Television via ADSL: All solutions from slow to fast connect

Free, SFR, Alice and Bouygues Telecom
The list of providers available for TV via ADSL is made up of twenty or so players that are free to install. These are available at Freeplayer.org. A lot of these will also work with your internet provider (Neuf, Club Internet, AOL, Tele2), Alice and Bouygues Telecom, which is the case for the excellent VLC Media Player, the universal player for all platforms.

With Free and VLC, you simply have to click on the File menu, then open a file (advanced). In the Open window, copy the URL “http://mafreebox.freebox.fr/freeboxtv/playlist.m3u” and click on OK. Your list of TV channels will then appear in the play menu.

You will mostly find programs for PC’s running Windows, while there is a handful for Mac OS X and Linux. Most of the time you will need to install Java Runtime Environment (JRE), ActiveX or Framework .NET 2.0. The ADSL TV software is the program of reference, with it being very simple to use. In terms of configuration you simply need to enter your username and password for things to get started. This program transforms your computer into a television with the possibility of digitally recording programs. It also allows you to listen to the radio and view numerous WebTV programs.

A list of “players” for Free is available here so that you can select the one that suits you. There are others for Windows (ADSL TV, Fritivi, Free Multimedia Centre…), for the Mac (DentiFreeX, iFreeTV, FreeboxTVRecorder, iMagneto…) and for Linux (Freerecord, TreetuxTV, Fricorder…).

The link you need to input into your player to be able to watch ADSL TV on the PC:

• Bouygues Telecom: http://lafibre.info/images/bbox/TV_sur_PC_Bbox.m3u
• Free: http://mafreebox.freebox.fr/freeboxtv/playlist.m3u
• SFR: http://televisionsurpc.sfr.fr/televisionsurpc.m3u

Orange, it’s possible but rather laborious!
With the carrier Orange, you will need good bandwidth like for the other carriers, and you will have to have activated the “TV via ADSL” option on the LiveBox (activation of the yellow port on the LiveBox – dedicated to TV streaming). The ideal is to install the DVB Viewer software, while having two network cards, one for the internet and a second dedicated to Orange TV. The procedure is laborious, but outlaid here. The other solution consists of you using the FripTV software, with the procedure located here.