If your a UK radio listener as well as a TV watcher then you could soon have instant online access to every radio station in the UK from a BBC online streaming service.

The BBC are planning to launch an online radio player available to every radio broadcaster by the end of the year. Using an application similar to the iPlayer users can search and listen to radio stations like the BBC’s catch up TV service but for radio.

The plan in the longer term would be to use it like a TV recorder is used now. Being able to live pause, put it on hard drive, listen to recordings from the past seven days and pre book radio also.

The preliminary proposals, which would need approval from the BBC Trust, would align the radio sector with the television industry, which already offers catch-up TV and the ability to pre-record programmes from both commercial and BBC channels.

They are also part of a BBC effort to prove that it can help out its cash strapped rivals by sharing its technology and software and work on a common standard.

Such proposals – which include plans to work with rival ITV on regional news, are all part of the corporation’s policy of promoting partnerships which it hopes will deflect from recent calls for its £3.5bn annual licence fee to be frozen or cut.

BBC director general Mark Thompson, indicated that the BBC’s commercial rivals needed help given the dire economic conditions of much of the ad-supported industry: “Is the BBC going to stand by or take tangible, measurable steps to partner, support and share some of its advantages to other media players?” he said.

The BBC move to partner old rivals is understood to have received tacit backing from the government. Communications minister Stephen Carter is keen to promote digital radio, which has failed to make a viable return for most commercial operators.

Andrew Harrison, the chief executive of Radio Centre, the trade body which acts for more than 90% of all radio stations, has been involved in early meetings with the BBC and welcomes the development. He also downplayed competition concerns, saying that the plan was for a standard that would not be closed to small players, unlike the Kangaroo project recently rejected by competition authorities. “The concept for this is entirely open access and will showcase all UK radio,” he commented.

You can listen to all existing BBC radio streams using the iPlayer but this new service will collect all radio stations from around the Country iinto one place. Or you could just browse our worldwide radio streams online while your waiting for the BBC to sort out the detail.

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In these dark days of the ‘credit crunch’ and recession, any reduction in household costs is welcome. And you can make a start by moving some of your viewing online. Many TV shows and movies are available to watch via internet TV. I am not saying cancel Cable or Satellite subscriptions, but you could certainly cut back without compromising your viewing pleasure.

Many people are (still!) unaware that you can watch pretty much any hit TV show, full episodes or Movies on your PC for no cost at all, apart from electricity and broadband costs off course.

To start watching for free you just need to know where to look. And luckily for you, your in just the right place right now. Already many people are connecting laptops to their television sets via a video cable, whilst others are using their game console and other devices to view Internet TV.

Where to find the good content to watch?

Any TV show, movie or even sports events are all available either using illegal downloading, Free TV networks or via a TV on demand paid services. Usually by visiting the networks own Website (check out our catchup tv list) or an aggregator like Hulu or sling. The biggest problem doing this is sometimes finding the content. But you can look through the TV guides to find out whats on and where.

Are full TV shows available?

Yes you can find many full episodes of hit TV shows on the worldwide web. Much like traditional TV, they will contain advertising and the shows are generally delayed by a few hours from initial airing. The downside to watching this way is that the networks will usually delete the show after a few days.

Are full movies available online?

You can find many movies from the catch up tv websites, however the latest Hollywood blockbusters are not available for free. You can purchase a viewing straight over the net using a service such as Netflix, iTunes or Amazon Video On Demand services.

What is the picture quality like?

That depends on many things. Most networks have got their act together and offer great streaming speed and quality. It’s not ‘jaw dropping’ but it is fine to view. And dont forget many shows are available in HDTV. Of course you will need a reasonably recent computer and fast broadband connection to ensure a great picture.

What about sports events?

This is one area where online isnt so great. All sports fans may be disappointed at the selection. You can usually see the game highlights but the full and live events are only available from slightly dubious sources such as Chinese P2P networks such as TVants and PPlive etc.

So shall i cancel my cable TV?

I think it’s just a little too early to cancel your subscriptions and throw out the TV just yet. Internet TV should be seen as a growing service that will get better and better. However it cannot yet totally replace what you can get on your cable or satellite deals.

What you can do however is possibly downsize your cable bill and go online to watch more TV. It is after all going to be the future, so get watching internet TV now.

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All the popular online video sites like Youtube, MySpace, Metacafe etc all stream their movies onto your screen using a Flash video format known as .flv instead of letting the viewer just download the video onto their hard drive.

And why do they do this you ask? Well its something called advertising. If they can keep us on their website then whilst you are viewing the content you are also subliminally being bombarded with advertising. As long as we stay on the site they have a chance to get some revenue from us. Also of course you may bookmark a fantastic video only to find its been removed next time you look!

Visit the following websites Webconvertor.net for Video file conversion website

saving video site files to your PC
vidsgrab.com

Now help is at hand with some great sites that allow you to keep, download and preserve your beloved videos from the net before they become erased. After downloading to your PC you can watch the video stream to your PC. Transfer it to your iphone or ipod or other device and feel happy in the knowledge that its yours forever..

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Watching TV, video and listening to music online is a great and convenient way of delivering your home media and web based content to any PC or connected device such as a tablet or smartphone. Or at least it would be great, if it all worked correctly.

Want stutter and buffer free streaming? Read the guide

Life isn’t always that simple though, and sometimes with the myriad of different computer hardware and configurations mean that those streams just don’t want to show. But fear not, many common problems come with easy solutions.So here are some tips and answers to basic streaming problems that consumers have when watching internet TV.

Streaming Troubleshooting, Speed Up Help and Tips

If your streaming and live TV broadcasts constantly buffer and look the pits, then try some of the following:-

Free up Computer/Hardware Resources

The obvious step that many viewers don’t try is to shut everything not needed down. So close all those browser tabs. Press control/alt/delete together or right click your mouse when the cursor is down in the taskbar, then find highest memory using processes and close them down.

Note If using a phone or tablet then you can improve streaming by rebooting your device, turn off Bluetooth and kill off any running apps.

Disable hardware acceleration

You want your hardware to have as many resources as possible for all that streaming, so turn off any hardware acceleration you have running. On a windows PC open the Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Display > Change display settings > Advanced settings > Troubleshoot > Change settings. Then just drag the Hardware acceleration slider down to zero.

Upgrade your router/broadband supplier

Check that your wireless router is modern and 802.11n compatible rather than the older 802.11b/g. Then check with your broadband supplier, the speed of your internet broadband connection. Many providers offer faster services.

Streaming Problems FAQ’s

Q. No Stream showing at all?

To watch any stream you will need a media player. Unfortunately you will need a selection of players to watch all streaming. Hopefully they will already be installed on your computer or device. The most used players are Windows Media Player. The second is Flash Player and some streams will need Silverlight. There are some older streams which may still use Real Player. If you are using a Mac OS then you need to download the Flip4Mac Quicktime WMV Component. This is because Microsoft and Windows Media Player are no longer supported with Macs. However, don’t worry guys, the Flip4Mac is 100 percent compatible.

Some Firewalls (used in Networks) make it impossible to receive streaming media. Ask your Network administrator for help.

Sometimes the connection is very slow and it can take a while before the channel starts playing, have a little patience.

Don’t forget that the live Internet television depends on the origin of the stream and not on the software that displays the TV images. Some stations are offline temporarily or with too many connections, not all stations have a 24 Hours schedule. If you are receiving error messages on certain station, try it later.

JIT Debugging needs to be enabled.
This is usually enabled by default but sometimes gets disabled by some programs to determine if you need to enable JIT Debugging follow these steps:
1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Select from the menu Tools->Internet Options then select advanced tab.
3. Scroll to approximately half way down page.
4. Find Use JRE (some numbers) (requires restart) and check the checkbox on left.
4. Restart Computer.

Q. What Browser Do I need?

All Internet Browsers should be ok including Internet Explorer, Opera 8.0 and higher, Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s FireFox, including all platforms released and their versions. Just make sure you have the latest version of IE or Firefox installed. Also make sure you are not using a non graphical web browser. Some browsers will need certain plugins to view the streams so make sure that you accept any plugins requested by either FireFox or IE.

Q. Why do the TV Streams keep freezing and how can I stop it?

This could be a buffering problem switching from one TV to another, we recommend to stop the first one by hitting the Pause button on your screen. You can also open the TV stream directly into your Player if you find that it doesn’t want to play directly from the site (just click the “External” button). If you find that the link will still not play or is broken, do not hesitate to contact us; that is what we are here for.

Q I can see the TV Stream but I cannot hear it.

I know it sounds obvious but check that your speakers are turned on and connected and the volume is turned up. Check another PC program that has sound or music from it.

If this doesn’t work, and you still cant hear anything then you need to check to see the sound drivers in your PC are set up correctly. You can do this by clicking on the speaker icon in your taskbar and see if the volume properties appear on your screen. If they don’t then you may need to update your sound card drivers.

If your using a Mac, go to your control panel and click on the System Preferences under the Apple Menu in the left corner of the screen. Check that all of the sliders are at their full capacity. You should also be hearing a short beep sound when moving them around.

If none of the above works make sure you have the latest media players installed

Q. I can hear the TV Stream but I cannot see the picture.

Make sure your Media Player is up to date and is the latest version available. If not, then you upgrade your Media Player.

If none of these works, try a different internet television channel as it may be the streaming servers fault.

Q. Some stations are not as clear as others, is something wrong?

A: Just like a TV set, live Internet television depends on the origin and not on the software that displays the TV images. The video quality is dependent on the broadcaster’s own bandwidth; the higher the bandwidth, the better the video quality you will receive.

Q. Buffering – Channel keeps freezing and stopping and starting.

A: This is a buffering problem. The buffering can be attributed to your Modem connection, your ISP, or Internet traffic in general, and even the station broadcasting if its busy. The most likely culprits are Internet traffic and the station’s server being overloaded. If your doing other Internet intensive work may increase buffering as well. So shut everything else down.

Q. Error message “Interface not supported”.

A: Please download the latest version of the media players.

Q. Error message “Unspecified error” or “Could not obtain OLE control window handle”.

A: Please download the latest version of the media players.

Hopefully you have now sorted out your streaming TV problems and can look forward to hours of happy viewing.

Read more streaming help guides – Speed up your PC for stutter free streaming

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TVants User guide

TVANTS Also known as P2P streaming media acceleration engine but i think TVants sounds better dont you? Anyways TVants is a P2P (Peer 2 Peer) based Internet audio and video broadcast which basically allows many users to share live tv streams covering many subjects. The most common reason this software is used is for is for watching live football matches and other sports events on your Personal computer or laptop. TVAnts is one of the 3 major software streaming packages and its big advantage is a great quality live ESPN channel feed. You can now watch great quality English Premiership football streams including English commentary.

Also TVAnts after installation has instructions in English which is a bonus. When first running the TVants software you are presented with the channel list. Although the channel list changes frequently, for watching sports and live football on your PC the channel you need is ESPN, usually it is near the top of the channel list. Just double click on a channel and after some buffering you will be connected to the stream. Although the channel list on TVAnts is not huge, there is plenty to keep even the most channel hungry person happy.

Some other P2P streaming programs have bigger channel selections but the fact that TVAnts has the ESPN channel complete with full English commentary makes TVAnts a essential software download for all live streaming football fans.

TVAnts is hosted on a Chinese server and is so popular, the download speeds can be slower than you would normally expect. But be patient and get on early.

Using TVAnts software

• First thing Download TVAnts software TVAnts Download
• Go through the installing routine
• There is no user friendly icon on your desktop so to run TVAnts you will need to find the program folder via your start menu. Start > Programs >TVAnts > TVAnts
• If you get a warning message from your virus killer or have a firewall, installed then on first running make sure that you allow TVAnts internet access.
• To play a channel double click on it. The media player will then appear (you can cancel any request to login that may appear).
  Make sure you start viewing the channel early, before the game starts.
• After a buffering delay which can take up to 5 even 10 minutes your channel will appear. You can view the buffer status at the bottom of the viewer. If the buffer doesn’t appear to move for a long time please try a different channel. The sound icon allows you to change the sound balance that may help to isolate an English commentary if one is available.
• To view full screen just right click on the viewer and select Zoom > Full Screen. Alt+Tab will return the screen to normal view.

TVants channels translated to english

TVants sports channels in English

Problems With TVAnts
Q.There are no channels in my TVAnts channel list?
A.Unfortunately when you first install TVAnts there is only one server as default (www.tvants.com) and this server is not always available. This is especialy true if you first try to use TVAnts on a Saturday match day afternoon. The easiest way to fix this channel problem is to add another channel server to TVAnts. I would recommend that you add fanshop.no-ip.info to the TVAnts channel server list.

Q.No matter what I try I can’t get a good picture with TVants?
A.Assuming that you’ve followed the tips in the TVAnts FAQ then the other thing to think about is that TVAnts is based on “sharing” technology. In order for this to work users must share their streaming data and with TVAnts this requires that you open up a port on your router/hardware firewall. By default the port you need to forward/open is 16800 although this can be configured by selecting Tools, Settings and then the Share tab. To be safe it may be best to forward both TCP and UDP traffic to make the best use of TVAnts.

Hopefully this guide will make viewing TV on TVants easier.

More Software guides coming soon

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