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Istream TV offers a high selection of channels for under 30 dollars. It has some well thought out features but is slightly let down by some clumsy ideas and the ads on the main interface.
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PRODUCT SCORE
68% |
| Date reviewed: | 27th July 2006 |
| Product Name & Link | iStream TV |
| Price | $29.95 |
| Number of channels | 1100+ |
| What does this software do? | I-Stream TV lets you watch TV on any desktop or laptop computer without any additional hardware. After installing and running it you get a basic interface listing many local, national and international TV stations you can watch. Clicking TV stations you like the sound of opens them up in a video player and you can then watch and listen to the station. |
| Buying notes | After the one-page purchase page (see who am I buying from) I was taken to a pretty straight forward download page. Surprisingly, this file weighed in under a megabyte in file size (a 10th of the size of some other products). While this has nothing to do with the quality of a tool, I was thinking wow - I wonder if it will really do anything at that size? |
| First impressions | Once it was installed - guess what? I ran it, like an excited little kid who's just bought a new action man outfit - or whatever kids buy these days. Anyway. The interface looks like a very simple webpage. It's actually pretty ugly and doesn't get you that excited. I'm guessing this IS actually a webpage with the browsing buttons removed. |
| What I liked | Large number of stations
I clicked on the UK section - my home! And was really pleased with the selection of stations available to watch here. The software seems to have a lot of channels that other packages don't have. Mainly my much loved BBC channels, ITV channels and so on. Descriptions of each channel And there's a great little text description of what each channel has on it. eg. "News from the East Midlands'. This is something that the other packages need to catch up on. Especially for channels where it's not clear from the name what's on them. It's not essential but it's a really helpful feature. Video sizes listed Another thing that's really cool is that the streams size (for more help on this, see this article) is clearly shown as 300k, 46k and so on. Now the smaller streams look as you'd imagine - grainy and pretty awful. Thankfully most (around 90% of the channels) are in a really high quality that looks crisp and is a pleasure to watch. |
| What I didn't like | Ads on the main interface
One thing I didn't really like was the strip of adverts down the right hand side of the page. Now, this IS just the channel select page, so it's no biggie. I guess the reason this package is a little cheaper is that they're supporting it with adverts. OK, so let's move on and see what the channels are like. After all, that's the important part! Doesn't fit on my 800 x 600 monitor Down the left of the screen is your list of channels. It's pretty extensive and runs from Albania down to...; well actually I have problem seeing what the last country is. The reason being that the display window does not fit on my screen. So I can't see anything below 'Vatican city'. So far I'm not feeling the love for this little tool. Launches webpages when you click stations A minor niggle was that when I clicked some stations, it launched the media player and started playing the video, but it also opened a webpage too. The webpage wasn't a pop-up or a series of ads though. If you launch a BBC news video, it will also launch the BBC website. Not a huge pain but not great either. |
| Strengths |
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| Weaknesses |
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| The verdict | So, what's the verdict?
On the whole this is a decent tool for watching TV on your PC. It's a shame they didn't iron out a few problems like the ads around the main window, the pink-from-hell look, or the non-scrolling window. But at the same time it does have those time-saving descriptions of the channels, a good selection to watch, and the other benefits I've mentioned. |
| Refund details | ClickBank offer a complete 8 week refund for this product if you decide it's not for you. Full details are included in the email confirmation you'll receive after purchasing the software. |
Click Here To Order I-Stream TV
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