Online TV - The Crystal Angel Fashion and Design Magazine - December / January 2009 - Holiday Issue - Crystal Angel Fashion and Design - The Premier Fashion and Design Magazine for Moove.com

Winter has arrived. Snuggle up by the fire, have some hot cocoa and enjoy online TV

When things were all glitter and sunshine before the great recession started making days a bit harder for Avatars and Humans alike, having 500 channels of entertainment seemed like a gimme. It was like having a car or a phone.
The cable companies and Direct TV and Dish and all of them knew that as long as jobs were plentiful, credit cards were easy to get and Hollywood was willing to make total junk to fill the 500 channels - well, they could get you hooked.
We have all heard the commercial...$29.99 a month for 200 channels...sign up a friend and get $50.00, sign up two friends and get a new car, with three friends you can run the company.....blah, blah, blah. You know what? I bet there are maybe 3 people in the whole United States who pay the $29.99. The whole thing is set up to make you pay more and more.

According to MSNBC.com, in 2005, the average cable bill every month was $43.04 per household and that was almost 4 years ago. Now, if you are reading this, you are an Internet user. Ask youself, "how much do you really watch TV?" Everything you can get on TV, you can get on the Internet. Now, lets take that 43.00 and add it up. In a year you would have saved 480.00. A great flat panel screen and a connector cable would cost you less....and you would have cut one part of your monthly bills out.
Of course there are TV junkies that could never give up television, but when you really think about how much us computer geeks really watch TV, does it really make sense?
What would happen if a huge portion of the Internet geeks like us just stopped using pay-per-month TV and turned to the Internet for one full year? Well, of course prices would drop on TV services, but I think we would see a growth in Online Television, Free Live Internet Television and Interactive Television.
This Great Recession is a real thing and may get worse, and may last longer than anyone of us hopes. But, would you rather go without TV or the Internet? Some of us will have to probably make that decision in these hard economic days. When Jill got laid off from selling Real Estate, we made that decision and now we have an extra $70.00 per month.
With low priced cables and even wireless video senders that allow you to watch online feeds on your regular tv, I think that it is a wise decision to consider, if times require your family to cut back on spending - and there are several really good places to watch your favorite shows.
But BEWARE! There are tons of scams and dangerous software out there. You do not need to buy software. You will see ads for 6000 Channels for $49.00 all over the Internet. Do not fall for this. The 6000 Channels they advertise are available free to anyone and usually more than 5000 of the Channels you will never watch.
We have spent hours checking out the best online TV and free movie sites. We have also found some that are down right dangerous or frustrating. Anything that pops up a Zango ad, run away. Zango is a spyware and an ad server and will drive you crazy trying to remove it from your computer.
Free movie sites are either great or really, really bad. There just does not seem to be any middle ground. MegaVideo is one of the bad ones. You can watch a movie for free, but unless you sign up and buy a premium, the movies will stop after 72 minutes and you need to wait an hour (or buy a premium) to finish watching.
The best of the best? Hulu.com. Sign up for free, and you can schedule as many movies and tv shows you want. It will just keep playing them - all night if you want. Hulu gets the 5 Angel Wings rating from the Crystal Angel.
If you are a couch potato and watch tv all the time, then online tv is really not for you - yet. For people like me, that enjoy watching morning news from around the world and in the evening; movies or current episodes of Weeds or Family Guy, then online tv may be something you will want to check out.
We use a wireless video sender made by X10 that came with a free remote control that can be used as a mouse. It was just $49.99 and works very well. You can even surf the web and visit Moove on your tv right from your couch.
The Crystal Angel has set up an online TV site to scope out how kewl it can be. Just click here - no sign up, pop ups or adware. If days are hard and you need to watch every penny, like I do; try using online tv for one month. I think you will be surprised.
One final thing I have found by watching tv online. I am getting much more information on places around the world. I love watching France 24 (which is in English) and Russia Today. It lets me learn about other places and how other countries view America. Both can be watched on the new Crystal Angel Broadcast Network (CABN).