PJCNET

Here is a selection of the best Internet TV services on-line at the time of writing. You will need a broadband Internet connection with a minimum connection speed of 2Mb/s (Megabits per Second) for most services, but 4Mb/s or better is recommended. The PC doesn’t have to be of the latest specifications, but must be at least reasonable. A Pentium 4 (or equivalent) or better with 512MB or more fitted with at least a 64MB Direct3D compatible graphics card is recommended. You will need Windows XP or above.

One can pick-up a suitable PC base unit at the time of writing for less than £100 second hand. I’ve been using an old PC with an AMD Athlon 2Ghz processor, 1GB of memory, an NVIDIA Quadro4 380 XGL graphics card (Using an old AGP x4 slot) and Windows XP. The machine is old, but is more than enough to run Internet TV services perfectly. I have however tried running Internet TV on a very old PC with a Celeron 1Ghz Processor, 256MB of memory and a 32MB Intel 82810 on board graphics controller, but it’s too slow to run these Internet TV services in full screen and the Joost application doesn’t work at all so be warned.

The only problem with Internet TV is it uses a considerable amount of bandwidth (Internet usage). Different qualities of service use varying amounts of bandwidth, but if you watch any service for a few hours a day, you will soon notice that your Internet usage goes up considerably. One has to watch your usage limits as you can reach them sooner than you think. If you using an ‘unlimited’ broadband service, you are usually bound by the Internet Service Provider’s ‘Fair Usage Policy’ which allows them to either cap the service or even ban very heavy users from their so called ‘unlimited’ service. If you are suddenly going to watch lots of Internet TV, I recommend you speak to your Internet Service Provider first for advice.

Top Quality Totally FREE Internet TV Services

BBC iPlayer – On-line. Catch up on most BBC TV or Radio programmes broadcast during the last week on demand. Good quality and quite heavy bandwidth.

TV Catch Up – On-line. Sign up and watch most of the main Freeview channels on-line live (don’t know why they call it TV catch up?). The system comes complete with a TV guide. At the time of writing they are still Beta testing, it works, but sometimes channels are saying temporarily unavailable. Right click on the picture and select full screen, low or high quality. High quality uses a lot of bandwidth and low quality is fairly heavy.

ITV Catch Up – On-line. Catch up on popular ITV programmes broadcast during the last 30 days on demand. Good quality and quite heavy on bandwidth.

Joost – On-line. Sign up and watch lots of shows, films, general entertainment, music, sport and much more. Thousands of hours of totally free entertainment with programs for everyone. Superb quality and fast stream start up, but uses a lot of bandwidth.

Joost – Download. Download a snazzy front end to the above Joost TV service. I’m not sure if this application is being fazed out as one has to download it elsewhere from the official website, I hope it continues as the service is brilliant and this makes it my favourite Internet TV service. Superb quality and fast stream start up, but uses a lot of bandwidth. (DISCONTINUED LATE DECEMBER 2008)

Zatto – Download. Watch BBC1, BBC2, ITV, CHANNEL 4, CHANNEL 5, BBC3, CBBC and more live. Ideal if you want watch standard UK TV using your PC. Reasonable quality, uses a fair amount of bandwidth.

Veoh TV – Download. Sign up and download VeohTV. Watch various on demand TV channels. Search for and watch videos from an enormous database of entertainment and full length TV programs. Varying quality from low to reasonable, uses a fair amount of bandwidth.

Channel 4OD – Download. Sign up and catch up on most Channel 4 programmes broadcast during the last 30 days and some classic episodes on demand. Channel 4 mix paid programmes amongst the free services which is a bit annoying, it also installs a new service called Kservice which downloads in the background along with windows start-up items that uses memory permanently, this makes this application my least liked out of top quality Internet TV services. Good quality and quite heavy on bandwidth.

Demand Five – On-line or download. Sign up and enjoy Channel 5’s on demand service and catch up on most programmes broadcast within a few days. Many programmes are free, but they also have paid programmes. The optional downloaded player installs a new service called Kservice with downloads in the background like Channel 4 along with a windows start-up item that uses memory permanently, so I personally prefer watching on-line only. Good quality and quite heavy on bandwidth.

wwiTV – On-line. A huge selection of over 2800 TV channels at the time of writing from all over the world. Unfortunately not every channel works all of the time and when different channels play in different media players, it can become quite messy. Most channels are extremely low budget with poor programme quality. Despite the disadvantages, your still bound to find something that works you enjoy watching. Varying quality and bandwidth usage from very low quality, low bandwidth to very good quality, heavy bandwidth usage.

There are literally hundreds of other Internet TV channels and on demand services across the Internet of varying quality, above are my personal favourites.

Please click to share this article!