Since moving to Mexico, I have averaged about two hours per year sitting in front of the TV set. I have cable TV with 75 channels, none of which interest me. I only have it for the cable modem and internet connection. Interestingly enough, my ISP has an internet-only plan (without the TV channels) and it costs 40% more than the internet + TV. Go figure!

SWMBO is pressuring me to upgrade. Her brother will be moving down here with us in a year or so, and television will be his life. He is handicapped with cerebral palsy and mild retardation. Complexity caused by multiple boxes and remotes will be impossible for him to deal with.

Since there is literally nothing in the local cable lineup that will interest him (maybe 5 out of the 75 channels are in English), we are leaning towards subscribing to Amazon Prime and their video streaming service. My home theater experience is more rooted in turning the rabbit ears to improve reception than it is to WiFi, streaming video, HDMI, cable modems, digital signals, etc. I am somewhat over my head when it comes to acting upon SWMBO's request.

To that end, about a year ago she purchased a Sony SMP-N200 in a close-out sale, and it has been sitting unopened on the top shelf of my computer hutch since then. The reviews of the product on Amazon are less than charitable, maybe it will serve our purposes, maybe not.

Can anyone make a recommendation for setting up a simple system to stream video from Amazon, hopefully with the Sony box we already have, but other options will also be considered. I hope to go WiFi with it from my home network but don't know if it will be feasible. He will be downstairs in a house with a lot of concrete and steel, and will have to get his signal (if he can get it at all) from the repeater router we have for the lower floors. I understand that the repeater will only be half as fast as the primary router, is that correct? I do get a pretty reliable 14 mbps download speed from my ISP.

Whatever I set up has to be reliable (no dropped WiFi connections--a BIG problem with the SONY apparently), simple to operate, and able to seamlessly access Amazon. Brother John will NOT be able to cope with looking through 40,000 Amazon selections and choosing what he wants to see. Can we add a DVR to the mix so that Jean or I can pre-load the DVR 100 hours at a time and then all John has to do is select from the DVR menu? The best option, TIVO, is not available here.

What should I do?

tanstaafl.

Is Amazon video streaming available in Mexico?

Video streaming burns a lot of bandwidth, even more if it is High Definition. 200GB per month is entirely possible (this is what I am currently consuming).

I mostly use Apple TV and Netflix streaming services since I am not in the US and Amazon does not offer their service to Canada (last time I looked). I have not looked into work-arounds that make it appear that I am within the US. Lots of these redirection services exist for web browser Netflix viewing, but not so much for hardware devices like Apple TV.

In general if you want really reliable video streaming and you want to be able to use your internet connection for other purposes at the same time then the more bandwidth the better.

Not only for your Internet provider but also for the WiFi bandwidth. Streaming has a tendency to make the Internet feel sluggish for other users sharing that connection.

Don't even think about trying to stream decent quality video over WiFi. Run a wire along the bottom edge of the wall if necessary.

Cheers

We were given an SMP-N200 and it blows. I think it was actually a study in horrid UI.

I haven't found that Amazon Prime has anything that Netflix doesn't (at least for free) have, and the Amazon UI is no where near as friendly or useful as the Netflix one.

The Netflix app on IOS is even easier to use than the web page version.

If you're looking for something really easy, just get an ipad and connect it to the tv.

Also, it seems most of the stuff on netflix is standard def anyway, and is fine over wifi.

We typically have 3 ios devices all streaming from an n wifi ap with no problem.

I don't know which model of Tivo you've got, but mine will stream Netflix and Amazon and Youtube, if you feed it an ethernet cable. Also, the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 game consoles are particularly good at streaming video from those services. Most of our Netflix and Amazon viewing is on the PS3 at our house.

Something to consider with these services: All of the services have UI's which aren't completely child-proofed, as far as I could tell. Your description of your brother-in-law's situation makes it sound like childproofing is needed. For instance, on the Amazon service, it's fairly easy to go into the menu of movies which cost an extra rental fee (i.e., they are not the ones which come free with the Prime subscription), and from there, it's fairly easy to select a movie for actual permanent DRM-purchase, which is even more pricey. So before committing to a device, you should research its parental controls, to make sure that it's possible to lock out monetary purchases on that device.

I haven't tried other video streamer boxes. There are several (some mentioned in this thread already), and I'm curious to know what the BBS gang has to say about their simplicity and ease of use. For instance, you would expect Apple TV to be easy to use, but does it stream Amazon Prime and does it have good parental controls? Those are the sorts of questions to ask.

The streaming video market is starting to settle out a bit, and I'm starting to notice that the "subscription" model streams (Netflix, Amazon Prime) are collecting mostly second-string videos and TV shows. The better, more modern variety of movies and TV shows are available on the per-unit-rent/own streaming services, such as our old pals Vudu, and the rent/own side of Amazon Prime. I've been particularly happy with the Vudu service lately, since I can use it on the PS3 and they seem to be getting all the good movies for rental.

By the way, use this web site to list what's available for streaming on which services:

http://www.canistream.it/

One caution with that site: If you don't turn on Adblock Plus before surfing to that site, you will be presented with an ad for a less-safe and less-reputable way to stream movies. I forget the name of the service, but it's shady as far as I can tell. The ad is designed to look like a "stream this movie now" button. If you see it, don't pick it. The canistreamit site is very useful to just look and see which of the streaming services a given movie is available on. Then you go to that streaming service on your own.

Obviously that's too much for your brother in law, but if he's asking for a particular movie, you could do that bit of research and set it up for him.

Well, I take that back. We've got a Chromecast, but that's out of the question for your particular situation. It's not simple to use, and it doesn't support all video streaming services yet. I'm pretty sure you still can't do Amazon Prime over it, you're given an error message.

Oh, and let me take this opportunity to re-iterate what was offhandedly mentioned in this thread earlier: Make sure the services you want can stream to Mexico before purchasing a device to stream them. Some of these services are region-locked.

I just re-read that bit. Too bad for the Tivo thing.

Pre-loading a bunch of video and then presenting him with that list? Yeah, that sounds like an Apple TV or one of the other streaming boxes, and you just put all the videos on the computer's hard disk on the LAN. The streaming box presents him with a pretty menu of the videos available on the LAN.

The process of capturing the videos on to the computer, well, that's the problem: Everything on Netflix or Amazon or whatnot is copy-protected and DRM locked. Meaning that it's not as simple as just DVR'ing it. Nominally, you can only stream them, not save them to your hard disk. You'd have to go through the process of capturing the video file and stripping the DRM out of it so that you can keep it on your hard disk and play it back whenever you like. Complicated and time consuming. Or, of course, flat-out pirating all your video content from torrent sites outright. Other than that, you're back to the original user interfaces from the streaming sites, which you said would be too much for him.

Man, it's really too bad Tivo isn't available there, because that really would do what you want. When you select a movie on Amazon Prime, it shows up in the 'Now Playing' list like any other TV show. It's exactly what you were asking for. Sigh.

Re: Not available in Mexico (or Canada, in my case).

Does anybody have experience with proxy/redirection services that allow US-only video streaming to feed devices that are outside the US?

If such a service can be configured to work with TiVo then a US market TiVo box and subscription could be used in Mexico..

You should look into U.S.-based VPN services (cheesy list). You may need to upgrade / replace your router to one that can tunnel connections through to the VPN server. If you want to be clever, you might do this only for the TiVo (or whatever your ultimately streaming box might be), letting everything else run without the extra level of indirection.

In order to keep things as simple as possible, you might want to look at purchasing a dedicated TV for your bother-in-law, e.g., one of the newer ones that has built-in support for Netflix (assuming that's how you want to go). This lets you have a single remote control to do everything and that much less to troubleshoot.

Yeah, I did that last night, got the reply from Amazon this morning. They were very apologetic, but due to copyright restrictions their video (and I assume music) streaming is only available in the U.S.

So, my Amazon Prime subscription isn't going to benefit me very much. I'll never save enough in shipping costs to justify it, and the two-day free delivery is useless to me because whatever I order gets held up in Mexican customs for ten days to two weeks anyway. Fortunately it (the Prime) is a 30-day free trial, so I can opt out of it.

It looks like some combination of a satellite dish (I think there are a couple of satellite services offering American or Canadian programming) and a DVR that we can load up for him may be the answer. Dan's suggestion of a TV with built-in streaming is also worth looking into.

tanstaafl.

A "TV with built-in streaming" has the same issue with region-locked services: most likely service is not available in Mexico.

And a few people still wonder why other methods are so popular.

You'd have to combine that TV with a VPN service to make it all work, but it's at least reasonably straightforward to configure a good router to work with a VPN.

Certainly sounds like that's your best bet. Again, many satellite services are region-locked (ironically), so double check that.

Sorry to hear that the Amazon Prime Instant Video won't work out. If it had, I would have recommended a Roku for its ease of use.

Because of the whole media rights situation, I'm really not sure what to do here. I'm very sorry about that.

Argh, this gets my blood boiling... I fail to see how this current situation benefits the movie studios at all. Looks to me like it hurts everyone.

I think most/all streaming services you're interested in are not available in Mexico, as they are not anywhere outside the US, as far as I know.

I'd definitely go with a VPN service and then TIVO on your end, since that's the option you were ideally looking for.


Thank you. That can be useful here too.

I've been thinking to subscribe to a VPN service for few months now, and never got around to it because I keep trying to use my free VPN tunnel to our US-based HQ, and can't figure out why it is not working.

If you don't mind the NSA tapping directly into everything you do, then privateinternetaccess.com has very good VPN service. Lots of endpoints, OpenVPN or PPTP, very high throughput, and.. only US$40/year.

Thanks Mark,

Yes, that's one of the 15 mentioned by Dan, above. Price is really compelling.

So, I assume these VPN services having servers in various countries will let you choose which server/country to connect to, so that you will show an IP from THAT country on the open internet, correct?

Yes, that's why we're trying to think of alternatives to streaming at all, like satellite or something. None that we can think of so far are very good.

**record scratch**

I was in the midst of writing this post, and I went to check which countries had Netflix because I knew it wasn't just the US (I knew it was available in several countries like Canada and some of Europe), but I was unaware that it was available in Mexico! Apparently they're in Mexico and several other countries in Latin America, at least if Wikipedia is to be believed.

I know it's not Amazon Prime, but IMO it's a lot better. The only thing I like about Amazon Prime Instant Video is that they have Avatar: the Last Airbender, which they "stole" from Netflix.

However, just because Netflix offers service in Mexico doesn't mean you'll get all the stuff we get in the US. You might only get a fraction of the stuff we get. That's where a free trial will come in handy, and it's trivial to get a free trial from Netflix.

**/needle back in place**

All that said, if you want to go the VPN route, the only provider I'm at all familiar with is this one, and only because they're a sponsor of a podcast I listen to. However, as a result there's a promotional free trial available.

They offer a free service, but you wouldn't be able to accomplish what you need to do (route through international servers) without the pay service with is about $7/month. That should let you get Amazon, or you can take your chances with the Mexican selection of content on Netflix.

Either way, it looks like you can test things out for free, as you should be able to get a month of Netflix and a week of VPN service at no charge.

Actually, there is a service called "Netflix" in Canada, owned by the USA Netflix company. A different, not nearly as good service. I suspect the same in the EU.

Cheers

Yes, that's the idea. Your internet connection disappears into a tunnel in your local area, and resurfaces in the country of whatever server you connect to. That server (in the remote country) then connects to whatever you access, on your behalf.

Also, Dan suggested using a router with "VPN" capability. I suggest you first just try it from one of your computers, and get familiar with things that way. Heck, I use something like that on my Android phone too.

Eventually, one might want to connect to, say, USA Netflix. This can be done from a computer, or from a dedicated box such as a "WDTV Live" with a built-in Netflix client. The problem is, such a box doesn't have a built-in VPN client. So it has to be routed through something else that does grok "VPN". Thus a router with "VPN" capability.

Unfortunately, most routers lack the computing horsepower to keep up with the heavy duty encryption used by a VPN, which means the throughput suffers badly. Really, REALLY, badly. So if you eventually do go that route, you'll need to research "overkill routers".. ones that chew lots of wattage to provide sufficient computing resources to do the job. Either that, or install your own low-power Linux box and let it handle it.

Cheers

http://www.unblock-us.com is also a solution. Just requires changing the DNS server on the device you want to access Netflix with. Step by step instructions here: http://www.unblock-us.com/how-to-set-up/

I use unblock-us.com directly on our smart TV in the bedroom and the apple TV in the lounge for netflix.

Works like a charm!

Yeah, that's probably the simplest and best way to handle it.