The technology to effectively provide streaming video content over the Internet has come a long way since late 1990s. That is when the barriers of having enough horsepower and bandwidth in home PCs to support acceptable streaming video were broken. Providing worthwhile and compelling content that consumers will routinely incorporate into their media diet is the next hurdle for streaming video. Wi-FiTV is a streaming video portal that has taken the challenge by offering over 200 channels (I counted 209) of TV and some Web-only content from over 50 different countries. It also streams 50 audio-only channels of news and various musical genres from around the world. The moniker, Wi-FiTV, was chosen a few years ago in anticipation of streaming video content over widely available Wi-Fi Internet connections.
Wi-FiTV currently has a free 30-day trial that does not require a credit card. After your trial is over, prepaid yearly subscriptions are available for only 99 cents per month for a limited time. The first thing I noticed about the Wi-FiTV.com website was that the layout and the interface still seemed like it was in a quasi-fledgling stage of development. To view streaming video through the embedded player, you must have both Windows Media Player and Real Player installed, because all of the channels are not using one or the other. This may pose a slight inconvenience for some, but most Web-savvy viewers have both installed anyway. Next, I decided to do what came naturally. I started surfing through the channels to see what Wi-FiTV was all about.
There were channels from Albania, Pakistan, Serbia, Vietnam, the U.S., and the United Kingdom to name a few. Wi-FiTV serves up a variety of programming ranging from webcams aimed at barroom patrons, to live talk shows, and assorted music video channels. The quality of the content was inconsistent, which is to be expected to a certain degree, since Wi-FiTV is acting as a conduit to deliver content from wide range of sources from amateur, public access video to rebroadcast content from existing television stations. Some of the channels had all the clarity of a circa-1975 video of Super 8mm Bigfoot footage, while others were pretty clear. After sampling a couple dozen channels over the course of few weeks, I was able to find some gems in the bunch like:
Channel 25 - eaTV - EvolvingArtist.com (USA)- New music including a live broadcast.
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Article comments
1 - Tan The Man
Nice review. I've tried using free TV internet programs, but slowness impedes them all. Hopefully this doesn't suffer from bandwidth issues...
2 - Bliffle
The problem is finding good content worth watching. A few days ago I had the misfortune of spending a few days in a friends guest room where he has 180 cable channels: all bad. I see why people keep flipping the remote: I couldn't stop until I turned the whole bloody thing off.
I quit watching TV entirely a couple years ago after my own frustrating experience with cable. My wife only likes to watch movies, not TV.
But then I stumbled on Classic Arts Showcase and deutsche Wella TV on a local UHF, then bought a cheap Digital TV receiver to get rid of the snow and the scratchy audio. DTV was so pretty on the computer monitor I got a good big LCD for it, put in a new antenna for it and I was off to the races. I only have about 10 OTA DTV channels to watch, but 4 to 6 are public TV with PBS, etc., and limited commercials, so I can schedule a program and watch it thru then turn the TV off. Several of these feeds are HDTV also.
Great content. I almost never flip the channel. If two goodies are on at the same time I have a LG DVR to record one. Now I have 3 HDTV receivers, 2 large crisp LCDs, and a HDTV projector (which I just installed and now watch the Kirov "Firebird" across the entire width of the living room wall! Wow!).
If internet TV can approach this I'll try it, but maybe the bandwidth is too much for HDTV.
3 - the other man
I wouldnt pay for this, you can watch all of these channels for free on the internet without paying them. if you look around there are several websites that list all of links to watch these channels, such as: http://wwitv.com/
4 - Matt Largo
Other man,
The URL you provided leads to a laundry list of streaming video links. As I mentioned in the article, the development of a kind of social network is key to creating a compelling experience. Wi-FiTV offers a lot more than a laundry list of links.
5 - Wi-FiTV Sucks
Wi-FiTV is an extremely untrustworthy company that sends out fake/misleading press releases to encourage exposure.
It has an arrogant CEO and is involved in dodgy MLM schemes