FREE TV Online- My Experience

As some people will remember, in an effort to stop wasting money on things I didn't really use much, I gave up my DirecTV (satellite). In my neck of the woods, we don't get any reception without either satellite or cable, so I'm relegated to watching movies on tape and disk, which isn't too bad, but sometimes I miss knowing what's happening on Wisteria Lane or what The Ghost Whisperer is up to.

So now the major networks, NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX are offering some of their full length shows online for free. GREAT! At least I thought so. So I decided to check it out.

I have DSL, the slower version, up to 768Mhz. This is much faster than dialup, but much, much slower than cable. It costs me $14.99 a month, which is why I don't have the 2Ghz DSL, which costs $39.99 a month. I'm beginning to think that is a mistake, but that's yet another hub.

First, I tried the free programs on NBC. It was an overall pleasant experience. No registration required, just pick the one you wanted to watch from a list of those with free episodes, and click. The website does the rest. The picture quality was great, and even on full screen, which was simple to obtain, the picture quality was good. There were very few pauses in the video, and the audio and video were in sync. NBC has always been my favorite station, and considering they are in partnership with Microsoft, it makes sense that their online video would be good. So I give NBC 4.0 stars, because there were some delays in the video along the way, and there were only four episodes available to watch, which doesn't let you really catch up to speed if you've not watched it awhile. Of course, not all shows are available, which sort of bummed me out, because I was hoping to catch some Law and Order, but alas, those being the most popular shows on NBC, you can't get them for free. Even so, I did watch a few episodes of "Medium", another favorite, with no commercial interruptions, and I'm thinking that with a faster connection, it would rate a 4.5 overall.

UPDATE: I did go back to NBC and watch "Lipstick Jungle". The overall quality as far as streaming without pauses was not as good, and there were many more commercials. I'd say there was a 30 minute commercial for every 10 minutes of show time. The problem was, it was "sponsored" by Allstate, so all the commercials were the same, or the same two anyway. Pretty annoying, but I can deal with it to be able to watch the show. I really like that series, btw.

3/31/08 - went back and watched some of the Heroes series. There was a commercial about every 5-7 minutes, which was very, very annoying. All the ads were for new movies coming out. One was for "21" and one was for that new movie about the Iraq war vets. I won't be going to see either one of those movies now. I wouldn't give a studio my money that would interrupt what should be a totally free experience with that sort of BS over and over again.

Next I tried CBS. Not quite a pleasant experience. First, you have to download software, not from their site, but from another site, to be able to watch the programs. That didn't take so long, maybe 10 minutes, but the program itself took 15 minutes to load, and it didn't want to work right at first. The video screen was all scrunched up on the right hand side of the screen, and there were no controls, no scroll bars, nothing visible to adjust this. There was no way to stop the program loading once it started, so I had to close the browser completely, which involved much clicking of the dreaded "X". It took about 3 minutes to even close the browser.

Once I actually got back into the site, I tried right clicking the program link and opening it in a new window, which at least brought up the screen with all its controls. I couldn't get full screen without updating my Flash to the latest version, which I did, but it did not recognize that Flash had been updated, so I still didn't get full screen to work. At first, the audio came on a full minute before the video did, leaving you a little bewildered when the video at last came on. This seemed to correct itself after updating the Flash, as well as the right clicking to get the screen, both of which I found strange, since it didn't seem to recognize that I had updated Flash in IE or Firefox when I tried to get a full screen.

Picture quality was not bad., but there were lots of pauses, many more than with NBC, so I'm attributing that to the network itself. It was like watching the show on a mini t.v. with a bad signal, which isn't quite good enough for me, considering all the hassle I had to go through to get to watch it at all.

Overall, I rated CBS a 3.0. They really need to correct that Flash problem, because watching full screen isn't an option for most people, it's a necessity.

ABC was by far the worst experience of the three. Once again, you have to download an outside program to watch the shows. This is a strange experience, because if you choose "run" like it says to do, it doesn't work. If you save it to your computer and install it, it installs but doesn't let you know when it's done, so you're just sitting there until you finally give up and try it out.

There are a lot of good shows, and a lot of back episodes of some of my favorites (Desperate Housewives is one). The problem is, after downloading the video program, I couldn't get the ABC programs to load. The interface is very confusing. I can't even describe it. There are three different places to pick which show to watch, and it doesn't give you an original air date, so you just have to guess which came first.

I first tried to make it work in Firefox. It immediately told me that I needed Flash 8 to make it work. Considering that I had just upgraded to the latest version of Flash 9, I just went to IE. Firefox seems to have an ongoing problem recognizing flash on your machine. They need to deal with that.

The first thing you get when you pick a program is a screen saying that you will have limited commercial interruptions (none of the prior two networks had commercials at all). The commercial will come on, but it doesn't automatically lead into the video when it ends, which you would logically think it would, so again, you're sitting there waiting for it to do something. I had to mess around with the scroll bars until I saw an 'x', which I clicked, and it took me to the actual video screen, which after 7 minutes (as I type this), is still attempting to load the program. This is my second attempt. The first time, I actually got some audio, but have never gotten video.

I'm not going to wait for this one. I'm just going to give it a -1 and be done with it.

Fox On Demand has some good and bad points. I didn't explore the possibilities very deeply, but it seems to me that you pretty much only get one show, the one they want you to see. Maybe it's the one from the current week, maybe not. I don't know that.

As for ease of use, it's extremely easy. No downloading anything. Just click here, click there, and you're in. There is a sort of spinning wheel effect, like a ferris wheel, that you have to use to pic the program you want to watch. It takes a minute to figure it out, but in short, if you hold the cursor close to the bottom, it slows it down and can even stop it so that you can choose the right program. There is no "full screen" per se, at least not a picture that covers the entire screen. It does get larger, but when it does, the video quality goes way down. There are times, even in the standard 4x6 screen, that the picture simply pixelates. Pretty annoying. After this pixelation occurs, the audio is out of sync with the video, and it never seems to get back in sync. I'll explore further to see exactly what options there are as to what shows to watch.

In conclusion, I'd say that if you have a newer, speedier PC with superspeed DSL or Cable, this might not be as bad an experience for you as it was for me. Of course, if I could afford those things, I wouldn't have to watch free online t.v., would I?

So if anyone wants to test this on a faster DSL or cable connection, please let us know the results.

Well, I have to say, I've always liked the USA network. I especially like them now. Their videos are, of course, mostly rerun shows, as that's what they specialize in showing. They have a few original series, but I didn't see them offering videos on any of them. Still, I spent an afternoon watching some random (their choices, not mine) Monk episodes, and I'll probably go back tomorrow and watch some of the Law and Order reruns. They're starting reruns of the complete 7th season of Law and Order Criminal Intent in June, so that's something to look forward to.

You can't full screen their videos, but the picture quality is good, and not so choppy as with the others, and better yet...no commercials, at least not on the rerun episodes of Monk I watched. Can't speak for the rest, but I'll update and let you know.

All in all, not a bad experience at all. Bravo, USA, for giving us what we want.