On February 1, 2011 by Bryna
With the recent study published about a family who went without cable for a week, the twitterverse lit up and everyone had their $0.02 on the subject, including a group of my colleagues. One of them (Liz Phillips) recommended I do a blog post on the subject and share some of my fav sites.
Since I’ve been an internet TV user for years now, I’ve also come to see more and more sites and shows popping up online a lot quicker than say, even this time last year.
Internet TV has gone mainstream it seems.
An example?
We USED to pay to watch the new seasons of Dexter on Showtime about 3 years ago because back then, finding the newest Dex episodes online use to take 2-3 days to show up on a site. Even then, you’d be dragged down a broken link, virus filled rabit hole more often than not. So at the time, I was quite willing to pay to watch him on Showtime just for that convience alone.
Today, we don’t pay a dime to watch Dexter – - and I think Showtime has come to realize that a lot of us don’t overall. This past season they would put the newest episode up on their Youtube channel to watch for free (for 24hrs) and broadcast it on their Dexter Facebook page. Sure, the swears and ‘showtime’-esque scenes were cut out in order to appease a PG Youtube/Facebook audience — but who cares, the story was there in full.
Even if you missed that you could always find his newest episode online within 2 hours of it’s East Coast air time via nice, clean links found on sites like:
(in order of best resources, quickest new episode upload and least virus link baiting – imho)
1) http://www.tvduck.com
(Users thumb up or down broken, virused links to help you navigate your way around what to trust. It’s not perfect, but pretty close. This site almost always has the newest episodes of most of the popular shows ready within a few hours of the original air time and has a whole library of some oldies too)
2) http://www.alluc.org
(Has movies as well and users rate quality and link safety — though this one can be a little slow with the latest episodes of your favorite shows, you will find full seasons of series here to catch up)
3) http://www.funmoviesite.com/
(You can usually find most new realease here along with the newest episodes of shows. One thing to note about movies recently released in the theater, they are usually version of “that guy” in the back of the movie theater recording the screen with a camcorder (a la Seinfeld bootleg). So avoid those if you can — they are awful quality in both picture and sound)
4) http://www.free-tv-video-online.me/internet/
(Interface is cluttered, but search works very well. Not as quick to update with the latest episodes as some of the sites above, but definitely a good resource for find your favs.)
5) http://ch131.com/
(This site is hosted in Egypt apparently and is currently down due to the protests going on there. It goes down from time to time in general when they are uploading the latest episodes, but has a really great international selection)
6) http://www.Hulu.com
You can find most major network shows here. Though they are riddled with ads and commercials — Yawn.
7) http://www.netflix.com
Netflix does streaming on both the movie side and TV show side of things. However, they are really — REALLY slow to get new movies or episodes up online and push people to rent the DVDs. Not sure if it’s a licensing issue or what, but if Netflix could get their instant library to be almost real time, I would die (in a good way).
Cable Schmable
With the recent study published about a family who went without cable for a week, the twitterverse lit up and everyone had their $0.02 on the subject, including a group of my colleagues. One of them (Liz Phillips) recommended I do a blog post on the subject and share some of my fav sites.
Since I’ve been an internet TV user for years now, I’ve also come to see more and more sites and shows popping up online a lot quicker than say, even this time last year.
Internet TV has gone mainstream it seems.
An example?
We USED to pay to watch the new seasons of Dexter on Showtime about 3 years ago because back then, finding the newest Dex episodes online use to take 2-3 days to show up on a site. Even then, you’d be dragged down a broken link, virus filled rabit hole more often than not. So at the time, I was quite willing to pay to watch him on Showtime just for that convience alone.
Today, we don’t pay a dime to watch Dexter – - and I think Showtime has come to realize that a lot of us don’t overall. This past season they would put the newest episode up on their Youtube channel to watch for free (for 24hrs) and broadcast it on their Dexter Facebook page. Sure, the swears and ‘showtime’-esque scenes were cut out in order to appease a PG Youtube/Facebook audience — but who cares, the story was there in full.
Even if you missed that you could always find his newest episode online within 2 hours of it’s East Coast air time via nice, clean links found on sites like:
(in order of best resources, quickest new episode upload and least virus link baiting – imho)
1) http://www.tvduck.com
(Users thumb up or down broken, virused links to help you navigate your way around what to trust. It’s not perfect, but pretty close. This site almost always has the newest episodes of most of the popular shows ready within a few hours of the original air time and has a whole library of some oldies too)
2) http://www.alluc.org
(Has movies as well and users rate quality and link safety — though this one can be a little slow with the latest episodes of your favorite shows, you will find full seasons of series here to catch up)
3) http://www.funmoviesite.com/
4) http://www.free-tv-video-online.me/internet/
(Interface is cluttered, but search works very well. Not as quick to update with the latest episodes as some of the sites above, but definitely a good resource for find your favs.)
5) http://ch131.com/
(This site is hosted in Egypt apparently and is currently down due to the protests going on there. It goes down from time to time in general when they are uploading the latest episodes, but has a really great international selection)
6) http://www.Hulu.com
You can find most major network shows here. Though they are riddled with ads and commercials — Yawn.
7) http://www.netflix.com
Netflix does streaming on both the movie side and TV show side of things. However, they are really — REALLY slow to get new movies or episodes up online and push people to rent the DVDs. Not sure if it’s a licensing issue or what, but if Netflix could get their instant library to be almost real time, I would die (in a good way).