You might have heard of IVI TV. It was the niftiest idea to come along in many years. For a moment, I thought I’d found nirvana for the Internet and TV viewing.
Along came the court and a decision. The decision: shut down! The whole thing was judged illegal and the battles continue.
IVI TV was a concept of broadcasting all the prime channels, CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, and many others I commonly like, over the internet in real time for $4.95 a month. They offered an intuitive tool to view and it simply worked. It was, in a word, WOW!
The reality: IVI TV seems to have been poorly executed and the permissions and income stream to the copyright holders were totally ignored. It’s really about money and control, and $4.95 won’t pay any copyright holder anything. Cable and satellite TV providers were also likely threatened with this new presence, as their investments to infrastructure were threatened by an “upstart.”
We do not use cable or Satellite TV in our household. We mostly hate prime time TV and don’t really want to see the ads or most of the reality TV shows. They are not what I remember from the “Golden Age of Television,” and the whole idea of paying upwards of $50 or more a month for hundreds of channels I cannot stand to watch leaves me a little cold. We also do not have any on-air TV reception in our area; we’re “in the sticks.”
We do have Internet, however, and we face a challenge: the wife loves NASCAR and we both love NFL. Now and then, a fun movie works, too. So, over the past year, I have been searching for alternatives to cable and Satellite TV.
Live Streaming TV: In a nutshell, There is none! Well, to be truthful, there are many choices but they aren’t what we want and they can become expensive. We simply want the Internet and a PC for our viewing. That is all: no gadgets, no phones, no tablets!
NFL.COM offers a Game Rewind option. It’s not live. There are “listen to the radio options” as well. They’re not TV. NASCAR: there are occasional radio broadcasts we find here and there. There is nothing consistent.
One can search forever online with keyword phrases like “Watch NFL On the Internet Live” or “Watch Internet TV.” The results are two-fold: 1) pay services which seem to be based offshore (suspicious), and 2) “free” services which offer browser add-ons (very suspicious).
After reading many comments online, comments which describe the situation and the alternatives, I can only offer this advice for those looking for Internet TV: It isn’t there, or at least it isn’t there just yet. Don’t give your credit card to these services and don’t download the software: there is much at stake and most of this software is potentially malware, spyware, or intrusive/annoying programs: messing with settings.
For the moment, if you want live TV, get cable or a satellite service like Dish or DirecTV. For a variety of reasons, all likely financial, TV is locked-up right now and live streaming Internet TV for the PC seems just a pipe-dream. Here is an excellent review of TV and movie alternatives.
Want movies? There are legitimate sites and there are illegal sites. The rule-of-thumb is simple: If you find a site that offers thousands of downloads and is based in, say, Barbados, don’t go there. These sites offer movies of dubious quality, some with file-sharing-like appearances and likely copyright violations, and they all require downloads of all kinds of weird software. If the site is unfamiliar, avoid it!
Movies: the best and only recommended movie sites are the mainstream sites.
#1: Amazon Prime. For $79.00 a year, following a 30 day free trial, one can stream a wonderful variety of movies. The selections amazed me! Now, if we could get past that pesky freeze-up that happens on their website now and then (close browser and re-start where we left-off).
One can also buy movies permanently and download them using a very nifty tool called Amazon Unbox. These movies are mine to keep, and now I can watch Christmas Vacation, Groundhog Day, Back to the Future Trilogy, and Caddyshack any time I want, at home, from my hard drive, forever. They’re safely stored on my multi-terabyte device for easy access.
Amazon Prime supports many mobile devices and TiVo, but I keep things simple. I have a PC, we watch movies and we love these movies!
Downloading is simple. It proceeds automatically in-background once the movie is purchased. The Unbox tool starts as a service-like program and it simply works. It’s clean, error free, and intuitive. Buy a movie online, and the tool knows it and downloads it for you.
Online, Amazon offers an so-so search tool which is similar to most other other pay-movie services. To make it easier, I’d love a simple cross-tab without all the graphics, and some hot-spot pop-ups to explain the movie. I’d like multiple filters. An object called a “grid” would be the best implementation. I hope they figure this out.
I registered my two PC’s and the system knows now who I am and which devices can request downloads. Only my registered devices will have the ability to view or stream. They strongly enforce digital copyright, which is the right thing to do.
This service gets a 8 on the 10 scale for everything cool that one needs for movie viewing/purchasing. The prices are decent, and often one can find used DVD’s for a great price. The Amazon Prime moniker also gives me free two day delivery on anything I order from Amazon, which is a nice benefit.
#2: NetFlix. I am un-subscribing from NetFlix as I find the movie selection limiting and the search capabilities so-so. The monthly fee of $7.99 is great and the service is very good at predicting the movies I’d like to see, based on prior choices. The scrolling effect by genre is a good idea.
This service is really decent, but I find the list of movies becoming a bit old after about six months of use. The movies I really like simply aren’t there.
I also have found the Silverlight tool, used by Netflix to live-stream, crashing inexplicably. There are lots of complaints about this online, and few fixes other than “uninstall and re-install,” “contact Microsoft,” or “try, try again” (hint: the latter works best…just keep hitting refresh or F5 and eventually the movie or show runs).
This service gets a 6 on the 10 scale.
#3: Hulu Plus. It’s a nice service but the interface seems very busy. I’ve tried it and simply didn’t like it. There are limited commercials on some of the TV shows they offer, and the rationale is lower pricing.
Movies are located by similar “so-so” searching capabilities, based on who’s currently watching what. This ignores my personal interests completely. I had to scroll to the bottom of the screen to find movies, then I had to peck-around to find genres.
Hulu Plus is simply not a decent choice for me, and gets a 5 on the 10 scale.
Other sites like Gawker.TV or Itunes are also decent and legal. I do not rate them here due to space concerns.
To summarize:
For TV, get a cable or satellite service. Anything less is risky, illegal, and troublesome. For movies, go to Amazon Prime. It’s really a cool idea. However, stay tuned. Internet TV is coming and there are likely some changes brewing. Patience!
