Watching TV through computer is no longer a dream. Using modern technology, one can watch live TV on PC or laptop – favorite shows, news channels and sports, everything.

In fact, the consumer today is spoilt with multiple options of setting up the computer to act as a TV. The significant options that people tend to opt for are
1. External hardware driven TV on computer
2. Internal hardware driven TV on computer
3. Software TV on computer – the WWW TV – and this is the one that I recommend

External hardware driven TV on computer: Using this approach, one buys an additional piece of hardware and fits it onto the computer to catch the TV channels. Usually one watches cable TV over this, but with added antenna watching satellite TV is also possible. The hardware is usually a USB device.

Internal hardware driven TV on computer: Here the idea is similar to the previously discussed one with external hardware, with the difference being that the hardware is fitted internally to the computer. The most popular choice for this is a TV tuner card. Cable TV is the normal choice in this case.

Software TV on computer: Instead of adding hardware, people these days use software to run TV on their computer. The TV channels reach the computer over the Internet (even a dial up works, but a broadband, DSL or wireless work really well). WWW TV – a software TV built in collaboration of Microsoft and IBM engineers – is the preferred choice in this case.

From the standpoint of quality of picture, both the hardware driven approaches and the software based approach are comparable.

In the cost department, the software TV is a clear winner due to its lower cost of installation (usually costs less than half of hardware approaches), and becomes free for lifetime once installed – so the payment is one-time and does not recur.

The number of channels one gets in software based TV is usually a few thousand quality channels and a few rubbish channels added, while with a hardware TV on cable the choice is limited to what the cable supplier provides (usually 100-150 channels).

The maintenance is also easier in software based TV, since hardware has a finite lifetime and after some years of usage one would need to replace the hardware, which is never the case with software.

WWWTV
Satellite TV for PC