Computer Based TV and Movie viewing and how legal is it?
Date: Thursday December 18, 2008Posted in: Computer IT, Money making, Technology, Windows XP, legal stuff
I recently lost cable TV service in my gated community and neighborhood due to a contract issue, which our association did not renew. So now I was only given the option to contract my own satellite TV service. Well after finding prices, I found a slightly better deal with DirectTV, but that was only my opinion because they only had me to sign up for 18 months in order to get the free installation and some sign up perks as opposed to the 24 month obligation that Dish Network offers.
The reason I am against contracts in because I feel that there may be an upcoming event where we can get TV legally from the internet. I know that there are some sites that claim that this exists today, but I am not sure if they are being totally honest. It seems what they do is they host a few servers and have their cable or satellite tv provider signal shared across the internet. Then they try to sell you some software that helps you to cache the steaming video and then play it on your computer.
Well I know I can watch TV on my compter via a few sites like Hulu.com or movies on watch-movies.net. also I can download free software like TVUplayer. But is any of this legal. I also found that I can install a free plug-in in Mozilla called Sothink SWF catcher and this lets me save the movies and TV shows to my Hardrive. Now I still wonder if this is legal, so I have not done this in any major form outside of a simple test. It works good, but I do not want to get a visit from some Fed agents if this illegal. I do not want to be considered a bootleg video producer either. I only want to watch TV in my own house.
So I guess my question is: Is it legal to save these TV shows and movies to my Hard drive just to be able to watch a movie or show without buffering? And then watch them in my own house as long as I don’t make copies on DVD or distribute them. And if I do this is this an alternative to Cable or Satellite?
The one problem with this besides legal concerns is this: Even if it turns out that Comcast, Directv or DishNetwork offer this service legally, like I think Netflix already does, how do we get the Image onto out larger 50 inch Plasma and LCD TV screens.
Yes you can use a long VGA cable, but how good is the Picture and you still will have to have your PC fairly close to your TV and most people do not keep their PC in their living room, or at least not close to the TV. So I hear you can buy a box called Hauppauge Media MVP which let you network your computer with this box that even has a remote control and it gets the media from your computers Harddrive and displays it on your TV. So now you can hide this box under or behind your TV and the only think you need to run is a network patch cable. Oh and now I hear that they make wireless version too. They also make wireless VGA transmitters and receivers too. But who makes an all in one box that is as small as a cable box but with the power of a laptop computer running windows media center? Will this technolgy become an alternative to Satellite and Cable TV in the next 18 months even if I have to pay, I think it will be cheaper.
Please let me know if anyone has had experience with these programs or technology.
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Comment by paul on April 10th, 2009 @ 12:52 pm