Here you go, a quick internet TV round-up: Top Internet TV players for your desktop, major directories to watch popular TV content for FREE, and a bunch of websites to stream live TV channels.
(1) Internet TV Players
Joost (www.joost.com)
Over 100 high-definition TV shows (Comedy central, Punk’d, Super Cars, Nat geo, etc.) and channels from various categories (Cartoons, Film, Comedy, Music, Documentary, Entertainment, Sports, and Liefstyle). More Joost screenshots here.
Zattoo (www.zattoo.com)
Zattoo provides excellent picture quality and viewing experience. Service is mainly focused on European channels and offers almost 50 live TV channels (some channels are limited to particular geographical locations.)
Babelgum (www.babelgum.com)
Babelgum provides a nice easy-to use TV player but unfortunately doesn’t have much channels to choose from. I used it for some time initially but switched to Joost right after I got my invite, and haven’t checked it since. When it comes to Internet TV the amount of available programs service has to offer is definitely the most important factor.
Miro (www.getmiro.com)
Miro (formerly Democray Player) is very different from the tools mentioned above. It’s all-in-one player that lets you navigate though and subscribe to over 1500 web shows, vlogs or podacsts. Additionally, Miro can be used as: BitTorent client, Video downloader (Youtube, Google Video, DailyMotion, etc.), and video player (Quicktime, WMV, MPEG, XVid, AVI, etc.). Check out video screencast here.
VeohTV (www.veoh.com/veohTV/)
VeohTV lets you watch and record Internet video from thousands of video sources, incl. Yotube, GoogleVideo and Myspace. You can also enjoy certain full-length episodes from traditional TV channels i.e. ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, etc. Search for channels, browse channels by category, record favorite episodes, add desired channels to favorites, and more. Check out full channel list here.
2) Popular TV ShowS, Movies, Cartoons… Directories
While most of the above mentioned applications excel in quality and interface, they lack what users love most, that is abundance of popular and mainstream TV content. These include popular TV shows (24, House, Heroes, …), blockbuster movies, cartoons (The Simspons, Futurama, …), Anime and so on. I guess the reason behind it is quite obvious, you can’t really distribute such content legally unless you have rights for it. But nevertheless there is a good chunk of hugely popular websites that provide mainstream TV content fro FREE.
Starting from the best:
- TV-Links (no longer online) – Movies, TV Shows, cartoons, documentaries, anime, and music videos
- Alluc – TV shows, cartoons, anime, movies, music, and sport videos
- Sidereel – Movies, TV shows + wiki style editing
- TV-Video – TV shows
- AllOfTV – Anime, cartoons, music videos, and TV shows.
- VideoHybrid – Movies and TV shows.
- Peekvid – TV Shows, movies, cartoons, and Sports
You can get a quick overview of these services in previously published ’7 Excellent Places to watch TV Shows for FREE’.
(3) TV Channel Directories
There are dozens of websites that aggregate, categorize and rate TV channels. In most cases, users can stream traditional TV channels (CNN, BBC, ABC, ESPN and lots more) without leaving the website. I have written and compared web TV channel directories before so I’ll just list them here.
- Viewmy.tv (not in original list and currently my favorite)
- ChooseAndWatch
- Llive-Online-TV
- ChannelChooser
- Streamick
- Freetube
- WWiTV
Tagged: documentary • downloader • media player • online videos • standup comedy • tv shows • Youtube
