Posted by Nikoletta Ventseslavova

Gain: ideas for free online video entertainment

In the past it was nearly impossible to download or stream video files. Home video was impeded by a kludge of competing codecs and video players, driven by Apple, Microsoft and Real. In 2001 things changed. Since FLV (Flash Video) became a standard, high-quality videos are streamed by anyone with Flash.

Today with the availability of high-speed Internet, film fans are able to watch movies online in a variety of ways and formats. The trend is moving towards watching TV, videos and movies right on computers. Soon our TVs and DVD players will be useless because the Web provides access to everything we want to see.  However, most of the major video sites are streaming short clips, and those who want to watch full movies remain frustrated. The good news is that there are many places on the Web where we can watch full movies for free. We can watch movies instantly, wherever and whenever we want, with no software needed:

Let’s start with the most popular video streaming website – Youtube.com. It is suitable for finding a favorite show or news cast. You Tube offers 16:9 aspect ratio, high quality video playback and supports nearly every video format. It is unique in its ability to embed videos on blogs and websites, video reply feature and limit video access feature. Fans can also customize their video pages and upload their own videos. However, there is a storage limit of 100 MB and only standard-quality videos can be embedded on other sites. All the content of YouTube can also be watched through Google Video. Google Video offers an excellent web video experience with its special video series like: Top 100 – Google Video, NARA on Google Video, and the TED Talks.

Vimeo.com is more sophisticated in free video sharing.Users are allowed to upload up to 500MB of video content per week (or pay to upload up to 1GB uploads). The platform supports full HD streaming and widescreen format, as well as a wide array of video codec support, which makes it a perfect place to watch and share high quality videos. Vimeo is an outstanding website, owing to its friendly interface and the ability to create and moderate video groups. Vimeo is attractive for video artists and often is used to upload short movies, skits and portfolios.

Metacafe.com is very similar to YouTube, offering duplicated videos. But in addition there is a wide database of video tutorials on many subjects. It has a popular pageview payment system, which compensates users for their videos. Additionally, videos can be downloaded and embedded on blogs and websites.

Hulu.com is one of the best places to watch full-length, high quality movies and television shows on the Web. Founded by NBC and News Corp, it offers multiple free TV series, both current and off-air broadcasts. Hulu also has a big selection of free movies and documentaries, so that we can keep up with our favorite programs and films, without being tied to the TV. The user-friendly interface gives users a subscription to any show’s episodes. Searching for movies is easy via several filters: genre, rating, with captions or simply by a keyword. Hula also has categories like Most Popular, studio specific Lifetime Movies and Syfy Movies. Users can also sign up for Hulu Plus, a paid subscription service, which offers the entire Hulu catalog, including all season episodes and the ability to use Hulu anywhere, not only on a computer.

One of the largest engines for video search on the Web is SurfTheChannel. It aggregates videos from sites like YouTube, MetaCafe and Hulu and gives users access to them through simple searchable interface. It provides thousands of links to TV shows, movies, videos, documentaries, animations and music videos. SurfTheChannel enriches the browsing experience by adding extra results from other directories such as Sports and Arts. In addition, we can choose by channel, by video provider or by checking out the Most Popular Links box. Each piece of media content in the portal comes with a brief review and additional links. Registered users can discuss their favorite videos and shows in the websites’ community groups and upload videos to the site within a set of guidelines. Another aggregation site similar to SurfTheChannel is SideReel.

The biggest depository of movie news, movie reviews, trailers, showtimes and celebrity profiles is the Internet Movie Database or IMDb. Users can search by Movie/TV title, Cast/ Crew name, Character name, Word Search, Recent Releases, etc. Each one of these options offers a wide range menu, allowing us to search even further.  In the Video page we get access to videos and full length movies.

Another great way to instantly watch high quality videos and movies on one place is Joost. It has three main media categories: Music, Film and Shows. Each of them has sub-categories which help users refine their search.  For registered users who like discussions, Joost has Joost Community . Locate content by:

Typing keywords into the Search bar

Browsing Joost Channels

Going through the list of Most Popular Joost videos

Clicking on the Random button

For internet users, who get frustrated by clicking affiliate links and pop upwindows  Project Free – TV is the best option. Although it doesn’t have appealing design, ProjectFree-TV is probably one of the easiest sites to navigate. It offers one of the most extensive online bases of free movies, TV series and TV shows on the Web. Users can easily find what they are looking for by sorting titles by name, or by recent update. Other similar sites are: 10 Star Movies and Movies Data Center.

For completeness, let me share with you more streaming sites, which aren’t that popular, but useful:

• Archaeologychannel.com: free videos for culture, humans and Archeology
• Archive.org: for documentaries and past events from the 70’s
• The News Hour :for important news and documentaries
• Revver.com: the video base includes interviews, skirts, product reviews, animations and tutorials

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