In spite of the growing Online TV community and expanding services, there are some drawbacks to watching TV online. Before I go much farther, however, I must make perfectly clear, I am an avid Online TV Watching fan. I enjoy the convenience and the many benefits when I stream TV on the internet. As this is an unbiased website, I must disclose some of the pitfalls for those of you considering making the switch.

First off, there are thousands of channels, but not everything you want to watch will be available online. For example, live shows such as American Idol and The Biggest Looser are often hard to find or not available until after they broadcast over the air/cable/satellite system. It is possible to find these shows and stream live TV free, but usually, it would come through a source that is not licensed or permitted to stream the TV shows. For example, if I were to connect my TV to my computer, I could setup a stream to distribute any channel I set on my TV. As almost everything on TV is copyrighted in some fashion, this is not a legal way to watch TV online. Beware of the source of your online TV. There are plenty of legitimate shows you can watch without infringing. When it comes to newer shows, if you’re willing to wait a little, sometimes only an hour or so, you can watch just about anything.

Channel surfing is more difficult online. With broadcast television you can sit back and use the remote to watch a whole lot of different channels you are not interested in. Online, it is not so easy to switch channels. You can select from many channels, but flipping through them is more difficult online because with 3000-4000 channels on a single service if you flip straight through them like with cable or satellite, you will flip through a thousand or more that are in different languages or not even closely related to your favorite subjects.

If your connection drops, so does your TV stream. This is similar to losing the signal over the air or in a storm, but internet TV is affected when your connection speed is weakened or bandwidth is used up. For example, if you are streaming an HD channel over and office connection such as a T1 or T3, the available connection speed is reduced when normal phone usage increases.  The result is usually nothing more than a little reduction in quality. At home, this is usually not a problem.

Well, other than these few pitfalls, some to mention include seating comfort, screen size if you don’t stream PC to TV and sound quality if you don’t hook up the sound through your TV sound system.

Written by Adam Meade