TV over Internet

= watching classic TV over computers

Sites Overview

Laura Holson:

"For network television shows the best places to start are their home Web sites, including ABC.com, NBC.com, CBS.com and Fox.com, where shows are posted usually within 24 hours of being shown on television. ABC.com, in my experience, is one of the simplest to use. It was a pioneer in putting shows online, although stingy in the early days because it didn’t want to share its toys with other sites.

ABC.com also demands viewers be engaged, requiring them to click a button to continue watching the program after an ad ends. It is a deceptively smart strategy: I was forced to sit through a 30-second commercial — and click — to find out whether Mike Delfino actually died from smoke inhalation on “Desperate Housewives.” It’s only 30 seconds I figured (and I can watch the countdown) which kept me in my seat.

To save time, I usually stay away from sites like Veoh.com, Joost.com, Bebo.com or AOL. Quite simply, there is little there to entice me. Each has a similar syndicate of already-released movies and television shows, and can be confusing if you are not sure what to look for. The exception is Sling.com, which offers much of the same content, but with a more user-friendly setup.

The one standout is Hulu.com, a joint venture of NBC and Fox. It is well organized and simple to use. (Even Mr. Smith called it “the gold standard.”) It not only has current shows like “The Office,” “The Simpsons,” “24,” and “Heroes,” but a trove of classics like the original “Battlestar Galactica,” “Married With Children” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

Then there’s iTunes. Apple’s media store has been selling TV shows for three years now, and buying is easy to do. The problem I have with iTunes is that you have to pay for the shows in order to watch them. With so many legal ways to get shows free, there’s little incentive for me to pay unless it’s something I can’t stream, like “Mad Men” or “Entourage.” And yes, while a series like “Lost” may require multiple viewings to fully appreciate them, do I really need to own episodes of “Two and a Half Men”?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/technology/personaltech/04basics.html?)

More Information

TV Over Internet, at http://www.tvover.net/TVStation.aspx

says it is " the most detailed guide of free TV over the Internet. The stations below will either be live TV or video on demand broadcasts. Below each description of the TV station, you will find the category and type of video stream in bold."