3click.TV - a new shining star in the streaming TV world.

The most comprehensive collection of today’s popular TV shows is a tall order but when we are talking about complete seasons of most every show on television at the click of a mouse or right on your iPhone 3click.tv Streaming Television network delivers. Some liken it to an online Tivo that automatically saves all your shows, removes the commercials, and neatly indexes and describes every episode ever made from hits like Heroes, 30 Rock, Weeds, Sopranos, 24 and about 140 other prime time shows from both network tv and cable.

Unlike the Hulas of the word, 3click.TV is available everywhere with users in Europe Australia, UK, South Africa and Canada.

It’s even more impressive the speed and reliability of the service. It is worth noting that to watch tv shows on the iPhone requires a very strong wifi or 3G signal that may not be available in most areas but 3click.TV work extremely well on the typical Mac or PC desktop.

We signed up for a 3click.TV trial and found the service to be simply amazing and all dealings with the support staff to be prompt and professional. What really set 3click.TV apart from other streaming services is the appearance of new shows often within hours of their debut so you always have the newest episodes.

They are so certain that you will love the 3click.TV service that a 100% no questions asked refund is offered within the first 24 hours if you are’nt completely happy.

We passed it on to a few of our friends to rave reviews. In short, 3click.TV, for a low monthly subscription will save you tens of hours searching dead links and downloading until your harddrive burns up just to watch the nearly 8500 shows that 3click.TV has in its collection. All you have to do is have a look at the streaming tv episode showlist to see these guys mean business!

So you can drop that expensive cable bill and toss the Tivo in the trash, for the TV junkies of the world 3click.TV is just what the doctor ordered. “

More episodes, complete seasons, less ads, streaming quality and availability everywhere are what users want says the Wall Street Journal. This month we will take a look at the best and the worst. This top 5 is a sure winner and just what you need for passing the time on cold winter days!

#5

www.hula.com

The streaming giant falls a bit short on our list due to lack of availabilty and incomplete season of shows. It makes the list because it looks great but there are things that could make it rate higher.

We give it an official “thumbs down” ratings for excessive commercials. Choose-your-own-advertisement options before shows begin. Interactive games during advertising breaks. The New York Times reports:

In the last year these online advertising innovations have been popularized by Hulu, the online video Web site that will celebrate its first anniversary on Wednesday. For all that has been written about Hulu’s easy-to-use, aesthetically pleasing interface, the advertising experience is equally important.

In the place of the long commercial pods that TV viewers have become accustomed to, only one ad is shown during each segment break on Hulu. Fewer ads make the ones on the site more memorable, Hulu executives say, allowing the site to charge higher prices for the ad units.

While Hulu was not the first site to serve up full-length television shows or create new advertising units, it now dominates the emerging market for ad-supported TV and movie streaming. It emerged in public beta form one year ago with 10 advertisers, made its official debut in March, and now counts more than 100 sponsors, from General Motors to Old Spice.

… The half-hour comedies that are so popular on Hulu — “Family Guy” from Fox and “The Office” from NBC — have an average of eight minutes of commercial time on TV. On Hulu, where the sitcoms are especially popular, each show averages about two minutes of ads.

… In a glimpse of the future of ad feedback, Hulu users are encouraged to click buttons indicating whether they like or dislike each ad they see.

#4

www.joost.com

Joost, the much-hyped Internet video service, will relaunch as a Flash-based online video hub with free, ad-supported television shows and films - or, in other words, a clone of Hulu.com, the popular Web site jointly owned by NBC and Fox. New York Times Bits Blog reports.

“The new Flash-based site also abandons Joost’s original peer-to-peer method of distributing video, although Mr. Volpi said the company might still use the technology to broadcast live events. … In addition to new youth-oriented social networking features, which allow users to share their favorite programs with friends, the new Joost.com will feature full-length shows from CBS, Viacom and the Warner Bros. Television Group.

Downsides to Joost is limited availability and scattered episodes. Most of the material can be found elsewhere on the Web. To really compete with Hulu’s deep library and YouTube’s sheer volume of user-generated video, Joost will have to build its own trove of find-it-nowhere-else material.”

#3

www.jaman.com

The Wall Street Journal reports on Jaman.com, a Web site that gives users the chance to download independent and international movies from the Web directly to their computers.

“It also serves as a social networking forum where movie watchers can read one another’s reviews, write their own comments that run alongside the film, and join groups with people who have similar tastes in movies. Jaman (pronounced jah-mahn), has 1,800 titles. It charges $1.99 for rentals, which can be watched for up to seven days, and $4.99 to buy a movie outright.

Jaman isn’t alone in the online movie downloading business, and its competitors boast bigger selections. Just this year Netflix, known for popularizing DVD rentals through the mail, started offering its own movie downloads. But Jaman hopes its niche films and viewer-comments system will set it apart.” Negatives include, a fairly high cost for limited time to view and limited availability.

#2

AOL Television

AOL delivers solid streaming television episodes in a tight package. Good shows, limited amounts of content and availability.

Internet giant America Online has its own streaming television service. AOL Television’s growing offerings, which include free and full streaming of a myriad of current and classic TV series, daily video highlights of last night’s top television moments, celebrity interviews, photos and gossip, as well as interactive quizzes, user-polls and original editorial features. The stream quality is good, though sometimes a little slow, causing buffer problems but the overall content is broad ranging including most premium television programs. An interactive show review and discussion feature is nice but maybe unnecessary. The site is not ad heavy so little distraction there.

We would consider this a great site except two things: very limited geographic availability (USA only) and most shows only feature one or two episodes- not good when you want to sit down and watch a few episodes of 24 for example.

#1

www.3click.TV

This new kid on the block brings a true Tivo type experience to web tv watchers. No ads, available everywhere, and an unbeatable complete season show collection. “this is the service that people expect from internet television”.

This gem of a service stands out as this month’s number #1 streaming television site. The folks at 3click.TV wanted to make it easier than ever to enjoy all your favorite premium television shows. An in browser player that works flawlessly and a detailed show index catalogs more than 7000+ episodes (and growing daily) listed by season and episode with full description provided of each episode. 3click.TV plans to stay ahead of the pack by offering complete seasons of all shows featured. Crystal clear quality audio and video makes us smile and no geographical limitations on this service make everyone everywhere smile. Streaming all this great content to the iPhone 3G and the service is fully compatible with your Mac, which is also another first that is noteworthy.

3click claims to be expanding to more than 20,000 episodes spread out over 500 different programs in the coming months while simultaneous picking up daily picks of such talk shows as Jay Leno, Jon Stewart , Colbert Report and even assorted sports content. This “daily replay” programing is availbe for viewing up to seven days while all other content is can be viewed indefinitely. A low monthly subscription means 100% ad free. The best shows, ad free, high quality streaming and complete series makes this one tough to beat.

The worst of the worst.

Sites we won’t even think about recomending but for some odd reason, still shine atop the Google Searchs-

www.myeasytv.com Don’t bother wasting you time with this one, broken links and useless public access stations many from countries you have never heard of, full of ads and offers nothing worthwhile.

www.freetvonline.com This site actually looked like it may have some decent shows but a scary tool bar adware nightmare awaits you if you click the box and sign your life (you computers life) away! STAY AWAY from this site.

www.worldtvpc.com More rubbish full of broken links that bounce from page to page, you spend more time watching ads than the lame content they link to.

Tiscali, the broadband, telephone and media company, announces the launch of ‘Movies Now’, its online video on demand download service in partnership with Arts Alliance Media , the provider of digital film distribution services. Creative Match reports.

“The new online service brings the company’s TV Video On Demand (VDO) brand to an unlimited UK broadband audience, with over 500 films and specialist entertainment programmes available to anyone who visits the Tiscali web site. Users can choose to ‘rent’ or download to own from as little as 99p (or $2).”

… Download rentals have a seven-day window for viewing once the download is completed. Once playback is started, the viewer can watch the film or programme as many times as they like, within a 24 or 48 hour playback window, on their laptop, PC or on their TV if it is networked.”

“The explosion in popularity of online video could lead to increases in the cost of broadband for UK consumers, reports the BBC.

Internet services providers, such as Tiscali, say that the raft of recently launched on-demand services will “undoubtedly” congest the network.

Upgrades to the net could be needed to ensure services such as the BBC iPlayer continue to work properly, with costs passed on to the consumer, they say.

Alternatively, the ISPs say they would have to limit access to services.

One option that would allow them to do this would be to use so-called traffic shaping. This involves delaying packets of information sent across the network until congestion has eased.

Tiscali already targets some of its customer’s traffic using the technology.

The last two years has seen a sudden boom in video traffic over the internet.

In addition to popular websites such as YouTube there are an increasing number of on-demand services, such as 4oD, Joost and Babelgum, launched by traditional broadcasters and start-ups.

If ISPs had healthy margins for broadband, this wouldn’t matter anything like as much.

And unlike YouTube, the picture quality is much higher and the programmes longer.

… Analysts believe that ISPs have started to revolt about delivering net video because of the fickle European broadband market and because publishers are effectively transferring their distribution costs on to the ISP.”