There are a lot of companies or brands I don’t like, and only a very few I really really dislike or hate. To get me to really hate you would take a lot of effort (suing me is one way *cough* Benihana *cough*), and somehow beIN have managed to really piss me off. I’m not going to spend a lot of time dwelling on this but to summarize, I only use them to stream Formula 1 races, and when I’ve run into problems, they had extremely horrible customer service. But, I finally found another way to legally (kinda) watch the F1 races… F1 TV.
Before I continue, yes I am aware there are multiple ways to stream the F1 races illegally. Personally, I always try to go the as legal way possible route, unless I hit a wall and then I resort to piracy.
If you’re a Formula 1 fan and you follow the news, you might be aware that Formula 1 just launched F1 TV. Depending on where you reside, you’ll be able to subscribe to F1 TV and have access to their full archive of races as well as being able to stream their current races live via their website.
F1 TV in Kuwait
Kuwait sadly isn’t one of the countries where F1 TV will work. I think that has to do with the agreement F1 have with beIN but since beIN is so buggy, I had to find a way to get F1 TV working in Kuwait and I managed to do just that. To get F1 TV working in Kuwait you need two things:
– VPN with an American server
– Credit card issued by an American bank
The first is easy to get, there are hundreds of options available online and my guess is that pretty soon you’ll also be able to use smartDNS to access F1 TV like we do to get access to US Netflix and Hulu. The credit card on the other hand is much harder to get. I got mine while vacationing in the States but I think there are ways of getting one online although I haven’t tried them. Once you’ve got these two things you can just subscribe to F1 TV and get access.
What’s F1 TV Like?
There are two F1 TV packages, F1 TV Access, and F1 TV Pro. Access doesn’t allow you to stream the races live but with the Pro package you can. If you pay month by month, Access is $3 a month while Pro is $12. If you sign up for a year then the prices drop down considerably with Pro coming to $8 a month, the same price beIN charge for one day access.
This past race was the first time F1 TV went live and it was super buggy. It was so bad that F1 TV sent out an apology and a refund because they weren’t able to cope with the load this past weekend. But, thats fine, it was their first weekend live and nobody was expecting them to be perfect.
When it did work though the service was spectacular, more than anything beIN could offer or any other channel for the matter.
– During practice, qualifications and the race you get access to the cameras inside every single car. So if you’re a Verstappen fan, you can choose to view the camera in his car, and then watch him race until he crashes into something.
– During practice, qualifications and the race you get access to different audio channels. When watching the main stream you can choose to listen to commentary in different languages, or you can choose not to have any commentary at all and just have car sounds. While watching the race from inside the car of your favorite driver, you get an additional option of being able to listen to the team radio.
– With F1 TV you get access to 68 seasons of races! SIXTY EIGHT seasons of Formula 1 racing, that’s just insane. Last night I was rewatching the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix when half the cars crashed at turn one of the race. I then watched a documentary on one of my favorite drivers of all time, Mika Häkkinen. Even if F1 TV didn’t include the archive, I would have easily forked out $8 a month just to stream the races live. The fact that they’ve included so much content with this $8 is an incredible bonus.
As you can tell, I’m very excited about F1 TV. If you’re an F1 fan and have any questions about the service let me know. There are some negatives right now with F1 TV including the lack of an Apple TV app being one. Currently I’m using the browser on my iPad to watch F1 TV which is annoying, but they only properly launched a few days ago so they’re still super busy working out all the kinks and I’m expecting them to launch an app soon. Things will only keep getting better from this point onwards.
9 replies on “F1 TV Access in Kuwait”
I’m trying to figure a way to solve this American credit card thing and I’ll let you know if I find a solution that works.
I’m super excited about the ability of watching the drivers’ cams and listen to their team radios “uncut” !!
Btw did you join their new official fantasy game?
No I haven’t joined their fantasy game, not usually into these things but should try it out or curiosity.
In regards to team radios, right now the issue with it is that it’s silent until either the driver or team talk on the radio. So it’s not really fun to watch the race like that. Hopefully there will be an option to at least have car sounds on along with team radio, that way it’s more fun.
Yea you should.
Actually you should probably start a 248am private league and see how many of your readers would join and know what’s going on !!
It looks finally we having something decent… Finally!
Although i have bein satellite and connect, but i think i will join the F1 TV service, being able to see specific car camera is amazing, only i have to choose a good vpn service
What is that fantasy game ?
Verstapen did great race in bcn with a broken front wing.. ferrari surpizingly was slow!… Alonso was amazing
I was frustrated a bit when Kuwait wasn’t on the list, but not surprised.
Unfortunately, I lack any vpn dexterity (or maybe I’m just too lazy) and a US card to make your plan work :/
There’s an app called Hotstar that streams F1 (plus many other sports) and its access/pricing is much cheaper too. Moreover, Smart DNS has Hotstar in its list, so no need for VPN to access.
Why is BEin sports not working for you? We have it installed just for F1 as wel, I just don’t like the fact that they cut the coverage towards the end. I would really like the full race coverage from start to finish.
A few issues
1) I can’t watch over wifi, it freezes the whole time so I need to connect my ipad or laptop to my phone and use my phones internet to stream. Home wifi is 10Mbps, phone is like 3Mbps yet phone works and home wifi doesn’t
2) beIN don’t allow you to mirror onto your tv, so I’m forced to watch on my phone or tablet
3) When subscribing the beIN website says you can stream from your xbox or ps4, in reality, you can’t and their FAQ says you can’t https://twitter.com/mark248am/status/995302036664193025
4) The last straw was on Saturday. Paid my usual $8 to watch the qualifications, but when I tried watching from my browser as I usually do I got the error “You have reached the maximum number of devices, visit the devices page to remove devices”. When I went to the devices page to remove devices, I got the error “You have reached the maximum amount of devices that can be removed”. So I was in a catch 22. I complained they ignored. https://twitter.com/mark248am/status/995301532471123968
5) I then tried viewing it from the beIN app on my iPad and it wouldn’t work as well, kept giving me an error that they’re facing technical difficulties. This continued to the following day as well https://twitter.com/mark248am/status/995302615612260360
So yeah shit happens of course, but their customer service just don’t care. I had a similar issue a couple of years back where their streaming service stopped working on macs. I tried to get a refund cuz it was an issue from their side and it was a complete fail. Here is a copy paste of some of our conversations via email that took place over a couple of days:
Me: Hey, I just signed up for one day of sports connect and its not working on my mac. It’s not working in Safari and its not working in Chrome. So I installed the app on my ipad but now i can only hear sound but no video. So please refund me the amount, I can’t watch the F1 race right now using your service.
Customer Support: Please try to use your laptop or PC on the browser “Internet Explorer/Firefox “ and also please install SILVERLIGHT.
Me: I don’t have a PC I have a Mac and I do have silver light installed but chrome turns out doesn’t work with your service and the latest safari also no longer works with bein. As I mentioned I also installed the app on my iPad but I only got sound no video. So please refund me the amount I paid.
Customer Support: Please try to use your laptop or PC on the browser “Internet Explorer/Firefox ‘to watch our channels till we update the Chrome And Safari and also can you install SILVERLIGHT.
Me: Macs don’t have internet explorer. Also as I mentioned i needed this to work TWO DAYS AGO when the formula 1 race was on. My membership wont work now cuz i paid for the daily pass. So please refund me the amount!!!
Customer Support: Greeting from beIN SPORTS Connect team
Our apology for any inconvenience that may you got regarding to this issue and for the late replay.
During to the latest update from apple which El Capitan the beIN connect not working on the Safari, therefore we recommended the Firefox browser.
Kindly be informed your request has been forwarded to the related department.
—-
I never got a refund or a reply back and I just gave up…
Just to comment on point #3, you actually CAN stream on PS4. You down the PS4 app and login and that’s about it – all channels available.
I use it at home all the time when I’m relying on the CONNECT service.