Remote control of BBC is back

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Published on Monday, 09 March 2009 00:04
Written by Martin Millmore
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I have been working on a new way of remote controlling the BBC programs, and I now have the first version of that available in release 2.5.1. It basically means that when you go in to the page it will auto play. You can press Pause on the remote to pause playing, and then press play to play again, all without exiting full screen. If you press Stop, it will exit full screen and stop playing. If you press Play again, it will start playing. Don't press the Escape/Clear key though, or it will loose track of what state it is in. At the moment I have implemented this on BBC programs, but will extend to Hulu and Five in due course.

I have tested this with my 1920x1080 TV, and it should scale to other sizes. If you have a problem with it not picking up the controls, send me a full screen screenshot to allow me to work on that.

Do not post any requests for help about the remote not working unless you have already sent me a full screen screenshot at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  of the page where it fails to click properly.

Favourites and BBC changes

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Published on Thursday, 05 March 2009 22:11
Written by Martin Millmore
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I have added a new Favourites feature in TunerFreeMCE (thanks to all of the people who have been suggesting it). The way it works is that it keeps track of what you watch and then calculates what you have been watching the most recently. It then shows the 20 most popular programs. You can also override that by pressing * on the remote when looking at the list of programs to add it to the favourites. If you press #, it will block a program from ever appearing in the favourites. Only programs which currently have episodes will be shown in the favourites list.

The BBC have also changed the way they stream programs yet again. I have updated the code to cope with the new streams, but given the short notice I had to point to the BBC web site, which means that although the programs go full screen within 10 seconds of opening, the remote won't pause or fast forward any more. Shame, but at least it still plays.  

BBC Radio and Hulu update

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Published on Saturday, 28 February 2009 18:41
Written by Martin Millmore
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I have released a new version of TunerFreeMCE. This release contains support for BBC radio programs, both live and catch-up. You can choose from any of the 17 national or regional BBC Radio programs. When you go in to the program it will start playing, and you can pause and play using the stop button. You can also fast forward or rewind 30 seconds at a time using the remote.

I still have a bit of testing to do on the radio content. I released this version a little but earlier than I might otherwise have done because I wanted to release an update to the Hulu support too. Hulu updated their site and everything stopped working, so I needed to update my code. Version 2.4.0 therefore contains support for the latest Hulu content, and beta support for BBC Radio.

Comments have been enabled

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Published on Saturday, 28 February 2009 10:39
Written by Martin Millmore
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I am trialing comments on my site on the News section. I have tried a few different systems, but think this one works OK. Feel free to leave questions or feedback.

How much does VPN cost

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Published on Wednesday, 25 February 2009 19:43
Written by Martin Millmore
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A number of people have asked me how much it costs to get VPN to watch content abroad. It's not a simple question to answer, but here's an example;

Hulu low res streams use 480Kbps or 700Kbps depending on your bandwidth, or 1000Kbps if you choose the high-res button. That's between 216 MB an hour and 450MB an hour.

You can get a number of different VPN packages, some monthly and some Pay as you Go. It's impossible to calculate an hourly price for monthly packages - that simply a fixed fee and doesn't depend on how much TV you watch a month. With the pay as you go packages, if we take Always VPN as an example, in AlwaysVPN's current prices, that's between 9p an hour for the lowest resolution/cheapest bundle (480Kbps on the 80GB for $47 package), and 54p an hour on the highest resolution/most expensive bundle (1000Kbps on the $8.50 for 5GB bundle). In reality, it's going to use a bit more bandwidth than that, because there will also be the natural background level of network that your computer uses (e.g. checking for updates and so on), but as long as you aren't running P2P on the same machine at the same time or anything like that, that should be negligible.

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  3. TunerFreeMCE with Hulu out of Beta
  4. Beta Hulu Support