When the new Fall television season rolled around, I didn't think I could keep up with the new shows and returning favorites without our former cable hookup. We had been sitting pretty watching chunks of reruns like Family Guy, American Dad, Star Trek, and one billion Marvel Comics cartoons, but I didn't think this arrangement would work for first-run shows. The shows would take too long to get on the Web or on Hulu, or they might run in weird buggy online players that would diminish my enjoyment of said programs to the point it would not be worth it. But this largely turned out not to be the case.
All of the major TV networks -- CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, and CW -- have full episodes running on their sites. CBS seems to be the fastest, with new episodes showing up on their site often the morning after first run on a nicely-sized, bug-free (as far as I can tell) online player. ABC, NBC, and FOX have the advantage of running on Hulu Plus, which means we can watch first-run shows day-after, or a couple days after, in the comfort of our livingroom TV set. CW is the slowest to run new shows, with a gap of about 4-5 days (at least for the new show Ringer); I've had some problems/browser issues with their player, though they have seemed to work their way out.
HBO is a tricky animal. They generally don't run full episodes on their site, and instead offer something called HBO GO, which is free if you have an HBO subscription. It sounds expensive, but I think if you are a big fan of everything HBO, this is probably your best option. It's ironic because when we used to have cable, a lot of HBO material was free on-demand. I find that any programming that falls under the Time Warner banner, such as HBO and CW -- as well as any movies made by the company -- are just going to be harder to access without having cable (which, since Time Warner also owns a cable co, is not the most surprising thing in the world). This also means that while we have Marvel Comics cartoons up the ying-yang through Netflix, it is extremely hard to find the animated adventures of Superman, Batman, and the rest through any of the options I've outlined, except buying them (and not a very comprehensive list of offerings at that) through a place like Zune.
Suggestions are welcomed!
I was under the impression that you couldn't even get HBO GO at all if you weren't a cable or satellite subscriber (we're not - like you, no cable). Is that wrong? Can you pay them some sort of fee to subscribe outside of that?
ReplyDeleteBased on reading the HBO GO site, I'm not sure if you need the cable connection -- it gives you the option of choosing your television provider, and lists Direct TV, Dish, a a bunch of services that maybe are Internet-based? We run our Internet off of Clear, and I don't see it listed.
ReplyDeleteThing is, this is already too confusing for me as a potential new customer. I want to be able to just pay a simple subscription fee for accessing an online streaming service, such as Netflix and Hulu Plus.
--VRG
I wish we could have access to these services from abroad, sometimes I try Hulu to see if it's available but no sir! For the life of me, I can't see what unforgivable evil would be done if we could also watch the shows on Hulu, maybe because the adverts on the site are not targeted at us?Figures... Since I'm not one of those guys who download show after show on pirate torrents, I've been using a roundabout to (almost) legally download things via iTunes USA and UK, the "almost" being that I can't use credit cards outside of the USA and I can't buy gift cards directly through the Apple store (why?!?!?), but I've found a couple of sites which sells them hassle-free and with online code delivery. But even that is not without some perks, for instance iTunes didn't carry the 2nd season of V and still hasn't uploaded the season premieres of PERSONS OF INTEREST and FRINGE's 4th season. And just another little tidbit, I think they mispelled the title of the 2nd episode of RINGER, isn't it "ruining" instead of "running" as they have named it?? Also, having multiple accounts (USA, UK and Spanish iTunes stores) creates havoc when syncing content with my iPhone... and all because I want to be legit!! Shame on them....
ReplyDeleteAll of the television providers on the HBO GO site are cable, satellite, or fiber-optic network providers. All are subscription-based; none are just a plain old internet provider. I really think you have to be paying for television already (and probably subscribed to HBO through said television provider) in order to get HBO GO. And I totally agree - I want just a straight-up online/streaming subscription option from HBO.
ReplyDelete