good explanation m8 but it does also change your ip address as often as you like just right click on the task bar icon and change ip
edogg
It does change your IP address but that is nothing to do with virgin bandwidth shaping which was the question asked. Virgin do protocol analysis (deep packet inspection) and can tell which packets are usenet traffic. VPN gets around this by encrypting the data thus DPI cannot tell its usenet traffic.
As for Hide my ass, there is a review here indicating that none of their VPN proxies exceed 3MB/s which is what I expected. UK ones manage a paltry 1.5MB/s. Fine for streaming video, general web browsing and the odd bit of downloading but its won't max out a 50mb connection.
HideMyAss VPN Software In Depth & Full Speed Test! « VPN and Usenet Reviews and Comparison Guide
Also you don't need VPN to view TV from another country, a standard unencrypted proxy will work just fine.
Finally, as for usenet sites not working, it possible that your usenet provider has blocked the IP ranges used by HMA, Not likely but possible. Possibly more likely is HMA has blocked usenet protocol as they are worried about their bandwidth getting hammered.
If you want to bypass ISP DPI, you can try SSL which most of the larger usenet providers (giganews, astraweb, etc) offer for free and changing away from the default port of 119, however that this does not always work. The only sure way is to use a VPN proxy service but be aware that these are generally speed capped.