Five Drinks Into a TV Rant: Online Streaming (II)

Tom's Take:

So I don't really want to bother talking about the ethics of online streaming. Here's my take on that in brief. We are consumers. Our job is to consume, and we're going to work to do that the cheapest and easiest way possible for us. It's up to the TV networks and the various producers of television content to make sure they find some way to profit from online streaming.

This article isn't about that. This article is about how and why we stream television online instead of watching it live on our TV screens.

(Just to cover my ass, because I have no real idea what piracy laws are like. Nothing I say here is true. I will deny it all if you ask me about it. This whole article only exists in a magic fantasyland.)

Let's start with why we turn to the Internet instead of watching our TV sets.

1. We don't have TV sets. Well this is an easy one to point out. As a college student I am pretty much required to have computer and Internet access. I have to be able to type and email my professors papers, and be able to do research at home. I do not necessarily need to have a TV. I happen to have one, but I am sure there are many online streamers who don't. These people want to be able to watch How I Met Your Mother, and Community, and Psych just as much as everyone else. So they turn to the Internet instead.

2. We don't have Tivo, but can't make it to see our programs live. This is another issue of what technology we have available. There are many useful and helpful devices to record live television. I like having a DVR handy whenever I want to watch football, because watching it live is important to me, but I still like to replay things. Doing this for other shows is hard though; and there is inevitably drama if you have room mates for what gets priority to record. It's far simpler just to watch it online.

3. Being able to watch a show before it's on Pacific Coast time is cool. Okay so this is probably not a high priority for most people, but I just thought I would mention it. I can watch How I Met Your Mother two hours or so earlier than I could if I waited for it to air here.

4. Being able to skip commercials is essential. This is a big one, and again a Tivo allows you to do the same thing, but with the right online video you don't even have to go through the hassle of fast forwarding over commercials. That's awesome.

5. There are shows online that are off the air. This is probably the biggest reason I watch TV online. I can go to a site like Sidereel or Watchseries, and watch practically any series that has been on the air. Of course there are a lot of old series missing, but I have faith that those will eventually make it online too. This allows us all to watch these old series without having to buy a DVD box set. For me, it allowed me to start watching Lost for the first time, and so far I'm really enjoying it. (Check out my Lost reviews in our Episode Review Section.) TV viewing was previously restricted; you could only watch the shows that were on the air during your time. Online streaming will hopefully allow whole new generations to experience classic shows for years to come; so that even when all the shows on the air suck, people will still be able to enjoy television.

Okay, so now let's talk about how to watch TV online. First off, don't download anything. It's time consuming, and it takes up data. If you think you're going to watch something more than once, then it's time you considered buying the DVDs. You want to stream.

I first started streaming TV four years ago. I was a first year college student, who had just gotten used to having a Tivo at home, whose room mate didn't like watching TV. I realized that for me to be able to watch the shows I enjoyed, I would have to find them online. I started like many novices by just going to Yahoo, and typing in the name of the show I wanted to watch. Thus began my adventure....

Hulu is for novices. Now, there is some content that is exclusive to Hulu, and I enjoy some of that, but Hulu is not the site you want to use to stream your favorite TV shows. The video quality is good, but it doesn't show how much of the video it's buffered, and worst of all it has commercials. Skipping commercials is a huge part of why we stream TV shows, so Hulu is almost disgusting to me conceptually.

I know nothing about Netflix, and I don't intend to learn now.

If you've never watched an online video of an American TV with Korean subtitles, that you haven't truly experienced online streaming. This is as low as you'll ever get, and you know you're truly desperate when you're forced to resort to these types of videos. How do you avoid dumpster diving for videos like these?

 Watchseries. I won't link to it, but you just have to search for it and you'll find it. This wonderful site has hundreds, or perhaps thousands of different TV series all fully archived, and has links to multiple videos for each episode, as well as a warning with how reliable the video is. In order to hide from piracy finders, the video hosts themselves have to go deep undercover. Watchseries is the map to find them.

Megavideo and Videobb are dead, but a new era of streaming has dawned. Megavideo was for years, the best video host I knew. Their only weakness, was that you could only watch 72 minutes at a time, but there was actually a secret to get around that. Regardless, it has been torn down, and for many of us this was a huge loss. Don't fear though. New sites are being discovered by bold Internet Explorers (see what I did there?) every day. I personally have grown quite fond of ovfile, and gorillavid in recent days. The point is, that you can't stop online streaming, because it is constantly evolving and adapting.

People who wish to grow and adapt as well need to join in.

Sean's Take: First, let's take a moment of silence in honor of Megavideo.






Godspeed son, you died far too young. But Tom, you're missing the biggest factor in streaming though: it's far more convenient to find a show online than it is to find it on TV. A show will be online right after it finishes its initial airing, so if you missed said airing it make sense to look online. Plus, streaming is the best way to broaden one's television horizons. How else would I watch all of that quality British television without streaming? BBC America (in the rare times which I have access to) shows very little of it.

You're entirely right on the terribleness that is downloading shows though. It makes you an immoral person, simple as that. And no one ask for logic here, Tom and I are right and you are not. I'll save my reasoning for my sports posts.