Satellite channels online

Satellite television is a great luxury to have, but for many it's an expensive one requiring exorbitant monthly fees that lots of people simply can't afford. However, it doesn't have to be that way. For as little as $50, you can install a piece of software on your computer that will allow you to watch satellite channels online with no further monthly fees.

Cable vs. Satellite TV
With this piece of software, you can watch over 3000 channels online, including movie, educational, music, news and kids channels. Those are only off the top of my head, chances are, if it exists, there's a channel for it. Satellite TV is vastly superior to cable in regard to the amount of channels that it provides, if your satellite system can cover it, you can watch it. The beauty of watching satellite channels online is you don't even need to touch a satellite dish to install it.
If you're just watching satellite TV the conventional (that is, on a TV), you might have some issues with reception. Satellite TV relies on signals being transmitted through the atmosphere, so it's subject to weather conditions; bad weather means you get a bad signal and consequently a bad reception. Cable TV doesn't have this problem since the signals are transmitted underground. However, if you watch satellite channels online, neither does satellite TV. This is because satellite channels online are transmitted through the internet, which is generally more reliable than stand-alone satellite TV.

Is this legal?
Watching satellite channels online sounds a bit shady doesn't it. Maybe even illegal? Well, good news, it isn't. Basically, it boils down to you being provided with free to air channels through a piece of internet software, so you're not sending the satellites any signals directly but through the internet - therefore, you get to dodge the monthly fee. Pretty cool, huh?

Minimum system requirements
In order to watch satellite channels online, your computer needs to meet certain system requirements. Don't worry, you don't need a supercomputer for this, you just need a semi-decent system that wasn't built in the Stone Age; basically any computer from the last five years will probably work just fine. For starters, you need to have a decent video card; a set of external speakers that can go up to a reasonably high volume and your processor should have at least 400 MHz. You don't have to be technologically savvy to navigate through the software or install; the whole process is relatively automated, just follow the prompts. Simple.

So there you have it: satellite TV online seems to hold a clear victory over regular cable TV, or even regular satellite TV with its superior reception and lack of monthly fees.

How to download full movies

If you own a computer with a decent internet connection, you can start downloading and watching full length movies today. You probably already know this (unless you've spent the last ten years in a cave); the question you're probably wondering about is 'how'?

Minimum system requirements

To download full movies online, ideally you should have at least 333 MHz and a broadband internet connection. If you have a dialup connection it's still possible, it's just going to be agonizingly slow to download full-length movies. You should also invest a decent video card, sound card and set of external speakers if you don't already have them.

Streaming

Youtube is one site where you can watch movies... if you can find them that is. Due to copyright laws, hosting movies on youtube is actually illegal so you can bet your bottom dollar they won't be up there for long. Also, usually they'll be broken up into ten minute fragments and they'll be low quality but, hey, it's free. There are also a multitude of other sites that offer movie streaming such as google videos. I mainly use these sites for looking up funny clips and what not. They're great entertainment if you're bored and have nothing else to do.

File-sharing

One method you can use is file-sharing. It works pretty much exactly how it sounds: people host files on their computer (or 'share' them, if you will) and you download them, once you finish the download, other people can download them from your computer and so on and so forth. The benefit of this is that it's free. However, I don't recommend this. For one thing, downloading movies from file-sharing programs or torrent sites is a great way to get viruses on your computer. Secondly, a lot of movies downloaded through file-sharing programs either don't work, are poor (almost unwatchable) quality or something completely different. You get what you pay for, so spend a little money to get high quality movies directly downloaded from reputable pay sites.
Another reason you should abstain from file-sharing is that it also happens to be illegal. Ever heard of the RIAA? They run the copyright racket and they RUN it like a racket - these guys don't mess around. If you've been watching the news lately you'll know that they basically target people randomly and they bully people into settling. In case you couldn't tell, the RIAA isn't something you want to mess with.

Pay sites

Obviously, pay sites offer the highest quality movie downloads with the fastest speeds for downloading. Like I mentioned earlier, you get what you pay for. Actually, you probably get more than you pay for with these sites; the fee is very reasonable for what you get, it definitely beats having to plod off to store to pay movie rental fees.