IPTV--Who's Using It?

So, I'm hearing a lot about Internet Provided Television services lately. I need some schooling on the matter. Who's using it, why, what are the costs, and how do I get to watch my favorite shows?

So far the biggest player in that market is Hulu with the individual companies providing their own solutions, many have worked a deal with Hulu to show the most recent episodes on their own sites first before placing them on Hulu.

Also, many of the more popular "free" TV channels and shows are available online shortly after airing.

For car guys, this also means that many race series are sidestepping SPEED, etc and providing content on their own sites. A recent case in point is ALMS and RadioLeMans working together to show the entire race on their site, while SPEED, etc only showed the cut-down version.

Hulu worked beautifully on me. Pre-Hulu I pirated all my favorite TV shows... now? I just watch them on Hulu.

Hulu, TV.com, and Fancast are all good. If you can afford $9 a month Netflix instant watch is awesome and getting better every day.

Comedy central and CBS both have a pretty decent selection on their sites that isn't available on Hulu.

A modern game console or home theater PC will allow you to stream this stuff straight to your TV as well.

The fun part about Hulu is that if you use their Desktop application, you can run it full screen and use your Microsoft Media Center remote with it natively. Take one PC, add internet connection, Microsoft remote ($15 on eBay), and a large monitor/projector/TV and you've got TV.

Boxee can also help by providing a way to quickly access the various websites you visit via the Media Center remote.

Anyway, the only drawback at this point is the potential of bandwidth limitations for peak time periods and popular shows/episodes. I suspect this is where Hulu (which is now owned by Comcast) and others will start charging for premium services, etc.

I know SCCA World Challenge races are being broadcast online. What is that site again?

I dropped cable over a year ago. Now I just wonder why I didn't do it 3 years ago...

Hulu.com - lots of shows with minimal commercials

ch131.com - just about every show, including premium channels, with no commercials but lower quality.

http://www.free-tv-video-online.info/ - even more shows, also lower quality

My new favorite is torrents. They can be downloaded in high definition and you can even find them as a complete season.

We ditched cable about a month ago, wish we had done it a long time ago. Less time spent rotting our brains and about $100/month saved.

Hulu, netflix + the major network web sites, and if yu can't find a show you like? Google it and you can almost always find it for free, albeit at lower quality. We still get Blu-Rays for stuff from netflix that we want to watch in HD

Netflix even has some HD stuff to steam as well.

if you want an appliance to hook up to a tv, the roku boxes are a decent buy. For the last six months, we have a hd roku box to watch netflix and amazon. it draws only 5 watts when working. 3 in standby.

How's the video quality? I tried streaming a few movies from Netflix and they ended up butt ugly on my 46" HDTV.

redvalkyrie wrote: How's the video quality? I tried streaming a few movies from Netflix and they ended up butt ugly on my 46" HDTV.

I'm currently streaming The Office through my PS3 at a glorious 720P on my 42" plasma. 90% of the time the streaming looks pretty great for me.

What kind of internet connection do you have?

If you have the bandwidth, you can stream HD content. I know Hulu has HD, but most will still be limited to 480i because of the source content. Lets face it, you won't get A-Team or Magnum P.I. in HD :)

Also, if you're watching through a PC, many TV's and PC's will only display HD content if the HD Content Protection solution is present. Meaning that you have to use an Operating System, Video card, driver and content provider that supports HDCP via HDMI. Otherwise you can't play anything more than 720i, even if you have 1080p content.

You can thank the media conglomerates for that DRM and HDCP POS. Ever wonder why so many people use bittorrent? It isn't always to "steal" content, but in fact it is just easier to view content that you already own. Not too mention the folks that use Linux as an operating system and want to view protected content.

For those of you who use iTunes and have bought music, etc through it. Ever try to copy those files to another computer and play it? How about those DVD's and Blu-Ray discs that come with "digital copies" ever try to do the same thing with those files?

Case in point: I "bought" Truth in 24 from iTunes (its free). I wanted to watch it on my Home Theatre PC in the garage. Because it is protected via DRM, I needed to watch it within QuickTime, via iTunes after authorizing that PC with my iTunes account. You can only authorize 5 computers per account. I have 10 computers at home, 4 are HTPCs, 2 laptops and some systems for my test lab/gaming. Anyway, ever try to do all of the above via a remote control? Yeah, so I downloaded it and now I can watch it anytime/anywhere I want.