Seriously, it is…well, cable TV to be precise.

I was watching “Six Feet Under” the other night, which I’ve just gotten into and is so far pretty good, and I thought: A couple years ago this wouldn’t even be possible. I had just downloaded the show on itunes, for a couple of bucks, and it doesn’t even have to fully download before you can start viewing. It already seems native, but think back…a few years ago I would have had to clean the snow off the car (it was snowing like crazy) drive fifteen minutes to Blockbuster, only to find that someone had already rented it, and I was out of luck. BUMMER. Not anymore. There are so many ways to ingest on demand media now. There are the legal platforms: itunes, hulu, vimeo, youtube, netflix watch instantly, amazon on demand, abc.com, southpark studios (there are a bunch more, but you get the point). Then there are the illegal ones: bittorent (alas pirate bay is dead), and gnutella (aka frost/limewire), and all the bizarre flash based overseas American TV video hubs (awful quality). You’d think the name of the game here is you get what you pay for, but hulu defies that. (at least as of this writing). Hulu has hinted that there will be a pay model, but I’ve read you won’t lose shows like “the cobert report” and “the office”. They (hulu) has hinted at upselling premium content such as HBO and showtime shows. I say go for it. The keyword here is on demand. If I want to watch a movie and I have the choice of renting it on Amazon on demand and being able to watch it immediately, or downloading it from bittorent and having to wait for it. I’ll take amazon everytime. Here is a brief description of some of the free and pay on demand media services available on the internet right now.

iTunes

Who hasn’t heard of itunes? Aside from offering digital music downloads, itunes now also offers movies and movie rentals. I suggest the rentals if you have a bluray and decent TV, becasue if you are going to own a movie itunes downloads don’t match the quality of bluray.

Amazon on Demand

Amazon is making hand over fist tax free $$ with their retail business (I did all of my Xmas shoping with them online.) So why shouldn’t they compete with apple? They should. Competition is good. Competition means lower prices and a wider range of products/service. Thank god itunes has competition. I think the quality of video is little better here on amazon, but it’s a close tie. The video codec they use seems to be a little easier on you computer as well if you have an older system.

Hulu

Free doesn’t get better than this. Seriously, everything here is free. Hulu is my go to place to watch shows like 30 rock. People my age (28) don’t really have landlines. Services like Hulu allow us to get rid of our cable subscriptions too. Screw you comcastcablevisiontimewarner.

Netflix Watch Instantly

Some great movies and TV here and new ones everyday. You have to pay for this, but if you’re into movies you already have netflix and this comes as part of your built in service. Plug you’re laptop into you’re TV, and you’re good to go. Great stuff here.

YouTube

Funny cat videos and people getting hit in the balls is hilarious! I never get bored of it. Check out their screening room for more highbrow content, plus they have a new tv and movies section with a bunch of content (most not that great).

Vimeo

Art house YouTube. Cool stuff here.

Daily motion

Youtube uncensored. Kind of a cool platform, but aside from showing boobs (which is great) I don’t really see how it separates from the pack.

12Seconds.tv

My grandmas spoiled chihuahua on 12seconds.tv (sorry the embed wasn’t working here : )

Cool platform. Short videos.

So…check out these platforms. Invest in a cable to hook up you’re laptop to you’re TV. Cancel you’re cable subscrition. Take a trip with the money you’ll save. Besides, you watch WAY to much fucking TV.

John Birdsong is a Producer Director Editor with Panman Productions and lives in Williamsburg BKLYN with his girlfriend Morgan-Jo and their cat Fanny Fae McNamara.