1. Hulu
Hulu.com has been the first and the best online service that has enabled watching popular TV shows and movies legally via internet. Hulu contains TV programs from large TV networks such as NBC, FOX and ABC. However, due to it’s United States centricity, the service is not available outside the US. Nevertheless, Hulu is the best example of the future services that enable watching TV using Internet as the medium.
Hulu has taken the web-based service even further with the Hulu Desktop software. It is a media center software focused on distributing the video content from the Hulu service. It is a real substitute to the cable TV. However, it really depends on the user preferences, whether Hulu service can replace your current cable TV subscription.
Regular cable TV watching allows you to randomly browse on going TV shows and watch something you would have known that exists. However, Hulu allows you to watch TV shows you already like, but have missed e.g. the last episode. Hulu has also been experimenting with a comprehensive Hulu Plus service that allows to see all additional episodes (beyond the five most recent episodes) for $9.95.
2. iTunes Store
iTunes Store is the world’s largest online store for pro-quality videos. iTunes allows you to rent or buy TV shows and movies. The big benefit over other available online distribution platforms is that you can watch many of the shows and movies in high definition quality. The added bonus is that the downloaded videos are easily available on iPod or iPhone as well.
In addition to the iTunes Store, the Podcast distribution is more and more popular way to distribute online video. Comparing to the situation few years ago, there is a large selection of video podcasts available for downloads. Read more about the iTunes review here.
3. Boxee
Similar to the Hulu Desktop, Boxee does not produce video content itself, but provides an interface for watching online videos on your television. Boxee software is currently in a beta phase and is available for Windows, Mac and linux home theater PCs. The great advantage of Boxee is it’s social networking features that allows you to watch videos recommended by your friends. This recommendation function starts to be more and more important to find useful video clips from the vast offering available today in the internet. Read the Boxee review here.
Bonus: TVKaista.fi
TVkaista.fi is a Finnish digital video recorder service with a www interface. TVKaista is amongst the most popular streaming sites in Finland and it is a service that records all the programs from the Finnish free television channels onto a web server which you can rent with a low monthly subscription fee.
The best thing about this service is that you can automatically subscribe TV series as podcasts to your iTunes or Miro and watch them from your computer using any media center software when ever you want. The service also works on PS3 and the video quality on a fast network is excellent.
As these four services show as an example, the TV is going to the internet in the coming years. We have discussed this internet TV revolution more in detail in our previous article. Read the full article here.
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