Watching One Planet on the BBC

There are probably few television programmes which can have such a global impact as the BBC’s Natural history documentaries. There’s certainly few to rival their quality, which is hardly surprising considering the immense time, effort and money it takes to produce these shows.

So, excitement is starting to build as the latest programme is scheduled to be broadcast this weekend Sunday 27th October 2019 which is called – Seven Worlds, One Planet.  It’s the latest documentary following the success earlier this year of the BBC Earth the Planets series by Professor Brian Cox.  We should not be too impatient though as these documentaries are world class and take time to produce.

Obviously, you’d imagine that it takes a lot of effort to bring spectacular shows like these to our screens but some of the figures are simply staggering.

• The seven-part series took four years to shoot.
• Each show covers a different continent
• Employed over 1500 people.
• Filming took place in 41 separate countries.
• Latest technology utilized including extensive drone footage.

If you like nature programmes this one look unmissable, it’s called Seven Worlds One Planet and just check out this trailer!

Looks pretty awesome doesn’t it!

The show will also be available on BBC iPlayer after each broadcast and should stay on the archive for twelve months. I believe the show should be able for streaming and downloading for twelve months as this mirrors the new standard for iPlayer. This is only available for people connecting from the United Kingdom though, unless you read the following section.

How to Watch BBC One Planet Abroad

It’s become somewhat of a hobby of mine since I moved partly out of the United Kingdom about twelve years ago.  How to retain access to all the UK television programmes which are normally available online when you’re in the UK.  During this time the use of geo-blocking and targeting technologies has expanded by a huge amount.  A decade ago, the BBC made some half-hearted efforts to restrict access, but these were easily circumvented by using all manner of free IP address hiding proxies freely available over the internet.  Basically, they’d still block any non-UK IP addresses, but it was very, very simple to bypass these blocks.  There was no attempt at detecting the proxies or analysing connections or identifying concurrent use of IP address ranges.

Unfortunately, this has all changed over the last few years and now it takes a little more knowledge to find the solution to these blocks.   It’s still relatively simple but there is lots of misleading information and false promises especially by cheap VPN companies trying to sell their services.  It’s definitely worth it though and don’t worry millions of people still use these methods to enjoy the huge amount of UK television available online.

The method is relatively unchanged, to watch the BBC outside the United Kingdom you have to hide your real IP address.  This is done by routing your internet connection through an intermediate server which is based in the UK.   Simple proxies no longer work as they can be detected automatically, nowadays you have to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network).  This operates in primarily the same way, except the VPN server cannot be detected automatically.

Here’s one at work –

It’s referred to as a proxy in the video, but in fact is using an encrypted VPN connection to hide your location. It’s really still quite a simple process, the crucial factors are the servers which are used. These are what the BBC and other media sites detect, they identify the servers and the IP addresses assigned to them. This is the main reason why a large proportion of VPN services don’t allow access to the BBC. It requires the companies limiting the number of users on each server, rotation of the IP addresses and keeping all these hidden and low profile.

Not many VPN companies do this as it does take a lot of effort and expertise. Firstly, it can be expensive, limiting the number of users on each server increase the costs significantly. This is primarily the reason why most servers get blocked by ITV and other media sites as the huge concurrent use is the easiest way to detect the use of VPN connections. The budget VPN companies slash prices by throwing as many users onto each server as possible.

The good news is that the professional VPN companies who do ensure their servers aren’t overloaded only cost a little more. What’s more they will be significantly faster too, which is ideal for streaming video.  I use Identity Cloaker because it works reliably with the BBC and the servers are very fast but there are others that work well.  The important point to remember is that the method still works perfectly well and has done for over decade.   You just have to find a provider who ensures that that the servers aren’t overloaded or blocked by the BBC.

Reference:

One Planet Seven Worlds Release Date: October 27th, 2019