Internet TV, how close is it??

If you want to watch TV shows in Australia you use to have two options, either wait for the show to appear on a TV channel that broadcasts for free or buy a pay TV contract and get multiple channels. If however you wanted to watch the show at your convenience, not just follow the TV guide, you had to wait for the show to come out on DVD.

That is now changing. Already the ABC is streaming many of its shows on the Internet using Iview. Here you can watch a show up to 2 weeks after it was broadcast on your computer. Other TV stations have a similar service but not as well implemented as the ABC (SBS limited quality and TEN limited range) or have withdrawn it (Seven and Nine). (Correction: This situation has now changed, Channel 7 have introduced a service very similar to Iview on the ABC. This service is called PLUS7 and looks to be good quality and with many shows available soon after they are broadcast. The range looks very good, well done Channel 7.)

There are also devices such as TIVO which allow you to record shows well in advance and be able to play them back at your convenience.

In the US there is a service called HULU which streams hundreds of shows from many different channels, however Australia (and the rest of the world) is blocked from using this service. Itunes also offers some shows but the range is not great and the cost is higher than buying DVDs if you want the whole series.

Very many computer users want to use such a service and the lack of availability is driving many of them to illegal downloads.

Now Google has moved into this market. They see a market for widespread TV show and Movie streaming on the Internet. The two largest traffic sites on the Internet at the moment are Hulu and YouTube. Google owns YouTube and wants it to become a TV stations streaming to the world. They have made a start by stream the IPL live and repeats. This will test the market for them.

Google are also talking to TV manufacturers so that Internet TV can come into the house directly to the TV and not the computer.

How long will it be before home users can watch any TV show available in the world at any time (TV on demand)? I will predict that this will occur one minute after someone works out how to make money from this form of delivery. If the TV stations won't do it, someone else (like Google) will.