Watch TV From My Computer

Have you ever thought “It would be nice to watch TV from my computer”? Well, it is no longer the province of the super rich or the ultra nerds. In fact, watching TV on your computer is becoming more common all the time. Some, including software giant Microsoft, feel it’s the wave of the future. In fact, they have staked part of their future on it. Your new Vista operating system has features designed specifically to enable this type of functionality.

That’s great, but where do you get the content? I mean, you just can’t have thousands of channels pumped into your computer directly from the internet, can you? Well actually you can. There really are a few ways to get TV on your computer. You can buy a TV tuner card. Basically, this turns your computer into a high-tech VCR or personal video recording device (PVR, think TiVO). That’s pretty cool, but there are a couple of downsides to the approach. First, as noted above, there is a question of content. Where did you get it?

With the TV tuner card method, you are limited to what is available with a terrestrial antenna, or you can connect basic cable TV service. Anything beyond basic cable won’t work with this method, because the content is encrypted by your cable provider. You need your proprietary cable box to decode the really great channels or pay-per-view events. So while this method of watching TV on your computer is pretty cool, it definitely has limitations.

You can use a pay-per-download service to watch movies on your computer, such as Cinemanow.com or Movielink.com. While they do offer a lot of downloadable content, it’s definitely not live TV. If you’re looking for real live TV, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

Another method is IPTV. TV content streamed directly over the Internet to your computer or top tuner. There are two flavors of this. One is through a major service provider, such as a cable, satellite, or phone company. These are definitely capable of delivering a lot of high-quality content, but just because it’s streaming over the internet doesn’t mean you’ll just go online straight to your PC and watch Sienfeld reruns. You’re essentially duplicating the cable box approach, except the content delivery method uses IP packets instead of analog cable or another type of digital cable.

There is still another option. You can watch live TV streaming directly on your computer or on a TV connected to your computer. With one of several software-based solutions, you can watch live TV shows, including sports, prime-time network programming, reality shows, and motion. It’s live, and even better, there are thousands of channels available from all over the world. If you want to stay on top of world events or want a different perspective on the news, this is a fantastic resource.

However, streaming software solutions really excel for sports. You’ll find sporting events that are poorly covered in the US, such as football, motorcycle, and bicycle racing. Another advantage is that you can get coverage of the same event from different networks. Want to see if the local broadcasters are a bit biased? You can do it. No matter the sport, if it’s on TV anywhere in the world, you’ll be able to watch it.

So there are great ways to watch live TV on your computer. You just have to decide how you are going to do it and have a cold one!