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March 30, 2006
reporter's notebook I know this may sound crazy, but I don't have a television.
This isn't a problem, except when I get glimpses of what I might be missing, like when the New York Mets choked and it was all anybody could talk about in the office that day.
I also happened to catch some episodes of Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor on a public hospital TV recently. I was captivated by the story of matriarch meerkat "Flower" and her tragic death from a cobra bite while saving her pups in the Kalahari desert. I just had to watch the next episode to see which of her daughters would win the power struggle to succeed her. But how could I do that without cable or even a TV?
I went on a search for some of my old--and new--favorite TV shows on the Internet. The one caveat: it had to be free, because this TV dilettante wasn't paying for anything other than my phone and DSL broadband service.
While I pay about $30 a month for phone and DSL, my neighbors spend anywhere from $70 to $140 for cable and Internet access, depending on the number of channels and level of service. That cost difference, plus the desire to avoid having a boob tube around, means the laptop is the only screen in my home.
I may be odd, but I'm not alone. A whole 2 percent of U.S. households are TV-less, according to Nielsen. (OK, so I'm almost alone). And nearly 16 percent of American households with Internet access watch television broadcasts online, a report released this week by The Conference Board and TNS Media Intelligence found.
Networks and studios are recognizing this trend. While paid downloads make more money for content producers, ad-supported video streaming is growing--it's expected to bring in $117 million in revenues this year for producers of prime time and daytime TV programming alone, up from $43 million last year, according to Adams Media Research.
My first step to becoming an Internet couch potato was to search for Meerkat Manor online. I found a link at the top of the search engine's sponsored results section that led to the Discovery Channel site, where I could watch the last four episodes after installing a video player.
There was a 10-second ad for Oust air freshener that ran before the show started, and then the Meerkats were on, in all their anthropomorphic glory. I could watch them for hours, but unfortunately, a commercial break came. I was subjected to a 30-second ad this time, from the same air freshener company. Time to check e-mail.
As soon as I heard the commercial end I was back to the screen for more Meerkat adventures. The video quality, while it didn't seem quite as clear as on a TV, was beautiful. And then, before you knew it, the exact same commercial as before came up. This same ad was shown three times during the show. I somehow thought I would be spared the commercials by watching TV on the Internet. I was wrong.
One of the great laments I've had about not having a TV the past few years is that I miss my daily dose of humor--The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. So, I quickly found myself on the Comedy Central site, where Stewart's monologue from the day before started right up in a very small window. There are also sections called "Most Recent Videos" and "Last Week's Highlights." I watched Stewart poking fun at the Republican presidential debate and then conducting an awkward interview with Vice President Cheney's wife, Lynne.
But what if I don't just want highlights? What if I want to watch the entire show? While watching a show in segments like this might make for more efficient TV viewing, I missed watching the flow of an entire show, where Stewart and his cohorts often make references to things that happened before the commercial break.
In addition to the fact that the site seemed to be showing the same ad for each of the highlights I viewed, I was squinting to see the screen because the video window was so small. The video quality was poor and the transmission was glitchy. It really ruins the timing of jokes when Stewart's mouth is saying one thing and you're hearing something else.
Next, I went straight to TV network Web sites. On ABC, I launched the full episode player, which offered a full screen and mini mode. I had heard that tech entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was on Dancing with the Stars, so I thought I'd check that show out.
I was very pleased to see that I could click a button to skip the ad that kept repeating (in this case for Garnier Nutritioniste) shortly after it began. I was disappointed when I thought I could only watch a condensed version of the program for the Web audience, but later learned that you can get to full episodes via a button on the home page of ABC.
See more CNET content tagged:
Jon Stewart, episode, TV, Internet access, DSL
regards,
allan
You solution sounds like you just want to mooch off your friends ... or share the cost of their cable, which takes you out of the free content realm.
slingbox...
bittorrent... much better quality and most shows even in HD
1280x720 quality!
eztvefnet.org for tracker
then you only need a bittorrent client that you will find @
versiontracker.com!
that simple... there's even software that automatically downloads
your favorite shows from BT trackers like "tv shows" for mac osX!
And now I live cable free in Italy, where most of the sites you mentioned are blocked. Apparently a "Medium" episode viewed in the EU would disrupt the time/space continuum of revenue. However, FRONTLINE has no such boundary. You should by all means go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/ and find a treasure trove of programming.
I could go on about how commercials actually serve a purpose you can only appreciate when they disappear (and I don't mean funding) but the Simpsons are on (in Italian) and I gotta go.
Alessandra
http://www.bbcworld.com/Pages/default.aspx
The BBC like many other broadcasters has restrictions due to existing contracts for its own content and bought-in content from external suppliers as to what it can stream. Perhaps the deal with the cable/sat companies in US means they don't offer a free web stream.
Within the UK where the BBC comes from :-) & I mostly reside the 4 "networks" (ie BBC, ITV, CH4, five) do provide some kind of online service. The ITV channels (four of them) are all available as live streaming feeds (from www.itv.com). Both the BBC and CH4 also offer free (with time-limited DRM) P2P catch-up applications for most of their shows. Subscribers to the main Satellite provider also have access to similarly time-limted DRMed shows and movies from the past few weeks from channels they have subscriptions for including I guess the above networks (but as I have their PVR I can set the set-top box to record shows I want from the EPG on the web or on my cell which works better for me :-)
The difference between cable and satellite subscrptions and watching over the internet is that with the internet you have more a la carte options. I subscribe to two soccer packages online for about $100 per year total, and I get to see all the same matches I could with a $70/month Dish subscription. Add Amazon Unbox or Netflix and you can watch movies too. The quality is not as good as TV yet, but it will get better. And I spend less on TV now.
For those sporting events you can't find online, my solution is to head over to the pub and have a beer and watch on their big screen.
There are free services such as Miro (http://www.getmiro.com/) that show things like Onion TV. The offerings there should increase over time.
What I do for my friends is record shows that they want to watch. They can choose what to record on MSN and MC will record it. Have MC record it on a external hard drive. When you go over there, you simply copy the shows onto their computer.
If they have Xbox, you don't have to watch it on the computer. You can watch it in your living room. Better then Tivo, you have 30 second skip, not just FF for ads.
You have them pay you for a percentage of the cable bills to. Get enough friends and you can make money, eh?
Works like a charm and it's one way to stick it to the man.
What the&#&???
Anyway... this story was more about your tastes, and they seemed a bit oddball, but then again, you didn't dive into the world of porn, so for that we are grateful.
The best the internet has to offer, though, for us 98% who still have TV's...is what is not shown on TV. For some, that is porn...but for me its foreign language programming...it really allows for access to things that were once too distant to get at.
At least these are free to watch
http://XmasDVD.com
I have used Movie link, Cinema Now, Vongo, Itunes , Unbox, Netflicks to rent content. I have used Joost, and other free online content providers as well.
Since the current fall season has started I have cut my online rentals way-way down as I now watch one or two shows from each network-CBS, ABC, Fox, CW, PBS. In fact, as a grad? student with limited resources I am canceling my Net Flicks account as I can spend my limited down time watching for free.
Of course, there is no comparison between a good ?art house flick? and Tv. Who knows, in 3 months I maybe so bored with the TV content that I go back to renting content online.
shows there are! in SDTV or HDTV quality!!! and it's free, you have
them on your harddrive and can burn them to DVD or whatever
format you need them, iphone or ipod for example with software
that is readily available....
thus getting more exposure for their commercials and having
better control how many times their show gets watched, eeeerrrrg,
donwloaded, LOL..
250 channels. 15,000 programs. It is TV quality streaming and
free. This could be the future as more people will create content
specific to their interests and all web broadcast. Quality is pretty
good!
household do not, and will not, purchase cable.
I am on a Mac platform and really appreciate iTunes. It's legal,
free, inexpensive, full-length, on-demand, great quality (though
HD would be nice), and has no commercials for $2 a show.
Our favorite show right now is Heroes. We were purchasing that
show last year on iTunes and were looking forward to doing the
same this year. NBC, however, pulled the plug on iTunes for now
- STUPID (it's just starting to gain traction in the video arena).
I can't stand cable or network programing for a number of
reasons... It's not on demand, there are too many worthless
channels you pay for, and a good majority of shows and even
commercials are either anti-Christian or lack moral decency.
There are also so many other productive, positive, things I
would like to do with my life than watch a boob tube. I don't
need the temptation to be a couch potato. ;-)
Thanks for the great article!
(antenna) it's an awesome deal... no monthly cost, HDTV picture
quality on the mac (or PC)...
elagto.com
Great site for those who love the shows.
market... so why canīt us americans use this in europe. Unfair.