VIEW MY TV CAN'T DELIVER ITS PROGRAMING

View My Tv (ViewMy.tv) advertises itself as a professionally developed and designed home to "let the world watch the world through free TV, wherever and however they want" but doesn't consistently deliver content.

The site has numerous problems. It features as many non-fuctional stations as functional ones. It has no proprietary media player. Although it carries channels from throughout the world, it provides no sub-titles for the shows.

The site
ViewMy.tv boasts a professional, snazzy design paid for by its angel investor. The site looks more professional than most, but works the same as the home made ones. And like the others, it has a long station list that hasn't been updated in an eon. Also, the site requires numerous plug-ins, including Quick Time and Real Player, rather than using a player of its own design. Plus, the viewers are embedded, so viewers can't adjust the playback size.

The site sorts its content into channels by genre and region. The region sort makes a country sort available. The available genres include: "music," "news," "general," "sport," "weather," "science," "financial," "education," "kids," "shopping," "comedy," "films," "drama," "travel," "spirituality," "local," "government," and "cooking."

Like many sites, ViewMy.tv hosts forums to foster community. The forums here are small though and limited to discussion of the site. There's no topics for linking to movies or shows. The available topics include: "Featured Internet TV channels," "Latest News," "Competition Time," "Cool Channels," "Tell Me," and "Help."

If you find a home at ViewMy.tv, use the blog to keep up with the latest site news. The latest development is a widget based on Open Social API for Friendster, Engage, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.

What's to watch?
There's plenty of choices to watch, but many channels don't work, especially the international ones. It's ironic since one of the features the site touts is the ability of users to watch TV channels from around the world. It forgets to mention that many countries block foreign viewers.

Out of what does work though, there's some fun to be had. If in need of a laugh, go directly to the "Comedy" genre and click on "Stand Up Comedy TV." The featured comedian is Mrs. Hughes and she's hilarious.

Foreign comedy was another story though. "K-tivi" didn't work which was a bummer because French comedy would be interesting. The Netherlands channel "Vara Humor" was also down.

The "News" area was fifty/fifty. "AFTV" requires Quick Time which really didn't want to install in the new Firefox. On the other hand, the "Estrada" (Spain) channel played wonderfullly with English dubs.

In the "Films" area the "Moovee" channel played, but only previews. The US channel "WSVN" didn't work and "Fox" would only play the same commercial over and over. The UK channel "Hyp TV" played weird content but it worked. Those quirky Brits are entertaining.

The "General" area seems to actually mean miscellaneous. It houses finds like The Netherlands' "Fire TV" which, sadly, didn't work. Yes, really there's a whole channel devoted to fire and emergency services.

The less common offerings in "Drama" needed plug-ins to work. For instance, "AFTV Sci Fi Horror" requires the Real Player Plug-in.

Stream quality
In the "News" area, "France 24" provides its full newscasts and and its special reports with English dubbing, including, to my personal excitement, an exclusive interview with Cypriot President Demetris Christofias in which he discusses climate change, drought, drought mitigation, and moving his country from oil to solar power.

Although Turkey's "ADIM TV" loaded, it had no dubs and no subtitles so it was a bit of a disappointment. France's "Direct 8" loaded quickly but sans subtitles or dubs. The program playing seemed to be a talk show, but there was no way to discern the subject matter.

Conclusion
ViewMy.tv makes a lovely site. It's a snazzy design - really eye catching. Unfortunately, though the site looks more professional than others, it doesn't work better than them. Many of its channels don't work. Users also remain stuck with the same problem as other sites - a need for every media plug-in out there, in order to get things to work. ViewMy.tv talks about its angel investors and mission statements in effort to sound like a real business, but it doesn't back it up with its actions. A real business would constantly test links to ensure they work, and would provide a proprietary, embedded player that works with all content. The bottom line is that, professional looks aside, ViewMy.tv is the same quality as other free Internet TV sites.

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This post guest-blogged by Carlie Lawson...

Comments

[Mark]

Like many sites, ViewMy.tv hosts forums to foster community. The forums here are small though and limited to discussion of the site. There's no topics for linking to movies or shows.

[Mark]

The site sorts its content into channels by genre and region. The region sort makes a country sort available. The available genres include: "music," "news," "general," "sport," "weather,"

[Becky]

Personally I have had no trouble at all on the viewmy.tv site. The channels that I watch (BBC, Fox, CNN etc) all seem to work fine!

Love the site and I visit most days, you can even store your own channels and upload your own shows and movies!!

[Jelly Jen]

I also watch Viewmy.tv a lot and don't have any problems with it. yes, some channels don't work but that is very occasionally and most of the time it is because the streams are not 24 streams, especially the random channels so the screen stays black until the channel starts up again.
Viewmy.tv is better than most because of its social networking idea, i think this is why they talk about it being a business. Its a new idea I haven't seen done anywhere else so I am sure it will do well. Social networking is big business and mixing it with TV could be even bigger!!! good luck to them- I like the site and it works fine for me!

[Carlie Lawson]

Hi Becky and Jelly Jen,

I agree that some of the channels on viewmy.tv work just fine, but many didn't during the visits I conducted for this review. I try to use each site reviewed more than twice during the week or so before writing the review, and at differing times of day to catch things like when some stations are on/off the air. I'm glad that the channels you like to watch work, but I test a wide range at every site because not everyone shares the same taste.

Also, the social networking and video combination is nothing new. Asian video sites have made it a staple for many years, but American sites are just getting into it. We're just copying the cool people. ;-)

[Peter]

Hi guys, thanks for the points... For the service at www.viewmy.tv we're constantly trying to improve our service. The points here have been noted and will try to improve going forward. Some recent development means that we're now able to provide access to more streaming formats than before and that will also mean more channels get approved for listing. There's also been a good rise in the number of new channels submitted so we will continue to try and make www.viewmy.tv the de facto place to access free streaming live tv.

Thanks, Peter, Staff.