Internet TV Replaces Satellite TV

Internet TV - The Holy Grail
 

Watching satellite TV on your PC delivered through the Internet is the holy grail of entertainment today. As we drift towards the end of 2006 the hype has started and it seems that everywhere you look someone is trying to sell you something to make the dream come true.

What exactly do these products do I ask? I've never tried one because I'm not convinced that I would be getting value for money. As far as I'm aware they don't give you anything that you can't find freely available elsewhere on the net.

I've been getting quite interested in the possibilities presented by video over the Internet lately so I've done a little research and come to some fascinating conclusions.

Don't expect to watch your favourite TV programs and newly released films
 

You won't find the same prime time programming on the Internet, as you get on satellite TV, not legally anyway. If you think about it why would the networks give you something for free when they can charge you money for it through subscriptions and pay per view on satellite TV and cable TV? It just isn't going to happen.

You don't need to spend anything to watch what's freely available
 

I can't be certain about what I'm about to say because I've never bought one of the software products that claim to give you 3000 (or whatever) channels of Internet TV but, I believe that all they do is package what is freely available and make it a little easier for you to get going and find what you are looking for.

The cost of these products could actually be worth the outlay if they do indeed save you the time of setting up your PC ready to watch the streamed video and finding the Internet TV streams that you want to watch. Neither of these activities was straightforward when I began to investigate.

So what can you watch on the Internet?
 

If you are into classic and vintage 'B' movies then you are in luck because there seems to be an awful lot of that available. I also found some good educational, current affairs and political programming all freely available. Finding these made the exercise worthwhile for me but it didn't even get close to persuading me to cancel my satellite TV subscription.

Will Internet TV replace satellite TV?
 

It's inevitable that the Internet will eventually take over as the main entertainment focus in your life. It's happening already with recent studies showing that a large and growing proportion of the population now spend more of their leisure time on the Internet than they do watching satellite TV, cable TV or terrestrial TV.

Sooner or later the bandwidth of the Internet will expand to cope with streaming video to every home and the networks will figure out ways to make us pay for what we watch. I suspect that the transition is going to be a very slow one and it will be a good few years before we can all junk our TV sets.

Internet TV is an exciting development that is in its infancy right now. I shall be following it's progress very closely over the next few years but for now I think you are better off looking at other ways of watching satellite TV on your PC. that don't rely on the Internet.

Steve is an engineer with an interest in digital video, he has written articles like this one How does satellite television work? at http://www.sattelite-television.thegrandfatherclock.com