TV and I have always had a love hate relationship. Sure I love South Park and The Daily Show, but it somehow always get scheduled at the exact wrong time. That’s why streaming and downloading what I want to watch on my own time has been the only way I get the chance to watch TV.
The first tool you need in your video library is VLC Player. VLC Player will open almost any video format that you throw at it, and even attempt to play corrupted video files in their best possible state. VLC Player’s user interface is simple, but it has a huge amount of features (even tools to create a streaming, digital DVD collection.). VLC Player is free and open-source for Windows, Mac, iPad, and Linux.
If you are looking for a video program that will play your videos at a slightly higher quality check out KMPlayer.
tl;dr - VLC Player is your go to video program for that obscure file format your Mom sent you.
Miro is a video library program that can download podcasts, torrents and HD YouTube videos. The program keeps a queue of the unwatched videos that you have and keeps everything organized in a simple good-looking UI. This program is great for organizing what videos that you’ve downloaded and setting up a continually playing TV-like system. The program is also able to play almost any video file you throw at it (except Windows Media Player!), and convert the videos into formats for playing on Android and iOS devices. The open-source Miro is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
If Miro isn’t cutting your conversion needs, check out the popular open-source conversion program HandBrake.
tl;dr – Miro is the home of your video playing empire, cataloging and converting your videos.
So you’ve got your programs, now what are you gonna watch? Here are a few geeky tips:
Revision3 Network: This Internet TV network run by the founder of Digg gives funding and syndication to Internet TV shows. For some really geeky shows check out The Destructoid Show, Tekzilla and Diggnation to hear about video games, tech tools and the most popular things on the web. All of the shows’ RSS feed can be subscribed through Miro or watched for free on the website.
Al Jazeera: Al Jazeera is a Middle East based news station that licenses all of it’s movies under a creative commons license, so you subscribe through Miro or watch it on YouTube. They update multiple times a day and the documentaries cover worldwide politics.
Netflix: Netflix is a movie streaming service (and disk based rentals) that costs at minimum $9.83 a month. Netflix has a huge selection of classic television shows and a few recent shows, but there are large gaps in the amount of new TV. Netflix is available for Windows, Mac, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, iOS and a bunch of set top boxes.
Hulu: Hulu is finally entering into a level of usability and content selection that almost makes it worth paying for it. Which brings us to the for-pay Hulu Plus service. Hulu Plus has let’s you have access to the full backlog of a select few TV shows, but not every show on the service is represented. More shows are supposedly being added in the near future, but for $9.99 a month it’s kind of a let down that there isn’t more content. Hulu Plus subscribers have access to the iOS Hulu app, PS3 access and a promised Xbox 360 app in early 2011. A rumored price drop to $4.95 is floating around the Internet, which would make this a much more attractive option.
tl;dr – You don’t need to pay for content on the internet, but Netflix and Hulu Plus are the best value buys.
Unfortunately not everything that you are going to want to see is going to be available for free or streaming on the Internet. Remember that Amazon Video on Demand and iTunes have TV episodes around $1.99 and complete seasons for around $14.99 (But Jersey Shore for $9.90!). As TV production channels move towards more digital releases it’s only going to get easier to buy and subscribe to TV shows on the Internet.
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