#3)- Finally we are getting to completely watchable television online. CBS launched its Innertube a while ago, and at the time it posted mostly failed pilots and craptacular made for internet shows. The navigation was awkward and froze an awful lot. Now about a year-ish later and Innertube has come along way and now is one of three online networks that are watchable. Once you find your way to the main Innertube page, you may have to click through a few pages to find the show you want but once you do, all the hard stuff is done. The show features an ad at the top and a nice quick load. throughout the show, they do take commercial breaks that you can't skip through, but they average about 15 seconds which I consider completely fair for the online video on demand service. One fairly large complaint to innertube...I'm using Firefox rather than Safari or Explorer to view Innertube and the window controls don't work properly. I can't pause, fast forward or rewind so when the boss comes around I either miss a few minutes of the show or have to start all over. Also, I can't jump to full screen so I'm stuck with 1/5 screen size which while watchable, isn't nearly as good as full. That aside, Innertube does provide a very quick load. Also, here's a tip, be sure to look for the Innertube logo and click on that to jump to the shows you want to see otherwise you may get stuck watching the terrible original content cbs is putting on while they try to figure out what to do with online programming.

#2) - abc online viewing comes oh so close to perfection, particularly considering the relatively newness of the complete-show-available-online-service thingy. The very top of the main abc.com page clearly marks "watch last nights episode online now." Brilliant! Unlike other places such as MTV or even CBS which requires a little digging to find it, ABC is one click away from the video section. It's also super easy to navigate and find what you're looking for. When I clicked on THE NINE on the main page, it took me to some page with their 7 one hour drama's they offer clearly labeled by name and photo. abc.com has a relatively easy to navigate scroll menu. Simply, click on the show you want, sit through a 5 second ad for Verizon and then watch a nice 16:9 scale viewing of your fav show. It takes up about 1/8 screen. Easy to fast forward and rewind using a flash scroll bar. This episode of The Nine has 3 commercial interruptions of about 15 seconds each (though they take a little long to load into and out of) and you are prompted to "Click to continue" so if you walk away during the lame ad, you control when you return to the program and don't miss anything. Nice little feature. Once you sit through a commercial once, if you scroll back to a part before the commercial, when the commercial break SHOULD come it doesn't. My advice is fast forward to the commercials right away, watch them all right off the bat, then go back to the beginning and enjoy the show commercial free. They get eyeballs on their ads, and you get to watch the show you like with out a commercial interruption. It's a fair trade. Also, you can blow up the size of viewing to about 1/3 the screen size with total ease, good resolution, no sticking or pausing.

#1) - Fox uses Myspace to host their video and just edges out abc for the top spot for online viewing. To find the show I wanted to get caught up with this week, I just went to myspace.com and kept hitting refresh until the little ad came up that read "JUSTICE : catch the all new series online now." I clicked on that BAM I'm watching Justice. Better yet, I'm watching it nearly commercial free. One 20 - 30 second ad at the top of the show, then nothing for the rest of the clear crisp viewing. The size was about 1/9 screen which was such that the Myspace ads were on the page through out the screening but by clicking the "screen size" button, it quickly jumped to about ½ the screen incredible resolution, no ads sans one tiny Burger King logo atop the screen which I didn't even notice until I went back to look at it again for the sake of this article and no lagging (unless someone sends me an AIM then it does freeze up a little bit) Note to self: turn off AIM while watching TV...you don't want interruptions during the intimacy of TV watching anyway.

So there it is. 2006 best and worst places for online TV viewing. I'm hoping by this time 2007 it'll all be a wash and each major network and hopefully some cable ones will all have free, limited commercials, quick loads, large picture, great resolution internet television video on demand. Here's to hoping.

Posted by madeyoulaugh on October 26, 2006 11:22 AM