cCloud - "The Popcorn Time for Live TV" streams HBO, ESPN and 50 other live channels for free

If Popcorn Time is the “Netflix for pirates,” a service called cCloud TV is the “Popcorn Time for live TV.”

The recently-launched service by the name of cCloud TV allows users to stream live TV channels for free across various devices, including desktops – Windows and Mac alike – iPhone, Android, and a plethora of other devices, according to a post on Reddit.

According to BGR News, "There is nothing legal about cCloud TV, a service that pirates live television stations and allows users to stream them to a wide range of devices for free. That won’t stop people from from using the young service for as long as it can keep its servers up though, and the team behind it announced on Sunday that users can now stream more than 50 channels of live TV content including HBO, ESPN, AMC, TBS, Showtime and more to the iPhone and iPad.  And best of all, perhaps, is the fact that users do not need to jailbreak their devices or even install any apps, because cCloud TV works right from your web browser."



The new service, which appears to have close ties with the notorious Popcorn Time, is being dubbed “Popcorn Time for Live TV,” according to the post, which, incidentally, has been posted by a Redditor with the name “Popcorntimelive.”

cCloud TV basically live streams a number of television channels, including the likes of HBO, ESPN, Sky News, Showtime, Comedy Central and several others, and allows users to view them across a number of devices, and the list of supported gadgets covers almost every possible technological means that you would have at your disposal.

When you land at their homepage, you are presented with an option to select your platform, which includes Desktop Flash OTA, VLC, Custom VLC, Smartphone (for iOS and Android), Tablet (higher resolution), Mac Safari, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, and various others. The full list is pretty exhaustive. Next up, you get to select the available channels, with the list sitting at a staggering 50, and more being added as you read this. The channels aren’t some remotely-familiar ones either; as we noted earlier, cCloud TV has the likes of HBO, VEVO, CNN, Aljazeera, MTV, Fox Movies, FILM Zone, Discovery; just to name a few.

It’s the holy grail of piracy: live TV, streaming to any device for free. And now it’s finally here, though it’s impossible to tell how long cCloud TV will manage to keep its service running, considering how proactive broadcast networks have been in pursuing services that could potentially impact their revenue streams.

In the meantime, however, people without a pay TV package now have access to more than 50 channels of live, streaming television.

The cCloud TV service works right from a web browser, and it’s available on a wide range of devices including computers, tablets, Roku boxes and even Nintendo’s Wii U. Now, the people behind the service have announced that cCloud TV also works on the iPhone and iPad.

To access cCloud TV, there are no hacks needed. You don’t even need to install an app — simply navigate to this link on your iPhone or iPad, and choose “smartphone” from the list of devices. You’ll then be presented with a list of all the channels available to stream, and tapping on one will open the video feed.

Here are some of the channels that can be streamed live right now for free:

• HBO
• Showtime
• ESPN
• AMC
• CNN
• TBS
• MTV
• TNT
• Comedy Central
• FX

The quality of the streams varies and some of them cut out frequently, but the team behind the service says it is working to improve streaming quality and to add additional channels.

Like what Astif of Redmond Pie said:

"Before you get all excited about it, heed this; cCloud TV and its likes fall into the category of piracy, plain and simple. They are streaming live TV through unfair means just like paid movies and music is available on torrents for free, and just because it’s streaming, doesn’t make it legal. In fact, it would be interesting to see how long this service can keep its servers up"

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All About TV Box Contents

Xiaomi's MiBox

1. The Differences between MiBox 4K and MiBox Mini

There are two version of MiBox, the MiBox 4K which has a USB Port, and the MiBox Mini, which doesn't have one. The following graphic gives the direct comparison:

The following explanations apply to MiBox 4K, MiBox mini, MiTVs and the Mi TV Bar, which are all using the TV version of MIUI OS.

2. Licensed Contents comes with Xiaomi

All versions of MiUI for MiBox 4K, MiBox Mini, MiTV and TV Bar (collectively call Xiaomi TV devices here) come with just the licensed contents provided by their China Content providers, iCNTV and GiTV. These contents are only accessible from within China, i.e. you need a China IP address to access. If you use the Xiaomi TV devices outside of China, e.g. Malaysia, these contents will be Geo-blocked, i.e. you cannot access with a non-China IP addresses.

You can't access these contents unless you have a China VPN service to bypass the Geo-block. With the China VPN service, once activated, your Xiaomi TV devices will be assign a China IP address by the VPN servers, establish a tunnel, and enable both GiTV and iCNTV servers to grant you access to their contents.

 MiBox Mini's default launcher program, which will launch into the above GiTV interface

 MiBox 4K's default launcher program, which will launch into the above iCNTV interface

3. Limitations with most TV Box, MiBox, and similarly the MiTV

The following are the few limitations with an original sealed-pack MiBox, or a new MiTV, fresh from China without any modifications.

a) Limited Contents

Both Boxes, and MiTV, come with Xiaomi's own App store, which provide very limited Apps, to make matter worse, if you go through a firmware updates, the latest MIUI firmware will totally removed remote installation of third party apps. Basically the original MiBox is just a plain Android TV Box with limited contents.

b) Limited Storage Space

To install third party apps, you'll need to install jailbreak App Stores that enabled you to remotely install any third party apps, as well as apps that are not officially available on most official app stores.

Both versions of MiBox comes with 4GB Flash Internal storage, but after the Android OS and some system reserved space, only around 1.7 GB is available for you to install other new apps. If you are keen on all kinds of new apps, there may not be enough storage for you.

MiTV and TV Bar comes with 8G of internal storage.

At the same time, if you do install some of the Apps that requires local cache and streaming buffers, e.g. Kodi, you may soon be running out of storage, as these local buffer/cache may be as big as a few hundred MBytes, after watching a full length movie.

c) Language Interface

All Xiaomi TV devices comes default in Chinese User Interface (UI) only, and if you do not read Chinese, you will not be able to use the box, as all interface are in Chinese. You'll need special tool to switch to English UI. You will not be able to do it on your own if you are buying a sealed-pack, as Xiaomi had removed all the language setting options;

d) Installation of Third Party Apps

In the latest MIUI firmware upgrades, Xiaomi had also remove the remote installation of App options, which was previously available. With this, you'll not be able to install third party apps on the MiBox mini, as it does not come with any USB port; as for MiBox 4K, MiTV and TV bar, you can still do app installation through the USB port, through a USB thumb drive.

4. What is Jailbreak Service?

"Jailbreak" generally means to enable you to install third party apps that are normally not found on the official App Store, usually due to the "illegal" status of these apps, as most of them provide contents that will unlikely be approved by the official App Store due to copyrights infringements.

Since buying a Xiaomi TV devices will have limitations as described above, you will need something we collectively called "Jailbreak Services" to enable your MiBox to have apps that can stream more interesting contents than those provided by the original box.

Some of the common "Jailbreak Services" will include the following:

a) Installation of Third Party App Stores

Since the official App Store do not provide the necessary sources for "interesting" apps, usually alternative third App Stores will be installed, where there are lots of new Jailbreak apps can be found and installed;

b) Installation of Third Party Jailbreak Apps

If you do not have VPN services, you will not be able to access contents from the iCNTV and GITV provided by Xiaomi, due to territory rights restrictions. 

However, there are lots of third party jailbreak apps that will have quite similar contents as those provided by iCNTV and GITV apps licensed for Xiaomi.

There are also jailbreak apps that are not even found on the third party app store, as they will likely be taken down as well by the store owner. Most of these apps can be found on underground forum and usergroups, and they usually provides free movies, dramas, variety shows from HK, China, Taiwan and Korea etc

On top of that, the popular Kodi also provides lots of Video Add-ons from various private repositories, these Add-on provides English sports, movies, Dramas and Live TV Channels from around the world.

c) Enable Remote Installation of Apps

If you purchase a sealed-pack box, you will not be able to enable the remote installation, there are third party tools that can enable remote App installation functions;

d) Trial license for VPN Services - See below

e) Trial viewing for IPTV services - See below

f) Language Interface tools - Third party tools that can enable English UI

5) Free Contents 

Basically, there are 4 major categories of online streamed contents that are free:

a) Archived Chinese contents, movies, dramas and variety shows from China, HK and Taiwan, Korea, all streaming on demand; these are provided by most of the Jailbreak apps from China;

b) English movies - available from individual apps like Showtime. Popcorn etc;

c) Live Asian TV channels - Most China Live TV channels are free, however, if you are looking for live HK, Taiwan and western TV channels, they are subscription based, you can installed some of these IPTV apps which offer 2-7 days of trial viewing, after which you'll need to subscribe with the respective vendors;

There may be a few apps that offer live TV channels, but mostly are cloned sources ripped from other IPTV services and they generally ceased streaming after a week or two, there are no free lunch for Live TV channels;

d) English movies, sports, TV series, Live English TVs - all through Kodi's Video Plug-ins

All the above are free, and the streaming quality will depends on the hosting countries and servers, as these are jailbreak apps, we cannot guarantee they will always operate, as they can be raid by their respective hosting countries, capped by ISPs, or the app developer /owner may quit providing free service anytime.

6) Paid IPTV Channels

These are subscription based, ranging from RM200 - 350, depending on thet kind of contents you are after, the popular one are -

i) 180 channels from HK, Taiwan, China, US/UK (CNN, BBC, Sports, etc) for an annual fee of RM200

ii) 300 channels from HK, Taiwan, China, US/UK, Malaysian Satellite (40 channels), Spore, Indian, Thai etc - for an annual fee of RM350

You can install trial versions of IPTV Apps, which give 2-3 days trial viewing period, some requires you to provide you TV Box’s Mac / ID Code to activate, you can sign up for subscriptions with the respective vendors, if you need these live TV channels;

Most of these live TV channels are provided by vendors in China, and they are usually paid through China's payment system e.g. Alipay etc, 

7) China VPN Service

As the default GITV and iCNTV app coming by default with the MiBox had been geo-blocked by IP, you cannot access them outside of China, certain contents from China (e.g. Youku and iQiyi) provided by the jailbreak apps may also be Geo-IP-blocked, or capped by the local ISPs, you will need to have China VPN to have a smooth access to these contents.

There are free trial version of a China VPN service, which you can install and access these Geo-IP-blocked contents after activating the VPN services. You can compare the speed with and without the VPN access during this trial period. After the free trial period, you can decide whether you need to sign up for the VPN subscriptions.

8) What kind of Bandwidth is required to stream online Contents?

Again it depends on what kind of contents you are trying to stream and what kind of bandwidth does the hosting servers have.

a) Hosted Content servers

Most video contents are hosted on servers located everywhere, for personal and pirated contents, they are likely hosted on free services which usually have very small bandwidth and traffic are likely capped when their assigned quotas had exceeded, or more than the allocated concurrent users connected allowed had exceeded.

If you are subscribing to paid services, either legal or illegal, they are likely hosted on bigger servers, with bigger bandwidth purchased by the service provider, and able to handled hundreds or thousands of user connections.


b) Your Bandwidth

There are different resolutions of video contents, from the lowly rated 240p to 480p generally called SD (Standard Definition), to 720p or 1,080p HD (High Definition) or 1,440p and beyond like the new 4K video.

SD contents will require a minimal 4mbps line, whereas the HD contents at least a 10mbps line, or at least 30-100mbps for the 4K contents.

Streaming contents is similar to watching Youtube videos on your PC or laptop, except they are being displayed on the TV, instead of Tablet or PC monitor. Most streaming contents are likely a TV series episode, a movie, or a live sports event, which generally is at least an hour or more duration, just ask yourself how is your streaming experience if you are streaming a hour HD Youtube video on your network. If it lags, then your network is not up to par.

Also it will depends on whether there are any other members on the same network doing downloading, watching youtube, or any peer-to-peer traffic.

If you are having 3 persons doing the same thing on the same network, you bandwidth is down to only a third.


c) Contents restrictions and ISP Capping

As online streaming become mainstream, most local ISPs had also started capping some video sources, by restricting the bandwidth for certain subscription groups, or overall traffic coming into their network.

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About IPTV App - One of the sample found on the web

HDTV App

HDTV is one of the many subscription apps available on the market, presumably by one of the China Vendors, as most references are all Chinese.

If you do not have the HDTV IPTV app already installed on your TV Box or Smart TV, please download the App from the following link

http://bit.ly/1SRphqw

After downloaded, install them on your MiBox, if you do not know how to install app on a MiBox 4K or Mibox Mini, please refer to Installing Apps on Mibox

Getting the Account ID

Look for the Green icon, with two antenna called HDTV on your TV Box, as shown highlighted above.

After running the HDTV app, you will see the above message box, which indicates you do not have a subscription yet, if you would like a free trial, you can copy the device ID, in the format of 9800-xxxxxxxx (as seen above) and send an email to the re-seller's email address - hdiptv88@gmaio.com

To avoid copying the wrong ID, it would be best if you can take a screenshot of the ID, like the picture above, and send to the re-seller.

It will take a few hours for the reseller to activate your trial account.


Activating the account if you are paying for subscriptions

After the trial period, if you have decided to buy annual subscription, you can pay online, and after which the activation account will be send to you, and you can use the above screen to activate your new subscription.

The App by default come configured for TV Box panel display format, which may not be displayed properly on MiBox, you can change the display format to Pad Panel display, so that they can be easier to navigate on MiBox.

Adjusting the format

Press the "Menu" button on your remote control, and select "Panel"

Choose "Pad Panel", press "Return" button to exit the program, then restart the app, you'll see the new display format

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