So you want to watch free TV over the Internet and you need to know what kind of Internet TV software there is. Well there are all kind of choices out there, ranging from Hulu to Youtube, but for my money, one of the best deals going comes from a small Chinese company. The place that makes it is called TVU Networks and the software is TVU Player.
TVU basically stands for “TV, You” as is, it's whatever you want it to be. There are literally thousands of channels being broadcast from all over the world. The channels range from the esoteric, like one devoted to exposing the “truth” about the 9/11 bombings (you know it was really a secret CIA plot to dominate the world, right? Or was it he aliens at Area 51? We're not really sure, but we're sure it was a deep dark conspiracy, because we love conspiracy.) to the more mundane stuff like Fox Japan (a Japanese channel with American Fox TV shows) and the SciFi channel.
The way it works is that each channel is broadcast from someone's home. They keep their TV tuned to a particular channel (or the cable box or whatever they use to pull in a TV signal). Internet TV software so it really depends on the generosity of others to be willing to do it. Not to mention that they have to devote the bandwidth to actually have it broadcasting.
The other way a channel can be broadcast is that you, as a “broadcaster” have material on your computer that you would like to offer people in a constant stream. For example, for a while there was a Family Guy channel running, with nonstop episodes of the hit TV show from Fox.
The good news though really comes under the hood. Like many peer to peer file sharing programs, TVU Player uses a distributed system whereby (in theory at least) the more people who use it, the better the picture gets. This is because at the same you're enjoying a rerun of Battelstar Galactica in your bedroom, someone else can be watching the same thing and actually feeding off the signal that you get. This way, it doesn't require our broadcaster at home to use thousands of gigs of bandwidth.
The problem of course if that if there are not enough people looking at a particular channel, then you will not be able to get a clear picture. So give it a shot; try out this awesome piece of Internet TV software. And tell your friends. They'll all thank you.