Internet TV catching on

[Byte24]

Internet taking piece of cable TV business

Hyun Gu Lee, a 26-year-old software engineer from Belmont, discontinued his cable TV service after doing a little math and exploring his options.

He kept his $60 a month cable service to follow his favorite show, "Heroes," watch some NBA games and check out ESPN's "SportsCenter." But with "Heroes" available online at NBC.com and Hulu.com, and "SportsCenter" clips and highlights accessible at ESPN.com, Lee figured he was better off cutting the cable cord, even if he lost out on NBA games.

Interestingly enough, the article offers no hard facts on just how many are transitioning to Internet TV, but it'll be fun to watch over the next few years how cable and satellite TV services will try to compete against Internet TV.

 

[bicker]

With only minor exception, there is no support for closed captions, online, and therefore, effectively, Internet television violates the intent of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

I wonder if it will remain free after the true cost of presenting it, including applying closed captions, are evident to its distributors.

 

[christyanne]

I watch a little bit, but it's a hassle trying to download sometimes, and watching on my monitor instead of a TV kind of sucks.

 

[DTVuser2009]

not if you buy a LCD monitor, for some reason LCD HD monitors are $100-less than a comparable LCD HDTV. don't understand how a tuner can add that much but oh well.

At least with a LCD HD Monitor, and free internet TV it might just as well be the real digital television transition. no reliance on reception, and tons more channels, and shows that don't even air on cable/satellite anymore. remember Airwolf?

 

[Aaron62]

not if you buy a LCD monitor, for some reason LCD HD monitors are $100-less than a comparable LCD HDTV. don't understand how a tuner can add that much but oh well.

At least with a LCD HD Monitor, and free internet TV it might just as well be the real digital television transition. no reliance on reception, and tons more channels, and shows that don't even air on cable/satellite anymore. remember Airwolf?

Free and basically on demand! I've got a hdmi port on my laptop I use to plug into my TV whenever I want to watch a movie and it works great.

 

[DTVuser2009]

oh and you can do that too. i never saw a laptop with HDMI yet. (they haven't hit the market here yet, our town is about a year behind new tech, no computer has topped the 160GB hard drive margin yet even though i've heard terabyte many times)

I am getting an Acer Aspire that i can use to download TV shows (and the commercials, the good ones haha) anything from Nickelodeon to HBO if i wanted to. i have what's called Moyea Flash Video Downloader that can download shows before Youtube can do any deleting. i have about 10 years of Nickelodeon from 1982 to 1992 so far and a few other shows from Cartoon network and Hanna Barbera shows, but the 20GB drive in my Compaq Presario is outta disk space. i use them like portable Wi-Fi enabled DVRs.

Then hook them up to my Analog TV via A/V or S-Video and watch them as if i were on cable or satellite.

 

[Casandra]

I take it that Internet TV is only for people with very fast connections? I have Fios.

 

[DTVuser2009]

we use DSL or Cable. so long as you don't use dial-up you should be fine.

WORD OF CAUTION, those videos hosted on Youku.com suck. their buffering rates are abysmal. currently they use some sort of 'chunk buffering' where only the first 7 minutes are pre-buffered, but sadly it seems to never start again without requiring constant refreshes of the browser and remembering where the progress indicator was. and no solution is 100% successful.

Other Asian sites seem to do fine. i have no problems with Tudou.com hosted videos (even though a great majority of them aren't in english anymore) and Sina seems to be ok.

 

[jhellie_baby]

yeah its true internet tv are those with fast connection because i don't find it really comforting watching it from here. i spend most of my time waiting in buffering.

 

[TonyT]

Youku = too much buffer for sure. I'm sure it's a strain on their servers for streaming video, but it's just not worth the time or effort right now to watch movies on that site.

 

[DTVuser2009]

Watch out for some of the MegaVideo links. the site normally works perfectly but some are uploaded under higher-than-normal bitrates and for some reason the audio is about 5 seconds ahead of the video. tried to re-watch WALL-E (i admit it, i love that movie!) and the lips moved after the audio had already played.

 

[reefguy]

is it true that some sites have spyware and adware part of the download?

 

[O-O]

is it true that some sites have spyware and adware part of the download?

I would not use any streaming TV site that requires you to download a program or codec to view their show.

Sites like hulu.com and a few of the other big ones are perfectly safe.

 

[DTVuser2009]

They normally use Adobe Flash Player to view the video. that's the only plugin required. any site saying otherwise is probably spyware/malware prone.

BTW none of the sites recommended require you download the video. it streams online so you're not violating any law as far as i know; as you're not illegally downloading anything onto your hard drive. it plays in a cache then when it's done that cache is deleted, therefore it remains on the site.

 

[reefguy]

thank you much..

 

[O-O]

thank you much..

No problem at all and welcome to the forum.

 

[Mockingbird]

I can see where internet TV will be here to stay. In fact I think we will see a huge change in broadcasting because of this, I think you will start to see some of the best programing. To be able to choose from huge librarys of great stuff will be good for watchers and advertisers alike

 

[Voyager]

With cable and satellite subscriptions inflating to an unrealistic price range, I have started taking advantage of watching some shows on the the internet, as well. Is there any way to record the show, so that you can watch it later; such as tivo?

 

[bicker]

The nature of Internet video distribution is such that there is no viable model for a downloadable distribution model with adequate asset protection. The best approach for that need is DVDs and BDs.

 

[1inxs]

With cable and satellite subscriptions inflating to an unrealistic price range, I have started taking advantage of watching some shows on the the internet, as well. Is there any way to record the show, so that you can watch it later; such as tivo?

You can save it on your PC with the right software.

Description of Replay Media Catcher

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How to Record Hulu Shows for Offline Viewing - PC World