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As many of us look to stretch our dollar a bit further our
money spent on entertainment is often cut. However, entertainment is a
good way to relieve stress and get a quick break from the real world.
Increasingly, the fee paid for an internet connection is offering a
bigger return on the entertainment dollar. Improved connection speeds
have created a mushroom of online content that allows users to watch
streaming news broadcasts, missed TV shows, webisodes, viral videos
(i.e. YouTube), free online games (and competitions), blogs and chat
rooms - to name a few. Everywhere you turn, everyone is trying to get
their movie, TV show, 15 minutes all noticed on the web. Television
alone has morphed from episode summaries and casting lists on a single
webpage to deluxe sites with missed episodes online, behind the scenes
footage, games, screensavers, additional back stories and character
development, and much more. So who is leading the pack with the best
sites and content? Who is side-stepping the pack altogether? You might
be surprised! |
PC to TV or TV to PC?
Considering the
competition for your entertainment dollars, it should be no surprise
then that many TV's offer WiFi connection to your computer to make
certain you can enjoy all these extra goodies from the comfort of
your couch. However, some computers are also pushing their new
models of All-in-Ones aimed at being one-stop entertainment
centers. These new computers are offering bigger and better viewing
screens, more compact CPUs and easy plug and play for cameras, music
players (iPod, Zune, etc.), and much more. Depending on your budget
and your pocket book, there are some wonderful choices on the market
already.
TVs becoming PCs:
Allio All In One
LCD HDTV PC
http://www.alliotv.com/
PCs becoming TVs:
Averatec
All-In-One PC D1000 Series
http://www.shopaveratec.com/
Dell XPS One
http://www.dell.com/
iMac
http://www.apple.com/imac/
Lenovo Idea Center
A Series
http://shop.lenovo.com/
Sony VAIO JS, LV &
RT
http://www.sonystyle.com/
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The
Usual Suspects
Below is our ranking of the major broadcasting stations that are easiest to use
and include extra online content.
- NBC.com
http://www.nbc.com/
NBC has a slick and clean menu and you can easily find episodes of
your favorite shows. A great plus is that you can watch a whole
season if you got lost a while back and need to catch up.
Also, you don't have to watch the
show the same week it originally airs. Videos load quickly and offer chapter selection
to jump where you left off or skim through with
ease.
- ABC.com
http://abc.go.com/
The website is clean and easy to navigate. A big disappointment
is that
not only does the user have to sign an agreement but then download a special
plug in just to watch online episodes. The entire site has
a much more proprietary feel to it. However, they did redeem
themselves a bit by allowing access to episodes from previous
seasons for one of their most popular (and confusing) shows
'LOST.'
- CBS.com
http://www.cbs.com/
CBS has a fairly easy menu. The best is to go by show as viewing
directly by video is a bit more messy and makes it harder to find past
episodes. The option to watch TV and chat at the same time is slow
to load (I gave up after two minutes of the loading icon spinning).
Video without chat loads quickly and is just as fast as the other
stations. Plenty of content about shows but the webpages
have an older point-and-click
menu that takes a bit longer to navigate. There wasn't a lot of
clarity in the order of episodes if you were trying to catch up for
the season.
- FOX.com
http://www.fox.com/
A slick moving website that is easy to navigate. However, FOX
allows access to fewer full episodes then the other stations.
The individual show websites offer a lot of extras but are not as
clear to navigate.
Cable Networks
So if you don't subscribe to cable, who gives you the best online?
- Discovery Communications Group
Discovery Channel -
http://dsc.discovery.com/ | The Learning Channel -
http://tlc.discovery.com/
Animal Planet -
http://animal.discovery.com/ | Science Channel -
http://science.discovery.com/
This family of websites has a similar menu and limited selection of full episodes like FOX.
However, the fact that current shows with new content is available
is a plus compared to other cable stations. Overall, a great way to get highlights of what
you're missing for chats around the water cooler. Also, the extra
games are a nice touch.
- Comedy Central
http://www.comedycentral.com/
Full episodes are available for most shows. The individual shows do keep
separate URLs which made it a little harder to navigate back to
Comedy Central. However, all offered complete sites with extra
content.
- Disney TV
http://disney.go.com/index
This site has a slick design and offers plenty of content including
games and fan pages for their most popular shows. One negative is
there is almost too much content. Many 'teaser' videos play
when the user enters a new page without being selected. Although some full
episodes are available online, they are not necessarily in
discernable order.
- Nickelodeon
http://www.nick.com
Plenty of fun games and video bites for kids. Like Disney, there is
background content that loads as soon as you enter a page. The
pages are busy and harder to find content.
- A&E TV
http://www.aetv.com/
Not the easiest navigation at first. However, more episodes and
clips of episodes are offered then on some comparable cable sites.
- USA Network
http://www.usanetwork.com/
A couple to a handful of episodes available of USA original shows.
Some are available without commercial interruption which is a nice
touch. However, not all series offer episodes for online viewing.
- Bravo
http://www.bravotv.com/
Some behind the scene information and recaps. Videos are offered
with some full episodes. However, the navigation of videos is not
user friendly and is geared more towards a fan who knows what they
are looking for on the channel.
- TBS.com
http://www.tbs.com/
Again a required download of a plug-in before being able to view videos. Basically a
collection of a few variety shows and reruns. There is not access
to the movies, only their schedule.
A
Brand New World
Sites without a presence on television but offering television/movie
entertainment.
-
 TV.com
http://www.tv.com/
There is definitely more content on this website then some of its
competitors. This site has a larger variety of shows and even
news broadcasts are easy to search and view here. TV.com offers an easier navigation if you want to
find information and summaries of a particular television show.
However, the video interface is not as friendly.
- Hulu.com
http://www.hulu.com/
Hulu offers episodes of series from all different TV channels. Episodes are
separated by genre rather than channel, but an easy search will help
you find your favorite quickly. Interestingly, some episodes will
load directly from Hulu whereas others will take you to the home website
making Hulu act more like a search engine. An added plus are the movies.
Many of your re-run favorites from Sunday afternoon can be found
here. Load time is good, even for full movies.
- Boxee
http://www.boxee.tv/
This is a free membership website that dose require users to
download their program. It checks all your media on your
computer and then creates a
one stop area for everything from photos to music. With an open
source code it is intended to be manipulated by users so they can
add user generated
content. However, it is not really ready for all computer systems
at this time and was overall frustrating to install.
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