gHacks technology news » tv-online http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:29:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Watch TV Over The Internet http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/16/watch-tv-over-the-internet/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/16/watch-tv-over-the-internet/#comments Sat, 16 May 2009 09:02:05 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/16/watch-tv-over-the-internet/ It has been a while since we last covered applications or services to watch TV over the Internet. One of the popular applications at that time was the TVU Player which back then offered channels like ESPN or ABC. This has changed a bit since then and the main reason for many users to use TVU Player are the sport channels like CCTV5 which use to stream live sport events like Champions League, the European Leagues and other cups quite a bit. Even the fact that most of these are Chinese productions with Chinese commentary does not seem to bother most users. It is definitely better than not being able to watch the event at all.

TVU Networks, the maker of TVU Player, have created a web platform as well which can be used to watch the very same channels on the website without having to download and configure their PC TV client. An add-on was required to make the service work in Firefox and the same happened when trying it in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. After that it worked perfectly though.

The interface lists the channels on the left side. Don’t expect to see many popular US channels in the mix with a few exceptions like the Comedy Channel. The majority of programs offered are in Chinese though. The channels can be filtered by language to only display channels in a selected language. That filter is not working correctly. Selecting English from the language selection will also yield different language channels. Not many though but still noticeable.

watch tv over the internet

Other options provided in the interface are a search form to find specific channels faster and a TV guide that is available for some channels. The verdict is that TVU Networks provides free access to a working Internet TV platform that concentrates on non-English TV stations. It does however offer a great way for sport fans to watch their favorite sport events over the Internet.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/16/watch-tv-over-the-internet/feed/ 2 Watch TV On Computer With RevoluTV http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/23/watch-tv-on-computer-with-revolutv/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/23/watch-tv-on-computer-with-revolutv/#comments Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:02:49 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=7816 A few ways of watching tv on a computer are available these days. There are movie streaming websites like Hulu that provide access to tv shows of certain TV networks to users from specific countries. Many TV stations offer streams of their contents on the Internet as well That’s the basic concept of RevoluTV which provides a central interface for free TV stations that stream their shows.

It is more a convenience than something revolutionary because programs and websites that do the same already exist for some time. The biggest advantage of RevoluTV is the no frills no thrills interface that is clean and easily accessible. It makes use of Windows Media Player to stream the TV contents to the computer screen which unfortunately means that the software program will only run on computers with Windows XP or Windows Vista.

Channels are divided into themes like News, Games or Kids which list the available TV streams. A click on a network name will load the channel immediately which works well and without lags. It usually takes a few seconds to buffer the stream before a picture is shown.

Playback quality depends a lot on the user’s Internet connection but also on the type of backbone the TV network is using to stream their contents.

revolutv

Channels can be added to favorites for faster access. There is however no settings menu of any kind. Basic controls for volume and playback are offered but nothing beyond that. The only way to change settings would probably be to change them in Windows Media Player.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/23/watch-tv-on-computer-with-revolutv/feed/ 11 Watch TV online legally http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/15/watch-tv-online-legally/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/15/watch-tv-online-legally/#comments Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:23:03 +0000 Joe http://www.ghacks.net/?p=7627 The Internet is often a place where unlicensed television shows are easy to watch, albeit through websites offering streaming, torrents or USENET.

Recently, many websites have started to show shows free online but do so in a legal fashion, paying for the shows using advertisements.

Different websites seem to work in different jurisdiction but it is fair to say that a large amount is available to viewers from the United States only. Here are a few resources to watch tv shows online.

South Park Studios famously provided their shows online free of charge because the show’s creators were annoyed of people watching their shows illegally. Unfortunately, South Park Studios is not available in Great Britain; I suspect it is North America only.

Joost, the much hyped IPTV service which recently has recently made the transition from software to web-based, boasts a number of titles, both mainstream and online-only. In the UK, and possibly other countries, titles such as Babylon 5, Peep Show, Shameless and Robot Chicken.

YouTube has recently announced it will start ‘serving full-length TV dinners‘ including shows like Star Trek: The Original Series, MacGyver and Beverly Hills 90210. Unfortunately, this is unavailable in Europe.

Hulu is a site which offers free, ad-supported streaming video of TV shows and films from NBC and FOX, amongst others. This includes shows like The Simpsons, The Daily Show, Family Guy and even The Office! Predictably, this is also only for Americans.

BBC iPlayer is a free streaming video service kindly provided to people in the United Kingdom. iPlayer allows Brits to watch most shows broadcasted on a BBC channel in the past week on-demand. The BBC even admits that iPlayer technically does not require a licence fee, a type of tax which any British person with a TV set pays to help support the non-commercial BBC.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/15/watch-tv-online-legally/feed/ 9 Watch free B-movies http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/16/watch-free-b-movies/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/16/watch-free-b-movies/#comments Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:22:04 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/16/watch-free-b-movies/ B-movies are low cost or budget movies set in a certain genre like Horror or Science Fiction. Not all have been bad movies and some were the first part to fame for actors such as Jack Nicholson or John Wayne. Bmovies.com is a website that makes available hundreds of B-movies to viewers from all over the world. The real beauty is that those movies can be streamed – and thus watched – on the website .

Currently four categories are available, those are: horror, science fiction, kung fu and wild westerns. The main website lists the top five movies of the four categories with brilliant masterpieces such as Metropolis, Battle of the Worlds and Carnival of Souls.

Each movie has its own website with additional information about actors, year of release, playing time and rating which can be a good indicator of the quality of the movie. All movies begin with a one minute commercial which is understandable because of the bandwidth costs of streaming those movies.

I would say the quality is a little bit better than that of Youtube videos. It looks like a 800×600 resolution that the videos are played in. Most movies have a running time between 1 and 1.5 hours.

Read More:

B-Movies

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/16/watch-free-b-movies/feed/ 5 Watch Arrested Development on MSN http://www.ghacks.net/2006/11/21/watch-arrested-development-on-msn/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/11/21/watch-arrested-development-on-msn/#comments Tue, 21 Nov 2006 21:45:14 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/11/21/watch-arrested-development-on-msn/ The first five episodes of the tv series Arrested Development have been released on MSN and can be viewed directly from the browser. As suspected the site only supports Internet Explorer and Media Player. If you are using a different browser or movie player it will ask you to download those programs from Microsoft and use them to view the show. This if of course a big drawback but fans will surely go the extra mile for this series.

They have also added a forum where everyone can discuss the series and read the announcements when new episodes are released. The following excerpt was taken from Wikipedia “Arrested Development is a character-driven Emmy Award-winning American comedy television series that ran from November 2, 2003 to February 10, 2006, about a formerly wealthy and habitually dysfunctional family. The series is presented in a fashion reminiscent of documentary film/cinéma vérité, with omniscient narration (by Ron Howard), archival photographs, and historic footage. Although set in Newport Beach and Balboa Island, California, it was primarily filmed in locations around Culver City and Marina del Rey, about an hour drive north.”

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