Did you know that you can stream TV live through your computer? Yes, you can watch almost all of your favorite television shows right on your home PC. You may not be able to watch every single one, however, it depends on the station and their contracts with any websites that allow streaming.
To stream live television, you need a home computer that’s capable of doing so. Older PCs probably don’t have the hard disk space or the RAM to be able to stream the shows available today. Older PCs, in fact, were designed before most streaming technology was any good.
If you don’t have a PC that was made in the last 5 years or so, or one that you’ve recently upgraded with more memory, it’s probably not going to work for you. While the hard disk space needed to stream live television through your computer might be negligible, you do need to have a fairly fast processing speed and ample RAM.
If your computer is over 6 or 7 years old, it probably doesn’t have the necessary power and speed for you to your PC to stream live TV. And it probably doesn’t have the capability to decode the content that you want to stream or download.
You can stream live TV or you can download it today, with many different websites having both options available. Because decoding and playing the files as well as streaming properly weren’t issues many years ago, older PCs probably don’t have the right programming to do either well, if at all.
Any computer newer than about 2003 should be able to decode and play these files. Still, make sure your processor is fast enough. You may need to upgrade to a faster processor. If you use a Celeron, for instance, you may have difficult watching streaming TV.
A dual-core processor would be much better for streaming live TV, but a Core 2 Duo or a Quad Core processor will give you the best results. If you only have 1 gig of RAM, consider adding memory so that you have from 2 to 4 gigs.
Not only will this greatly improve the overall function of your computer, it’ll allow you to stream live TV through your PC with little problems. The only other possible bottleneck is your Internet connection. You do need high-speed Internet to watch television online.
You’ll want to use broadband Internet that you can get with either a cable modem or DSL. A cable modem lets you get online through the same cable that provides your cable television. DSL is independent of that and uses your telephone line, without interfering with telephone calls like dial-up.
Dial-up Internet access, even with boosters and enhancements isn’t going to be adequate to let you stream TV live on your computer. Cable or DSL, however, and a fast enough PC with enough memory will let you watch hundreds and even thousands of different channels all without the need to pay for cable or satellite television programming packages.
