Watch TV shows online free with this how-to tips

Every night, it happens in hundreds of thousands of homes across the world. A couple stares at each other from opposite sides of the remote control. Two favorite shows sharing one time slot. Put down the T.V. guide. If you don?t have a DVR or cable, you can watch TV shows online free.

Most current shows are available a day or two after they air on television. If you?re tired of feeling out of the loop when your friends make references to shows that are no longer on, (as in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dr. Who and Star Trek) but you don?t want to buy the DVDs, you may be able to find the full series available, if not a full season at a time.

Why is it that you can watch TV shows online free? People are getting accustomed to flexibility, courtesy of technology, and networks don?t want to lose viewers. Making shows available online also opens up another stream of advertising revenue for networks. On the viewer side, you generally have to watch a 1-minute commercial or two 30-second spots at the beginning, and one or two commercials during the show.

How to Watch TV Show Online FREE

If you want to watch a current show –

Go the website that airs your show. Just about every television channel hosts a website with a directory of current shows. Look up your show in the directory. This should send you to the show?s web page.

Expect the site to be saturated with online ads, actor interviews and best of clips. Look for a button labeled ?View Full Episodes?.

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For example, if you?d like to watch new episodes online of Saturday Night Live (SNL), go the NBC.com website. The furthest tab on the left is ?Shows?, and when the tab expands you?ll see a listing of current shows including 30 Rock, The Office, and SNL. Go to SNL and scroll down until you see the box labeled ?Recent Episodes? on the far right. Choose from one of the show?s last five episodes. Give the video a moment to load, grab popcorn while the commercials play. Enjoy Saturday Night Live, whether it?s Sunday morning or Tuesday afternoon.

Browsing –

If you want to browse your options, go to Hulu.com. Go to TV > Browse TV, then pull the drop down under ?Display and select ?Shows with Full Episodes Only?. At the time of this writing, Hulu has 254 TV shows available, with 1- 26 episodes available per show. You can watch anything from Bones, to Galactica, to Elvira?s Movie Macabre. Some shows are currently on the air, others are from the 1980s.

One word of warning: if you find yourself enjoying a particular show, check its expiration date lest it vanish before you get to see the series finale you were saving. Hulu either streams shows on its website, or it directs you to the shows website for streaming. Once a show expires, check its network website as you may be able to stream it there instead.

Other websites that you can watch TV shows online for free are Zap2it.com, Grippio.com and soon GoggleTV will enable streaming through YouTube, but it?s not clear from the Beta tour what this will enable viewers to do for free.

Some network websites carry older shows that have earned a bit of a cult following in the post-cancellation life. The WB streams ?Veronica Mars? one season at a time for about two months each.

If it?s a rainy night and you feel like watching the 1990?s ?My So Called Life?, you can head over to Hulu and watch any or all of the 19 episodes.

The Trade-offs to Watching TV Shows Online Free

It stands to reason that you may want to watch a TV show at the same time that everyone else on your street does. Streaming TV shows during prime time hours is sometimes flawless and other times frustrating. A show will pause during an action sequence, replaced by the spinner telling you your connection is bad. When this happens, it?s best to step away for ten minutes.

If your TV is new and has an HDMI hookup, you can stream shows through your TV. If not, you?ll have to watch the shows on your computer screen, which are more particular in angle, often pick up a glare from nearby lights, and have a lower image quality.

Streaming TV online is probably something many people never imagined when you hauled that first gigantic, heavy desktop into your home and marveled and the blinked green dot on the dull grey screen. Next time you stream a TV show, think about what you may be able to do in 10 years for free. Thanks, Internet.

References:
Ram Electronics: How to connect your computer to your television
Hulu.com
GoogleTV.com