Thursday, February 25, 2010

How Can I Ditch Cable and Watch My TV Shows and Movies Online?

Join the club! Some of us at Lifehacker HQ have already left or are ready to leave the cable company for 24/7 live TV streaming, too. We get this question all the time, and we've examined ditching the monthly bill in favor of watching programs online occasionally in the past, and we've also looked at ways to get your TV fix with apps like Boxee and Hulu, plus there are cool set-top devices like Roku and TiVo, but this is a good opportunity to get exhaustive. There are so many great options for catching a show here or there, but can you rely on them to replicate the cable TV experience? Well, yes and no.

If you're going to unplug from the cable company, prepare to exercise some patience when it comes to watching your favorite shows as soon as they air—it can take anywhere from a day to a week for them to appear online. Also, be ready to do some digging around to find who's streaming special events, sports, and other programming outside of the drama/sitcom variety. Let's take a look at ways to find certain types of programming without relying on your cable company.

# Clicker – Bookmark this site to help you figure out where your favorite shows are airing around the internet. It combs through what's available on Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming video sites, and is searchable by show or topic.
# Hulu – This video streaming service offers the five most recent episodes of dozens of many of the most-watched shows on television. Episodes are available for 30 days after their air date, so this is a great way to catch up on any shows you've missed. It's also full of full seasons of older TV shows
# CBS – Episodes from lots of current programming, as well as some oldies but goodies (MacGyver!)
# NBC – Check out new episodes of current primetime, daytime, and late night programming, and some original online-only series like Office parody show Ctrl.
# ABC – Episodes of current shows, including daytime programming and archives of specials like the American Music Awards
(more...)

Read more: Lifehacker

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