Most good nerds agree that television is an antiquated way of consuming content. Aside from real-time events like news and sports, TV’s purpose is to shovel pre-recorded content that can easily be had from other places for a lesser price. If you’re tired of being at the mercy of the tube or are looking to sack your cable bill, have a seat and take a peek at some of these beauties that just may beat the blues.
Hulu Desktop Beta
Released just this week, Hulu Desktop brings Hulu’s ever-expanding library of multimedia straight to your desktop. Though the program’s occasional hangs and crashes are a sharp reminder of beta status, it’s hard to argue with a slick UI that puts Hulu’s vast repository of movies and shows right at your fingertips.
As a bonus, the program has special support for remote controls found with many HTPCs:
Which remote controls work with Hulu Desktop?
Hulu Desktop will work with Apple and Windows Media Center remotes. Remotes that are compatible with Windows XP and Vista can be purchases at most electronics retailers.
Joost Desktop
Perhaps you’ve never heard of Joost, but it was one of the first experiments with IPTV, and predates Hulu by more than a year. Joost’s formative years were spent using a technology dubbed P2PTV which harnessed BitTorrent-like meshing to deliver the content to users all over the globe. After Hulu’s in-browser experience arrived, however, Joost followed suit by canning the desktop client and moving their content onto the web.
Now that savvy internet users are rejecting their cable bill in increasing numbers, the trend is slowly reversing to place emphasis on a desktop client once again. Hitching a ride on the bleeding edge of this new trend, developer Paul Yanez has developed the Joost Media Player which puts Joost back on the desktop where it was born.
Developed in Adobe AIR, JMP offers a TV guide, Twitter integration, picture-in-picture, and full screen support for both the client and videos. In this way, Joost could easily be piped to a TV to serve as the centerpiece for your viewing experience.
Image courtesy of Paul Yanez Labs
Streaming Torrents
Though not as on-demand as other IPTV solutions, torrent streaming offers unmatched quality and the most immediate access to new content.
Two programs have stepped forward to offer a torrent streaming experience: The first is Tribler, a more feature-filled application that may err on the side of bloat, and the second is StreamTorrent, a minimalist experience that excels only at streaming torrents.
As we mentioned, torrent streaming offers the best quality of any solution offered here, but it’s also the most user-driven. Individuals looking to experience the quality that torrents have to offer must have access to well-seeded material and the skill to identify good torrents from the bad.
Image courtesy of StreamTorrent
Dim the lights, start the show
Telling the cable company to take a hike has never been an easier proposition. The abundance of streaming media options across a wide variety of content all but guarantee that you can keep that TV occupied for months to come. Whether you’re seeking a traditional TV guide-style experience or DVD-like quality, there are options to suit any user with any level of patience. What are you waiting for? Stop channel surfing and watch the content you want at the price you love: Free.
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