LORDOFTV.COM...HAH! IF ONLY IT WERE THAT EASY...

Lord of TV (LordofTV.com) touts it links to more than 1000 online TV channels with news, TV shows, movies, music, entertainment and sports, but what it doesn't annoyance is that they don't upkeep the links and many "channels" are merely clips files.

The site

The site's design only works for those using Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. Forget using Mozilla, even though it's the best browser for media playback.

The major genres of content available include: "news," "entertainment," "music TV," "sports," "movies & cartoons," "nature & science," "reality TV," "games," "relaxing TV," "adult TV," and the ubiquitous "other." Once one's picked their favorite category, look for black links to stay and watch on site, green links if one doesn't mind going off site. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

If one leaves the site, there's all the other windows to manage, and the other sites' ads. If one stays at the site, there's all the really annoying glitches like how the player resets the volume to high every time one changes channels. Also, the site may link to 1000 channels, but the links haven't been kept up so the only thing showing on many channels is a 404 message.

What's to watch?

Nothing if one uses Mozilla Firefox because none of the channels work with it. Otherwise, one's looking at pretty much the same listings as everywhere else, and the same quality of video and playback as other so-called streaming sites. Most well known channels, such as NBC take one off site rather than using the embedded player.

In the "News" genre, the site lists the channel "CNN Plus," but it was a news channel in Spain that uses the same call letters. Other possibilities include "CourtTV" and "Weatherplus" (http://www.lordoftv.com/tv/weatherplus.htm). Among the channels in "Entertainment" one might want to watch include "Comedy Central" (http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml) and the "Horror Channel (http://www.lordoftv.com/tv/horrorchannel.html)." Unfortunately, neither worked. The "Hallmark Channel (http://www.lordoftv.com/tv/hallmark.html)" didn't load either.

In the "Sports" genre, one might watch the "Golf Channel (http://www.lordoftv.com/tv/golfchannel.htm)" or what the site refers to as"Baseball" which is MLB.tv. Just a warning though. It's not all fun and games. In fact, most sports stations either don't load or play talk shows.

Nature lovers might enjoy "Animal Planet (http://animal.discovery.com/beyond/player.html)," but be forewarned it was clips only. There's even something for the children - they can watch Bionic Bunny on "ABC Kids (http://www.lordoftv.com/tv/abckids.html)."

Stream quality

When a channel loaded, stream quality was generally good. For instance, the "HBO" channel loaded the official HBO site in a new window. It required a choice between three players. Once chosen, one discovers the channel has nothing but clips, like "The Sopranos Slot Machine (http://www.hbo.com/scripts/video/vidplayer.html?section=sopranos).

"The "National Geographic" channel served up a 404 Page Not Found error. What the site refers to as "Movie Channel" is Justin.tv and although the site lists many channels in its schedule, none were referred to as "Movie Channel" so there's still no telling what was playing. It had no recognizable actors, but it was a vampire movie, it buffered immediately, and streamed smoothly.

Although Lord of TV promises streaming TV, many of its links go to sites like NBC where users choose their programming. The choices vary at NBC from clips to full episodes. Either way, the playback and stream quality remained high. For example, "NBC News" (http://www.lordoftv.com/tv/nbc.htm) is not the full show; it's just the two or three top stories in the NBC mobile Web cast. But many full episodes abound, as well, including the classic cop show, "Miami Vice." 

There's plenty of out of the ordinary variety to choose from including The "Baseball" channel, MLB.tv, which quickly loaded a pundit show discussing potential draft picks. "Yoga TV" (http://www.lordoftv.com/tv/yogatv.html) loaded quickly, and streamed effortlessly. And finally, the really fun, "Eurofolk" channel. (http://www.lordoftv.com/tv/eurofolk.htm) Yes, it's bizarre when one's used to MTV2 and VH1, but one could learn something new.

Conclusion

For those expecting a true streaming TV experience, this isn't it. A true, dependable, free IPTV experience is still in the future. There are a few unique channels here though, along with links to the same stations one finds on Hulu. The player leaves something to be desired, and isn't conducive to switching channels. Some of the links need updating, and the sites that provide clips only should be separated from those with full episodes, but overall it's a high quality database.

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This post guest-blogged by Carlie Lawson... 

Comments

[Becky]

if you are looking for multi-lingual tv, online tv social community, social tv network, internet tv stations, tv channels, free global internet tv, broadband channels, live webcast, customized tv programmes, After testing various TV software and visiting loads of sites. most of them offer a free trial or preview and then they make you pay to sign up, or are cluttered with ads. I think that is ridiculous... so ive done my research and have found a couple of really decent sites. The first one Id like to draw your attention to is (http://www.viewmy.tv) This site has almost 2000 channels from around the globe and counting. it is free to register and they dont ask for stupid details, just your username and email address. It actually streams live channels so you dont have to download any and they have a pretty easy way of finding the channel you want. You can search through genre, country, region or name of the channel. oh and there are no ads either. Check this one out. With over 1900 channels from hundreds of countries, loads of features like channel rating, user recommendations, live chat, profile pages and much much more.

[Adrian Keys]

Thanks for the information Becky...quite an impressive library viewmytv is building...

[Yo' Honorable BERT]

Where's the BEEF?