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How to Watch 4,500+ Channels in HD With No Satellite Dish and No Cable Bill
May 14th
If you’re on this page you’ve probably heard the hype surrounding satellite TV software and how it instantly transforms your PC or Mac into a “Super TV” letting you watch live NFL games, live news, movies, shows, and thousands of channels from all over the world… and how you can download the software for a small one-time fee and then never have to pay any recurring monthly charges… saving you big bucks on your entertainment bills…
Should you believe the hype? That’s exactly what we wanted to know, so we did the obvious best thing… our investigative team purchased and tested over a dozen popular TV softwares and evaluated each product based on a number of criteria such as overall quality, channels, ease of use, support, guarantee, bonuses, and affordability. Our results were mixed, but much better than expected. Some of these sites have developed quality products that provide a great deal of entertainment “bang for your buck”. The following page contains our detailed reviews and comparisons of the leading TV softwares on the market. Demo photos are included with each review.
If you have questions about any TV related website, feel free to contact us.
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StreamDirect.TV
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60 Day Money Back Guarantee |
 Live Demo Photo |
Visit Website |
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SatelliteDirect.com
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8 Week Money Back Guarantee |
 Live Demo Photo |
Visit Website |
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Satellite TV for PC 2010 Titanium |
60 Day Money Back Guarantee |
 Live Demo Photo |
Visit Website |
Is this legal? Despite how it sounds these products are in fact legal because the channels are being broadcast 24/7 on the global FTA (free to air) satellite network, which has always been free. It used to require having a satellite dish and receiver, but thanks to the Internet you can now stream everything over the web.
What can you watch? Depending on which software you get you can watch up to 4,500 channels of movies, local and international news, live sports (every sport), TV shows, music videos, world events, documentaries, special programming… it’s a lot more variety than what you’ll get from your local cable company. And much cheaper. There’s a small one-time fee of about $50 to download the software and that’s it. There are no monthly fees or subscriptions, and no special hardware needed, making it an attractive alternative to higher priced cable TV services.
The following section contains our detailed reviews of the leading TV softwares on the market. We’ve evaluated each product based on a number of criteria such as overall quality, ease of use, channels, support, affordability, etc.
StreamDirect.TV
Review: StreamDirect.TV is our top choice for watching TV online and it continues to exceed our expectations in every way. It does what it promises, allowing you to watch over 4,500 channels in high resolution. The interface is well designed and it just feels a bit more refined than the competition. It also has a few unique features:
1) Provides a search tool that allows you to find specific content quickly and avoid endless channel surfing.
2) Performs automatic channel updates when channels change or go off the air.
3) When you move your cursor over a channel name it gives you a pop-up text description of the channel. This is a huge time saver because the channel names don’t always make it obvious what they’re about.
Another nice thing is the speed at which channels appear on screen. They appear almost instantly, whereas the other softwares all have a 5 to 10 second lag when changing channels, which feels like a long time if you’re looking for something to watch.
Channels: 199 sports channels, 258 news channels, 385 tv show/movie channels… Then about 3,000 more in various categories like comedy, politics, music, kids, community, games, education, science, culture, lifestyle, shopping, cooking, business, travel, etc. You also get 82 live web-cams from famous places all over the world such as zoos, aquariums, beaches, clubs, museums, historical landmarks, etc.
Most importantly, the video and sound quality are excellent. The video feed is fast and most channels are in high resolution. Some are in full HD. Note: You need a high speed Internet connection such as DSL or cable in order to watch HD channels. Dial-up won’t work. The only small complaint we have with this software is the lack of documentation, or a manual. But the controls are easy enough to figure out, so you’ll probably become an expert within a few hours anyway.
At the time of this review (July 2010) StreamDirect.TV is on sale for $49.95 (one-time fee) which is 30% off. Highly recommended.
SatelliteDirect
Review: SatelliteDirect is another good piece of software for streaming TV on the Internet and it’s quite popular due to heavy marketing and a good looking website. The interface is well designed and like our #1 pick it comes with automatic channel updates.
The only real disappointment for us is that out of 3,641 channels it only comes with 220 English/American channels. Our #1 choice comes with over 1,500 English/American channels, so there’s really no comparison as far as how much entertainment you’ll get out of it.
Other than that this product works well and it may be a good choice for you if you speak several languages, or if you really enjoy foreign programming. But if you’re like us and you primarily want to watch English/American content you’re going to have a limited selection. Hopefully in a future update they’ll include MUCH more content for English speaking users.
Sat TV for PC 2010 Titanium
Review: Satellite TV for PC 2010 Titanium is another good product for watching live TV. The picture quality is great, the interface outperforms many of the softwares we tested, and it’s just as easy to use as our #1 and #2 choices. We just have a few complaints that prevent it from getting a higher rating:
1)It has a lot of “dead” channels in the menu, meaning that the channel list isn’t being updated when channels change or go off the air. This means it has significantly fewer channels than the 4,000 they’re claiming, and it can be a bit annoying if you’re channel surfing and you keep trying channels that don’t work.
2) Our other complaint is the $99 price tag. Yes, it’s still a better deal than paying for cable every month, but it doesn’t make any sense to pay $99 when StreamDirect is such a great product for 1/2 the price.
Final Summary:
If you want to watch TV online there are websites like hulu.com that will allow you to freely stream recent episodes of many popular tv shows, but that’s not watching live TV, it’s downloading old TV. If you want to watch actual live tv on your computer, such as live NFL games, other sporting events, live news, etc. you can download satellite TV software for a small one-time fee and you’ll have an excellent alternative to higher priced cable TV services. These solutions provide a large selection of channels from the FTA satellite network including content from over 80 countries. StreamDirect is our top choice because it looks great, works great, sets up in 2 minutes, and does it all for only $49.95… We still can’t believe how much entertainment it provides for less than one month of cable. It will be interesting to see what happens with the next generation of Internet TV solutions, which will probably include 100% high definition programming, optional premium channels, and a highly interactive TV/shopping experience.
NOTE: A lot of people have been asking us if they can set this software up to watch all these channels on their regular TV, instead of their computer. The answer is “yes” you just need the right cable to connect your computer to your TV. And the cable depends upon what video inputs you have on the back of your TV. If you do a little bit of research on this you can figure out what cable you need and find it on amazon.com for about $10.00
Internet Television: Are We Destined To Watch TV Online?
Jun 9th
In a word… Yes. When you take into consideration the various methods of watching live TV, it is obvious that Internet television products and services, such as satellite TV software, which enables you to watch TV online, will soon lead the pack in terms of quality, affordability, and options. Tech heads, media junkies, movie goers and the likes are already gearing up for the next generation of young geniuses to develop the next line of Internet television solutions. And for good reasons… First of all it is likely that in the very near future Internet TV will provide purely high definition programming. HD is already becoming the new standard as LCD and plasma TV prices fall within reach of the average consumer. And about half the stations available are already in high def. Another thing that will factor into this is how we connect to the Internet. Currently, most people use cable or DSL, but fiber optic infrastructures are planned, which will greatly increase bandwidth, providing extremely fast download speeds, ideal for streaming live HD Internet television. It’s likely that within a few years resolutions below 1920 x 1080 will be obsolete.
Internet television also provides a powerful new marketing medium. With live news and live sports comes live shopping… If you watch TV online, in front of your computer or laptop, the user experience can be highly interactive. For example, let’s say you’re watching live news and you see your favorite news anchor wearing an outfit you like. You say to yourself “I’ve gotta get that outfit.” But instead of just hoping you’ll piece it together one day, you move your mouse over the character on screen and within a few clicks… guess what? You just ordered the outfit he/she is wearing from Amazon. Or, let’s say you’re watching Lost on ABC, and Sawyer is eating pizza with Juliette. You click on the pizza, select a few options, click “buy now” and 25 minutes later guess who’s enjoying hot pizza? YOU. And maybe the charge for the pizza just shows up on your cable bill, making the whole checkout process ultra streamlined. Those are tiny examples out of endless business to consumer transaction possibilities. If the right people (developers) end up figuring all this out, Internet TV products will combine multiple emerging technologies and deliver a viewing/shopping experience like we’ve never seen.
The programs available now could already be considered state of the art, allowing you to stream thousands of channels which are being broadcast from various countries all over the globe right to your home computer or laptop. And because the stations are all free-to-air stations you can do this legally without paying for a subscription or entertainment package. It’s easy to see why these services, combined with the ability to watch TV online, are the future of television.
In my opinion, the greatest thing about being able to watch TV online is that it allows you to stay in tune with the media, information, entertainment, and programming you’ve grown accustomed to being plugged into, while simultaneously sitting at your computer and using it for productive tasks, even fairly intensive ones. For example I can be sitting in my reclining sofa chair with my laptop, doing my year end bookkeeping (using QuickBooks) which is normally quite grueling, and all the while I’m watching live NFL football games, or live news, in a small window on my desktop. Then when commercials come on I just minimize the TV window completely, or hit the mute button until the live soccer game I was “watching” comes back on. If the experience were comparable to watching cable TV wouldn’t you like to save the cost of your subscription? Why not just completely forget about using the normal TV and instead watch TV online all the time? Internet TV is a lot better than lounging in the den and having the big screen blaring from across the room. Plus, with Internet TV I don’t have a contract with the cable company, or any service provider for that matter. No contracts, no monthly bills, nothing to pay for… Just thousands of free channels a mouse click away.
