It's time to get REAL! :-) In this short article I'm going to talk about some of the current limitations of PC TV software. Don't believe all the sales hype on the product homepages. Get the real information here.
Video Quality
If you think about how early Internet videos looked (they were about the size of a postage stamp and really GRAINY) things have come a long way. And we can expect better and better quality video as time goes by. That said, Internet Video - which is what PC TV software uses - is still not exactly DVD quality. It's very watchable, even at full screen, but it's important to be realistic about video quality. If you've seen movies at YouTube.com, then that's the kind of thing you can expect.
Programming information
Because the channels are from literally just about every Country you can think of, there's not exactly a TV guide that you can buy that covers them all. If there were it would probably be the size of the Sears Tower! ;-) One thing the software programs need to start doing is incorporating some way to let people know which stations are showing what. Of course this is a very difficult job.
At the moment, I have a series of favourite channels I like to check out regularly. Another thing you can do is to search on Google (or your favourite search engine) for the channel name you're interested in and see if they have a homepage with a schedule.
Organizing your channels
One of the things that is lacking in the PC sat TV market at the moment is a really good way to manage channels. This includes ways to search them, sort them, and find stations that you're really interested in. None of the software I've tested so far has had a simple 'search' feature for example. While searching through long lists of channels is a lot of fun, we need more ways to organize and manage them.
UPDATE: I wrote the above before I'd tested out a tool called Online TV Network - that does in fact offer several great ways to organize, sort and find channels you are interested in. As well as a way to add a favorite so you can find them again quickly.
Channel limits
Don't buy a PC sat TV program expecting to find every single channel there in the world on there. That's just not possible. While you are getting around 3000 stations on some tools, you're never going to find one tool at the moment that has EVERY station listed on it.
Where's MTV, CNN, Fox Sky one?
Despite what's hinted at on some of the PC TV products sales pages on the web, you don't get access to every satellite and cable channel that you do with the Dish Network, Sky TV and others. I think many people make the mistake of expecting all the big name stations to be available for free. They are not. But in each genre you'll find similar stations for sports, music - whatever you're interested in.
The flip side of the coin is that you will also find stations that are not available on cable, Sky TV or any other 'real' satellite systems you can buy. Really interesting niche stations for interests like cycling, learning and hard to find business news.
While I couldn't find MTV, there were stacks of channels exactly like it. Don't worry. You'll find a lot of great stuff you want to watch.
Should be an interesting ride
OK so enough of the negative points. If you get one of the satellite TV products for your PC, you're going to have a great time - even right now. But things are going to get a lot better. You can expect video quality to improve and the tools we use to watch Satellite channels get a lot better in the coming years. Get ready - this is going to be a hell of a ride.
If you think about how early Internet videos looked (they were about the size of a postage stamp and really GRAINY) things have come a long way. And we can expect better and better quality video as time goes by. That said, Internet Video - which is what PC TV software uses - is still not exactly DVD quality. It's very watchable, even at full screen, but it's important to be realistic about video quality. If you've seen movies at YouTube.com, then that's the kind of thing you can expect.
Programming information
Because the channels are from literally just about every Country you can think of, there's not exactly a TV guide that you can buy that covers them all. If there were it would probably be the size of the Sears Tower! ;-) One thing the software programs need to start doing is incorporating some way to let people know which stations are showing what. Of course this is a very difficult job.
At the moment, I have a series of favourite channels I like to check out regularly. Another thing you can do is to search on Google (or your favourite search engine) for the channel name you're interested in and see if they have a homepage with a schedule.
Organizing your channels
One of the things that is lacking in the PC sat TV market at the moment is a really good way to manage channels. This includes ways to search them, sort them, and find stations that you're really interested in. None of the software I've tested so far has had a simple 'search' feature for example. While searching through long lists of channels is a lot of fun, we need more ways to organize and manage them.
UPDATE: I wrote the above before I'd tested out a tool called Online TV Network - that does in fact offer several great ways to organize, sort and find channels you are interested in. As well as a way to add a favorite so you can find them again quickly.
Channel limits
Don't buy a PC sat TV program expecting to find every single channel there in the world on there. That's just not possible. While you are getting around 3000 stations on some tools, you're never going to find one tool at the moment that has EVERY station listed on it.
Where's MTV, CNN, Fox Sky one?
Despite what's hinted at on some of the PC TV products sales pages on the web, you don't get access to every satellite and cable channel that you do with the Dish Network, Sky TV and others. I think many people make the mistake of expecting all the big name stations to be available for free. They are not. But in each genre you'll find similar stations for sports, music - whatever you're interested in.
The flip side of the coin is that you will also find stations that are not available on cable, Sky TV or any other 'real' satellite systems you can buy. Really interesting niche stations for interests like cycling, learning and hard to find business news.
While I couldn't find MTV, there were stacks of channels exactly like it. Don't worry. You'll find a lot of great stuff you want to watch.
Should be an interesting ride
OK so enough of the negative points. If you get one of the satellite TV products for your PC, you're going to have a great time - even right now. But things are going to get a lot better. You can expect video quality to improve and the tools we use to watch Satellite channels get a lot better in the coming years. Get ready - this is going to be a hell of a ride.
