewhere between the UK server and iPlayer. I tried with Chrome and Firefox. Never had any issues like this with the other VPN providers. Is it just me or how does you others iPlayer work with freedome?

[Deleted User]

Hello @monni

 

Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. It is becoming increasingly common for media steaming websites to block viewers who use VPNs bypass geo-restrictions placed on their services. Prime examples include Hulu, US Netflix, and BBC iPlayer.

The reason for such blocks is almost always because copyright holders want to maximize their profits by artificially segregating the world market.

We expect customers to respect the terms of third-party services that they access via our services. The Terms of Service for F-Secure Freedome can be found here: https://www.f-secure.com/en/web/legal_global/terms/freedome

Please have a look of the BBC iPlayer Faq. You could also contact the iplayer support to change their VPN blocking policy.