Ok, so I’ve known for awhile now I could do this, just never felt compelled to do so. This past weekend Carrie and I were a little bored so we headed to Blockbuster to check out a few movies, didn’t really see anything that we wanted to rent, so decided to check out Lost. I’ve heard it’s a good show, I just hate jumping into a new series mid-way through, I’m kinda anal like that.
I quickly fell in love with the show and the characters… Carrie? Not so much. Anyways, we watched what we rented, but I didn’t really feel like waiting to rent the rest, so I headed over to ABC.com to check to see if they had Lost online. I’ve seen advertisements over the last year or so that most of the main stations are putting their shows online, that’s what ABC has done as well. They’ve got all 4 seasons of Lost available to watch online for free… and in HD quality as well!
If you don’t have a home theater system and don’t mind staring at your computer screen for long periods of time, then you may not care about the rest of what I have to say, but for those of you who are interested in watching internet TV on your home theater system, without sacrificing your surround sound, etc. then read on.
There’s several different ways to go about this, but the way I set it up is to run an HDMI cable from my laptop to my Samsung LCD. Most newer laptops have an HDMI port, but if yours doesn’t that’s ok too… and you don’t need a newer TV or HDTV either. There’s a handy dandy site here (just see Steps 1-2) or simply watch this YouTube video that explains the whole process in more detail and what you’ll need to make it happen. Most (if not all) computers have some form of video output – all you need is a cord that will plug into it and run to your TV’s input. The links I mentioned will help you set everything up, and if you still have questions, you can always Google “connect computer to TV” and find a whole host of others… or feel free to email me.
When I go, I go all out, I can’t resist, it’s what I do. I have surround sound and while having sound through your TV may be well enough for you, it wasn’t for me, so I bought an 1/8″ to RCA adapter and ran it from my laptop’s SPDIF port (my laptop has one of those too, it’s just a digital audio port, your headphone port will work too) and connected it to my receiver to get full surround sound when watching a show online.
Also, another addition I made, and it’s a completely lazy one I know, but I bought a long-range Bluetooth wireless mouse so I don’t have to get up out of my Lazy Boy every time there’s a commercial break to click continue or something.
There are other ways of doing this if you don’t have a laptop or computer nearby to plug into your TV, but all the ones I’ve seen cost a lot more than this option. Some of the others are Apple TV, converter boxes, etc. none of which I’ve tried personally and all of which have a decent cost associated with their use. Read more here.
As far as what you can watch online for free? Here’s some links to check out, I’m sure there are many more I haven’t found and more services to come soon I’m sure:
http://www.hulu.com
http://www.fancast.com
*http://abc.go.com
*http://www.cbs.com
http://video.discovery.com
http://www.sidereel.com
http://www.joost.com
*Offers full episodes in HD
That’s just TV shows, there’s tons more you can do once you’ve got all this setup. View your photos and movies on the big screen, watch YouTube videos, play computer games, etc. I have a feeling we’ll see more of this technology down the road as the internet continues to grow and hi-def takes over the world. Pretty soon your TV will have wireless internet and you’ll be able to do everything with one device, just give them another year or two. In the meantime, I’m preoccupied watching Lost… 1 season down, 3 to go. Gosh I love technology!
