BBC iPlayer, Channel 4, Channel 5 and ITV

by quxilu

Hi Guys,

I have a Sony android TV and I live in Japan. All I want to do is install BBC iPlayer, Channel 4, Channel 5 and ITV on my TV. Do these apps exist for Android TV? How do I get them and install them? I have a VPN on the TV which I use to watch Netflix. The google store app doesn't seem to work when I have my VPN on though, I initially thought if I accessed the google store with the vpn on I could download the apps, but to no avail.

Ive been looking around and is it true there is no BBC iPlayer for Android TV?! Surely this isn't the case?!

Anyway, any help would be much appreciated

Cheers Qu

atheoncrutch

There is a version on apk mirror here . Last time I used this it required a licence/login. Also, I believe you'll need to set your language/region to English UK or the app may disappear from your home screen.

nooneisreal

There is a BBC iPlayer Android TV app that works fine as long as you use a VPN/smart DNS. I use it just fine in Canada. (I uploaded a copy of the app that I use on my TV to my dropbox here )

There is no Android TV app for Channel 4, 5, or ITV however (as far as I know).
To access Channel 4 and 5 content you can try sideloading the mobile version, although you will need a mouse to control it since it's meant for phones/tablets.

As for ITV, if you have Kodi installed, there is an ITV (and BBC) add-on that works fantastically.
Again, they require VPN/smart DNS, but since you're already using a VPN that shouldn't be an issue.
I use the ITV addon all the time to watch the live channels and watch the catch up on demand content.

Edit: I should mention that there's a chance that even after you install that BBC iPlayer app on your Android TV that it will magically disappear from your homescreen because you are not in the correct region (stupid nvidia).
Someone on the Geforce forums managed to get around this by ripping the bbc iplayer app and renaming it so that it will stop disappearing. So you might want this version instead: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-LFH2g7q8ChREdiSHMtOHhZT1k/view

If you want to read up on it, here is the thread on the Shield forums:
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1011733/shield-tv/how-to-fix-the-disappearing-bbc-iplayer-app-for-out-of-region-/

Edit2: I originally thought you were using a Shield, so the above might not be an issue for you at all.

LiquidPoint

At least the mobile iPlayer can be side loaded on my Shield.

But since you're using a TV, I have to ask whether you have a way to control the mouse pointer? Because that's one of the main issues with side loading.

Anyway, I think Puppetmaster TV has some access to BBC and ITV, but I haven't tested them, as we don't have VPN at the moment.

pianoplink

Channel4 app for mobile works better than expected sideloaded. Using a Shield and forcing the orientation to landscape its mobile layout scales up decent-ish to a TV.

Some of its menus even respond to gamepad/remote buttons. I can scroll up and down using an nVidia gamepad but not left and right. For those, the right dPad brings up a pseudo mouse and I can pick whatever I want fine. No need to add a mouse separately.

It's actually so close to working as a usable TV app that I wish the development team would even iron out those tiny details to push it over that line. Even if they didn't list it as officially AndroidTV compatible until further quality control is done.