In our last exciting episode, Stan was gorging himself on the fruit of  free Internet television and when suddenly he realized…

There has to be more out there than just Hulu. So I saved Hulu as a favorite and started searching some more. The confusion continued but I persevered.

Since the Great Oracle Google  knows EVERYTHING, I just kept asking in slightly different ways and finally, came up with a ton video websites, all claiming to be “the best.” Being the skeptical fellow that I am, I had to find out for myself.

For weeks, each night, I  methodically checked out the claims of every site I came across. There ARE zillions of sites, some are great, some are not-so-great and some just flat-out stink. Some sites try to sell you a worthless piece of software just so you can watch a news story from Zimbabwe in a language you can’t understand. Others make you click through a thousand ads  before finally taking you to a “real” video site like Hulu. Huh? I could have just gone to Hulu in the first place!

There are so many sites that I had to create a list just to keep up with them all. Cable channels like A & E, the SyFy and Discovery channels. The familiar broadcast channels – ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. The plethora of made-for-internet channels like the aforementioned Hulu, NinjaVideo (my personal favorite) and Blinkx gave me far more choices than cable ever could. Now that I have most of them sorted out, I’m in television heaven!

A few nights ago while sitting back and enjoying the fruits of my labor, it dawned on me that I should pass on all this research. I realized there are tons of folks like me who’d love to dump their cable and start watching their favorite TV shows online. So, I’ve created a website with links and descriptions of the best sites I could find on the net.

It’s called Bnex TV – www.bnex.tv – it’s a dot TV, not a dot com. There you’ll find every useful site I ran across. Click on the site’s logo and you’ll be taken to the alphabetical listings of their available shows. There’s also a Help Page to guide you through a couple of the more complicated sites.

There are tons of video choices on the Internet, but those choices comes with a price to pay – confusion. If you’re a novice at Internet TV like I was, you may ask yourself “where do I even start?” You could do what I did and spend hours and hours with the Great Oracle Google, or save yourself a ton of time and visit Bnex.TV.

Believe me, looking for your favorite television show online can be like taking a road trip without a map. That’s where Bnex TV comes in. Think of it as your online GPS unit, a tool to help you navigate through the thousands of videos that are now available.

I’ll be adding more features like a your very own personalized TV guide that alerts you when a new episode of your favorite show is available. A forum to share your comments, plenty of Help Pages to guide you and I’m sure, a bunch of other stuff I haven’t even thought of yet.

Internet Television is somewhat in it’s infancy right now, there are very few “standards,” meaning the user needs to know a little more than just “Click Here” to enjoy all the choices and benefits. But with just a bit of education, soon, you too will be be gorging yourself on a smorgasbord of videos – all free for the watching.

So, goodbye cable. It’s been fun, but it’s time to move on.

In our last exciting episode, Stan had hooked up his computer to his TV and was ready to enjoy free Internet television when suddenly…

I realized I didn’t even know where to begin. What the heck do you search for – “IPTV?” (means Internet Protocol TeleVision) – “Internet Television?”  – “TV on the Net?” – “I’m looking for free TV so I can dump my cable?” THAT’S what’s confusing, trying to find a single website that has a listing of the available video on the net. I know of sites like YouTube, but I’m really not that interested in watching “amateur video.” Then I remembered that Hulu TV ad with Alex Baldwin. “Hulu, huh? Alrighty then, let’s give Hulu a try.” So I opened my browser and typed in Hulu.

I was very impressed. There are TONS of television shows and movies to graze on. I felt like the Blues Brothers when they stepped into the Church, the choir sang and the light of “God” shined down upon them. This was what I was looking for. So I began to enjoy some of the fruits of my labor. I watched the first 6 episodes of “Lost In Space,” a few of episodes of “Land of the Giants” and an episode of “Monk” from a couple of weeks ago. It’s not as simple as pressing a single button on a remote, you have to go through several mouse clicks before you actually start watching the show, but there it was, looking as good as cable and it’s FREE. (except for the cost of the Internet connection)

The blind hog had finally found an acorn and I wanted more! I wanted everything I can watch on cable plus some. So, I marked Hulu as a favorite and kept searching. That’s right cable company, I’ve made my first step toward your extinction. Like a starving cow that just found a lush field of grass, I began grazing and grazing and grazing and grazing…

“EDGE OF YOUR SEAT” MUSIC COMES UP: голова болит секс

ANNOUNCER BEGINS:

“Will Stan really be able to find more sites as good as Hulu?  Will he actually drive the cable company into extinction? Will he ever stop grazing?” голова болит секс

“Stay tuned for the next exciting episode!!!”

And by the way…

Happy Halloween!!!

With the economy in the tank right now many of us are trying to figure out ways to save money. And some of us are gazing at the cable box and thinking  “sacrificial lamb.” If you’re like me, you’re paying $50.00 plus per month for cable and lately, you’ve been hearing all this talk about how you can watch your favorite TV shows on the Internet, for FREE!!! Movies, sports, all sorts of entertainment choices are now available on the fabulous World Wide Web for no monthly fee. And they’re  all just a mouse click away. Being the inquisitive type I just had to know if all this talk was really true or just more “web hype.”

The first thing I needed to do was hook up a computer to my TV. That was fairly easy, I have a flat screen with a VGA input. I just plugged in my TV where my computer monitor had been.  But “inquiring minds have to know” and I found ways to connect my computer to ANY television. I have a real old one with only an “antenna” input and got it to work as well. Didn’t look as good as my flat panel, but it was there. Which brings me up to step 2. Being able to read the darn screen when I’m setting on my sofa 15 feet away from my television. The desktop icons were about the size pin heads and the text looked like little white blobs from that far away. Plus, I had to use extension cables for my keyboard and mouse if I wanted to use it from the sofa.

So, I  scooted a chair close to the TV and spent a least a couple of hours a night for about a week tweaking the desktop so it could be clearly seen from my sofa. The Windows Desktop has tons of settings that allows you to do this if you know how to find them. Microsoft really doesn’t want you monkeying around too much with the Desktop’s appearance, but having dissected the Windows Operating System as many times as I have, I knew what switches to throw to make the icons as big as a grapefruit and the text clearly readable from my sofa. There, that’s better. But I’m still tethered to the the computer with the keyboard and mouse cables. Thank GOD for wireless devices. For about $40.00 I purchased a wireless set. Now,  finally,  I’m on the sofa and ready to start surfing FREE TV!!! That’s when the confusion began.

What’s a Shockwave Plug-In??? Seems I can’t watch doodley without it. That’s because browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox don’t actually play the video. They’re kind of like the picture frame, the picture is played by the browser’s Shockwave Plug-In, an additional program created by Adobe that you have to download and install. A bunch of website and nearly all Internet TV stations use this program.  I’ll bet most of you reading this have already installed Adobe’s Shockwave into whatever browser you’re using. But there is a little known fact about the Shockwave player that definitely affects performance when watching video on the web. Not all Shockwave Plug-In’s are created equal. The Plug-In created for Microsoft is a slightly different program than the ones made for all other browsers like Firefox, Google Chrome, Oprah and all others. Internet Explorer gets the “special” Shockwave player which uses about 30% less CPU power than any other browser. And CPU power is the KEY ingredient in being able to watch smooth, non-jerky video over the Internet. голова болит секс

I was a bit dismayed because personally, I’m a Firefox fan and always referred to Internet Explorer as Internet Exploder as the early versions seem to always crash. I was determined to use Firefox and not Explorer until I tested this theory for myself. But sure enough, the article was right. All I had to do was pull up the task manager, which registers CPU usage and note the difference. Engage Firefox and the useage jumps up to over 90% in full screen. Engage Internet Explorer on the exact same website playing the exact same video, and the usage jumps to only 50%. I tried and tried to streamline Firefox to not gobble up as much power as it does, but no matter what I did, Explorer 8 always outperformed all other browsers by at least 30%, more on browsers like the one in Real Player. The CPU usage goes off the scale when you engage that bad boy. But that’s okay, I can manage with Explorer. Version 8 is really fast and almost as configurable as Firefox.

So, here I am with a computer I can see from across the room without being cabled to it and the fastest browser, fully equipped with the best Plug-In available. The cable company can kiss my grits because I’m about to start enjoying FREE TV over the Internet!!!

I clicked on the Explorer icon, typed in “Internet Television” and began my search. The confusion only intensified.

“EDGE OF YOUR SEAT” MUSIC COMES UP: голова болит секс

ANNOUNCER BEGINS:

“Will Stan really be able to sift through his confusion and watch television for free over the Internet? Will the cheap computer he put together from spare parts hold up under the enormous strain of Hi-Definition video? Will the cable company actually kiss his posterior?” голова болит секс

“Stay tuned for the next exciting episode!!!”