Hi all! I'm really struggling here with something that I feel Should be possible. I have a reliable VPN in UK, I am in US, and I like to watch channel4.com. I would like to watch this content on my Shield TV.
here is all the information I can think to give:
- The VPN provider I use has an Android TV app
- Channel 4 has an android app; it does not work on AndroidTV (in my experience)
- Channel4.com streams using Flash, so most (all?) browsers on AndroidTV won't work.
- My windows PC can play videos from Channel4.com but if I try to cast my tab to my Shield it does not cast the tab, it casts the content and re-streams from Shield so VPN no longer is active and content says I can't play in my region.
- My Chromebook can cast tabs and specifically NOT re-stream to Shield (has an option when sending fullscreen videos to play on both devices), but when connected to VPN on chromebook it does not use my local network at all for some reason, so it can't find my Shield as a cast target. If I am casting and then connect the VPN, the cast disconnects.
- I haven't tried my phone yet; my VPN app doesn't seem to be compatible with Android 9.0. I'm guessing it wouldn't work anyway because the phone app likely uses phone's GPS for location rather than IP.
so, any suggestions? It seems like this should be possible. I can watch the content on my computer and on my chromebook, but cant seem to get either going on the Shield or get a direct source on the Shield to remove that need to go through the PC/Chromebook.
It's not the easiest, but you should try to run the vpn at your router if your provider supports one of the many standards (like pptp or openvpn). At home, I use openvpn on a router i flashed with openwrt, I have 2 SSIDs, one for a normal connection and one that goes thru the vpn. When I need to cast, I connect both my laptop and my Mi Box to the vpn, so they're in the same network and casting works.