Wednesday, December 24, 2008

What Is Free TV PC?

By Jed Elaine

According to a recent report on TV viewership data gathered by NBC (NY Times, October 17, 2008), free Internet streaming is the most popular alternative to traditional television, accounting for roughly a quarter of total viewing based on field surveys of their TV episodes. Aside from streaming, paid downloads, VOD (video on demand) and mobile viewing were also assessed but their numbers were insignificant at best. The impressive amount of Internet streaming has indeed cast the writing on the wall for free TV on PC.

To a great extent, our daily life is already based on the internet. From shopping to public enquiry and personal messaging to office communication, internet is deeply entrenched in us, enrolling the major portion of American society. It's only fitting then that Internet TV should flourish, especially now that accelerated advancement of technology and infrastructure have long more than overcome the initial constraints and setbacks experienced by the industry in its early years.

Different kinds of television are distributed over the internet nowadays and the few most notable ones are Internet TV (ITV), Internet Protocol TV (IPTV), Broadband TV and User Generated Content TV (UGC TV). To broadly distinguish among themselves; ITV is free open-format video streaming, IPTV is closed and usually require set-top boxes governed under pay-per-view or subscription structure, Broadband TV is much like ITV with extended real-time interactive capabilities such as messaging, on-demand media, images and UGC TV are basically free-style individual short clips such as the immensely popular YouTube.

There are obvious benefits to be found in Internet TV for both the programming providers and viewers. Viewership is a key factor. It's on this account that programming providers are drawn. The carrot for them would be the potential advertising revenue or other similar agendas. On top of it, entry and set-up is as simplistic as it gets. Viewers won't quarrel with Internet TV either. It's free and it rocks.

Having TV on PC is not only practical, it is also logical. Considering the occupation of time by each separately in modern lifestyle, it's arguably synergistic to have them in a two-in-one set-up. Not that the required infrastructure and other necessities are not already in place anyway, exception is a home nowadays in the first and developing world without a PC hooked up to broadband internet.

Having that said, the sheer volume and choice of raw free TV on PC can be overwhelming but the solution to this have been quick to emerge. How else but ? Since the television programming is viewed through the PC, it's almost automatic that computer software program would be employed to control and organize the access, download and watching of TV on PC. There is a handful of proprietary software retailing on the net that do an excellent job of it and as free TV on PC evolve, these software would only get better.

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