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While the percentage of the population with a home Internet connection has shot up in Australia over the last decade, until the last year of two there have not been a lot of high-quality options for watching video footage online. This has changed rapidly in the just in the last year or two. This is easy-read guide explains what you can watch online, how to go about it and, for home computer users, how fast your Internet connection needs to be to make it worthwhile.
What you can watch online
The major TV networks may not like the fact but TV, as we know it, will be a thing of the past in no time at all. It’s early days yet and the pollsters are still scrabbling together the data so the figures for the numbers of Internet users who have shunned TV in the last year are not yet in but it is clear broadband is changing the way people spend their leisure time.
Many people talk about how great it is to be able to download your favourite shows (even if this is illegal) via file-sharing programmes such as E-mule, Soulseek or Limewire. But recently there has been a growth in websites and programs that allow streaming. Streaming means you can watch shows or clips without having to download the entire chunky file, which can takes days or even weeks depending on your connection.
Even if they have never visited them, most people with an interest in Internet video have at least heard of websites such as YouTube, Google Video or Daily Motion. These sites allow anyone to upload content, along with a few key search-words, for the whole world to see. Within moments your film or video can be broadcast to the world. Services that are still to be discovered by many, though, are other sites and programs that offer news, sports, movies and sitcoms.
Illegal content and downloads
The next hurdle providers and producers face will, of course, be the battle to control or retain copyright. Many “early adopters” of the technology are rabid illegal downloaders of copyrighted material. It’s a difficult to find a balance between healthy promotion, wide circulation and the protection of intellectual property. Just as offline books and music circulated online can be impacted by copyright issues, the same issues can affect TV and video. In brief – once it’s in the public domain anyone can use it and there’s not much that can be done to control the spread of your content online if it proves popular. For some producers of content this is a great way to make a name for yourself. For celebrities caught behaving badly this can be the source of major embarrassment. For artists it can compromise their offline opportunities if not handled carefully.
Clearly, one of the biggest battles yet to be fought on the Web is in the area of copyright.
Watching your favourite shows
Some websites, such as TV Links, have an exhaustive selection of drama, comedy, cartoon and film for viewers to choose from. Chances are one of your favourites shows is in their lists. It’s simple to access – just click on the link, and wait for the bar to fill up as you would with YouTube. With any broadband connection, this should happen fairly quickly.
Other software programs, such as the newly released Miro Player, can be downloaded to help you organise all of your video files, and also list all sites offering video, from high quality documentaries to “user-generated” funnies.
News and sport
If you are a news or sport junky, sites such as World Wide Internet Television (wwitv) or www.chooseandwatch.com are mighty handy. With a list of news channels from around the world, you can choose Fox News or, for an alternative viewpoint on world-affairs, English-language Iranian state TV! Other (legal) sites related to organisations such as SBS or BigPond also provide content free of charge.
Driven mainly by sports fans, downloadable programs such as Sopcast are causing major headaches for cable TV companies that pay large sums for the rights to broadcast events such as Premier League football or NBA basketball. You can by-pass the major providers by logging on to a channel or into a specific community and watch your favourite sport live on Chinese or South American TV.
How does it work? Users share the information downloaded while watching. There are some negatives to this – there can be a slight delay, lower quality, and the chance your broadcast may stutter at a crucial moment, (just as the ball crosses the line!) and, of course, you are breaking the law.
The best connection for video
If you plan to watch a great deal of video online, forget dial-up; broadband is the only way to go. While a download speed of 2000kbps could be considered a good minimum for watching clips, it is not essential: if you are patient, you can click on a link, press pause and leave it for a few minutes until it has completely downloaded. Some websites offer entire movies and they may require more patience. To get around that a super-fast Internet connection of 16,000kbps or more would make downloading movies a real breeze, but you can get by on lesser speeds.
As for the software required, this is minimal. If watching streaming content via a website most browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, will have the relevant plug-in installed. If not, there is usually a link for the correct piece of software.
