Mini Review: Trickbyte.com

[sniffdog]

Yesterday my eye fell on an ad from Trickbyte.com here on ThaiVisa. It's a similar service as Tunlr.

But opposed to Tunlr I was able to get the Netflix and Huluplus working on my Apple TV 3 instantly. At the Beta stage the service is free. There is a small 'How to setup' section with clear instructions to get you going in a jiffy.

Basically what you do is signup, change the DNS settings in your ATV, go into your client area and your ISP IP is whitelisted instantly (which you have to do every time your IP changes), which I couldn't achieve on Tunlr.

Compared to using a VPN, the speed is much better and the quality of the content (especially on Netflix) is better.

If the service remains satisfactory, I would consider being a paying member after the beta stage.

[worgeordie]

It worked for me when it first came out,could watch BBC iplayer,ITV player

no problem, then they changed the DNS and could never get it to work

again,closed the servers in UK I think, but would not work on US sites

with the US DNS numbers, so after to many tries and messing about with

it I just gave up.

regards Worgeordie

[sniffdog]

Umm, sorry to see you're having problems. For me worked right out of the box. The Ip I use is 54.244.7.170

[lomatopo]

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/662212-watch-netflix-hulu-bbc-and-many-more-in-thailand-with-trickbyte-dns/

[vladimircccp]

Hi All,

I'm trialing trickbyte, primarily for netflix US.

Everything is working, expect that I am finding that it stops to buffer quite regularly.

I am using automatic quality settings in netflix (e.g. options are low, SD, HD or Auto) and mostly it seems to be streaming low or SD quality.

My connection is with True ADSL and gets 12 Mbps downloads to US servers. (checked using speedtest). I also not that Trickbyte only partially supports True, but cannot find any elaboration on what the partial support is.

So I'm wondering is the buffering mostly likely DNS speed or internet connection speed? e.g. is the bottleneck likely to be trickbyte or ISP connection?

Does anyone have a similar speed connection but gets better results (e.g. little buffering)?

Is a higher speed ADSL package definitely going to be any better for streaming, or are there likely to still be speed limits between Thailand and the US?

Has anyone compared other services to trickbyte? Any opinions as to which is better?

Also any comment pricing wise, I thinking mainly value wise, as all seem relatively cheap.

Currently seems to be:

Trickbyte $3/month

UnoDNS Premium $4/month (12 month sub)

UnoDNS Gold (+VPN) $5/month (12 month sub)

Overplay smartDNS $5/month

unblock-us $5/month

Thanks,

vlad.

[KittenKong]

AceVpn USD5/month, including a free "unblock TV" DNS service that works in an identical manner to the ones mentioned.

[sniffdog]

After my trickbyte trial expired I found out the best way to use a VPN service (usually only a fraction of your ISP speed) with Netflix and Spotify.

It seems Spotify checks for an IP (of a supported country) when you log in. After you stream the first song, turn the VPN off and you get full speed. Any songs following are played without the use of a VPN.

This also applies for Netflix. Only a check is done when logging in and when you start to stream a movie. After it runs, turn the VPN off and quality is pretty good.

I've found no buffering at all. Sometimes it starts with a blurred picture, but get good quality once the transfer speed has improved (not longer than10-15 seconds).

I use Slickvpn.$2 per month.

Edited December 21, 2013 by sniffdog

[attrayant]

Hi All,

I'm trialing trickbyte, primarily for netflix US.

Everything is working, expect that I am finding that it stops to buffer quite regularly.

Have you tried disconnecting the VPN once the movie has started? Netflix doesn't continuously perform destination checks while the file is streaming, they only check once at the beginning when it is first requested. I always disconnect my vpn once my movie has started and have never seen Netflix complain once.

[vladimircccp]

thanks guys. I haven't tried turning off the VPN yet.

With my current setup I have a second router with the US dns settings on it and only a Roku 3 plugged in for Netflix. This way it should not affect all my other devices on the network.

I'm trying to create a very easy to use system, so that other people can use it too.

I'll give turning the VPN on and off a go, and play Netflix on my HTPC to see if the connection speed is the issue or not.

Does Netflix check everytime you load a new video?

But long term it would be good to get the other option (2nd router+Roku) working.

Thanks,

vlad.

[sniffdog]

Yes, Netfix does check for an IP every time you start a movie/tv show. If you don't have the proper VPN you get a message like 'This video cannot be streamed at the moment. Please try again'.

I only stream movies from my iPads through Airplay (ATV 3) so the VPN is only enabled on the iPad (if necessary) and not on the whole network.

[sniffdog]

Hi All,

I'm trialing trickbyte, primarily for netflix US.

Everything is working, expect that I am finding that it stops to buffer quite regularly.

Have you tried disconnecting the VPN once the movie has started? Netflix doesn't continuously perform destination checks while the file is streaming, they only check once at the beginning when it is first requested. I always disconnect my vpn once my movie has started and have never seen Netflix complain once.

Trickbyte is not a VPN. It is similar to a VPN but it's not. It's a tunneller.

[attrayant]

Haven't all VPN clients used PPTP (or SSTP or L2TP) for at least the last ten years or so? I have experience only with VPNs that I used while working in government IT but they all used a tunneling protocol of some sort. What makes a 'tunneler' different from a VPN that uses a tunneling protocol?

[vladimircccp]

Smart DNS (like Trickbyte, UnoDNS, Overplay DNS, unblock-us, etc) all just require that you change your DNS Server settings.

Basically when you request a specific service (like Netflix) the Smart DNS will route the request somehow through another server so it appears to be coming from somewhere else.

Go for getting around Geo-blocking. Your IP address is not changed.

If you request another service not covered by the smart DNS provider, it should go through normally (e.g. for accessing local thai sites you still appear to be in Thailand).

VPN gives you a completely different IP address and DNS to the outside world. (So if you use a US server for a VPN, you could potentially be geo-blocked by a Thai website - I don't know if any do or not)

I'm more interested in Smart DNS as it easier to setup on individual devices, compared to VPNs and is supposed to be considerably faster.

http://www.smartydns.com/smart-dns/smart-dns-vpn/

[sniffdog]

Correct. VPN has a wider range.

For example a Apple TV 3 does not support a VPN, but it supports a tunneller service like trickbyte.

However, they both serve the same purpose, to circumvent geo blocking.

Edited December 23, 2013 by sniffdog

[chasedrew]

I personally prefer UnoTelly. It’s similar to TrickByte but they offer a DNS server close to physical location and I can achieve better performance.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I've had a somewhat different experience with this topic, than some of the posts listed above.

For the couple of VPN services I'm using currently, I get far better speeds and performance by going through the VPN services to U.S. content than I get going either directly through True Online or with True Online and some kind of DNS redirect.

Perhaps it's due to some kind of routing issues. But the VPNs I use are ones with Asia-based servers (Singapore, Taiwan, etc.) that provide U.S. IP addresses through those servers. So the actual international connection to the VPN server is pretty fast and uncongested (since Thailand has pretty good connections to Singapore in particular) compared to running a straight True internet routing from Thailand to the U.S. over their normal international routing.

Yes, VPNs can have varying levels of data overhead (speed loss) depending on what kind of protocol is used. But if the VPN connection is to a local Asian location with good connectivity to Thailand and providing a U.S. IP, that seems to more than offset any VPN speed reduction. Although, some of my VPNs also have direct connections to their Los Angeles-based servers that also are consistently faster than direct True Online connections for U.S.-based content.

[siggy2]

hi,

I am on True ADSL and have now tried a series of different approaches to break through their transparent proxy using smartdns.

Have flashed a tomato router and have tried to change the port to 54 etc. , but so far no luck.

Obviously plan b is vpn, but works too slow to the destination I need. Hope someone out there has solved this.