TV streaming

Buddingblonde

I am looking for recommendations for TV and Film streaming websites that dont involve downloading softwear or doing surveys to access content.

I usually use Surf the channel but most of the good quality content on there comes from Megavideo - this only lets you watch so much before it cuts off and you then have to wait another hour before you can continue your programme.

The programmes we tend to watch are american ones so Hulu and amazon are out as you can only seem to watch content on there if you are in the US.

Many thanks

PS What is the differenc between streaming and torrents - would I be better off with a torrent site? Do I need to download software?

pcombo

"PS What is the differenc between streaming and torrents"

Torrents you are actually downloading the files. Streaming is where your watching the content being played.

P.S not exactly the kinda posts you wanna be making on here lol, the negative comments will soon appear.

Buddingblonde

I am sure that there will be many neg comments - water off a duck's back but thanks for the warning!

Milarky

Buddingblonde wrote: »

PS What is the difference between streaming and torrents - would I be better off with a torrent site? Do I need to download software?

Actually the distinction between torrents (which just alludes to the speed of transfer of very large files) and streamed files is not that great. You can

1) Watch streaming files 'live' or

2) Save them to your PC (by use of an 'add-on' for your browser) and watch them later or

3) Do both - i.e. watch a currently downloading (but not complete) file from the start or

4) Download a large file 'randomly' (say 700 chunks each 512K) which you can't watch (practically) until you have the complete file - this is how a bit-torrent application (or 'client') is used

So the distinction between streaming and bit-torrent is actually the difference between being able to download segments from the start of the file on, and having to download it in no particular order. The reason why BT files are sent randomly like this is because this allows a faster distribution (for a given upload bandwidth) than streaming would allow. But 'commercial' streaming sites, in effect, have much higher 'upload' capacity than ordinary surfers (your 'ADSL' is split unequally between a high 'download' speed and a lower 'upload' one) so they overcome the lower efficiency of streaming by 'brute force'.

I believe there is also a form of 'torrent-streaming' (in effect, streaming from multiple sources) whereby files are uploaded and download in the necessary order to allow you to start viewing the 'torrent' intact as soon as it reaches you.

The best bit torrent client seems to be u torrent - which is actually distributed under bot that name and the orignal 'BitTorrent' designation. You'll need one of these on your PC plus access to a bit torrent site - Pirate Bay is still there.

Torrent files can be very large - and about twice the size of streaming files - hence part of the difference in quality. Streaming files use a 'Flash' video play already built into your browser for viewing directly but as I have said you can get 'add-ons' very easily which allow you to divert the streamed file to be saved on your PC. With a free player - like VLC from VideoLan - you should be able to open the file from where it being stored on your PC and watch it as a 'streamed' video. This is useful, I find, as you have access to the player's controls - allowing skipping forward, rowing back, resizing or aspect-ratio changes. Also because I have a 40GB monthly limit, using streamed files over most bit torrent files represents a significant reduction in bandwidth use.

Here's a handy website http://www.filestube.com/ I've just come across

It works like Google etc but just looks for files. You can specify many things - including which formats (.avi, .wmv etc) you are interested in. So there's no excuse for not being able to find what you are looking for quickly - or trying out different formats which best meet your situation. This is even better than using torrents since these are complete downloads (well, not 'rar' files!) so you can go straight to a DVD quality 'rip', start to download, open and play it and a copy will be placed on your PC! (It couldn't be much easier, really!)