CityTV - major update to Video site

As of January 2010 CityTV Video site went through major upgrade and now full episodes for dozens of shows, including 30 Rock, Mercy, Cougar Town, Murdoch Mysteries, Trauma, Supernanny, The Biggest Loser and others are available online in Canada.

Ugly Betty is still there for sure.

Check out list of other Hulu alternatives in Canada

Enjoy!

Rogers on Demand - Canadian Hulu?

Clearly not now. And unlikely in the future.



But anyway - one more source of online TV for [at least some] Canadians. Just launched this week (first week of December 2009) RogersOnDemand.com at the moment hosts few dozens of TV shows and movies.

There are couple of gotchas. First of all you have to be existing paying Rogers customer. To create an account you first should authenticate yourself either by using Rogers Cable Modem (I suppose they just detect your IP address or something), via SMS over Rogers cellphone or presenting your rogers account #. If you are not subscribed to any Rogers services - you are out of luck. No Rogers on demand for you.

Gotcha #2 - even if you are the Rogers customer, you can not access all the shows. For any shows that require subscription to "speciality channel" you'll be offered - yes, to subscribe to that channel. See that "lock" icon on the screenshot? Yes that's restricted channel.


Gotcha #3 - # of the programs available online. Not really a lot. Other non-restricted canadian hulu alternatives do provide more programming online than Rogers. Though - here I'll give Rogers benefit of the doubt - they just went to beta stage and promise to make more programming available soon. Will see...

As far as picture quality goes - good enough. Can't find any HD content there, but for SD - no complains.

Hulu in Canada - update

Apparently Hulu figured out how to block HotSpot Shield users from accessing Hulu from Canada.

So we now have no choice, but to use legal Hulu alternatives in Canada from CBC, Global, CTV and others.

Couple to additions to the list:

CTV launched beta version of HD Video site Only Flash Point and Corner Gas are there so far.

YouTube now hosts full-length movies without any restrictions for Canada. Most if not all these movies are pretty old, but anyway - I glad to see some developments there.

Another thing to check out - justin.tv. Not sure if and how to take it from the legality standpoint, but there is bunch of interesting stuff out there.

No HULU in Canada? Try Joost!

Tried to find some compliments for Hulu Canada post, looking at websites of canadian TV broadcasters... Found some limited content available from E! Canada and A Channel

Thanks to their iPhone application, I discovered the perfect free and legal TV content source for Canada - joost.com

Joost, like Hulu, would limit content canadians can watch, but unlike hulu - joost would allow some shows to be watched in canada online right now.

Among the TV programming available to Canadians via Joost online you'll find canadian-created comedy like: Chilly Beach and The Red Green Show. Whole set of National Geographic programming, classic western and horror movies and much much more.

My favorite so far - Australian Food TV - full episodes of australian cooking show. So entertaining Australian accent, eh?

Hulu, watch out!

No HULU in Canada? No problem!

Hulu.com - the internet superhit of last year, delivering tonns of TV programming on-demand online to your PC is not avaliable in Canada. Not yet. The official version is there is legal paperwork to be done in order to "clear" the content for distribution in Canada.



Anyway - whatever real reason is - no hulu for canadians as of january 2009.

However - you still can whatch a lot of your favorite TV shows on your computer here in Canada. Legally. Yes, there are couple of tricks you can play to full hulu.com so it would think you are whatching it in US, services like surfthechannel.com - we are not discussing these here. All below is 100% clear TV content available over internet in Canada.

What hulu can't or not willing to do - Canadian TV broadcasters can and willing to. Publishing full episodes of TV shows online. CTV, CBC, Global - they all are making their shows avaliable to watch over internet.

CBC
- The Border
- Little Mosque On The Prairie
- Sophie
- Coronation street
See all the shows avaliable online at CBC Television website Each show has it's owm site with videos to watch.

CTV
CTV Video page if you'll figure out the navigation part - tonns of shows are there including South Park, Corner Gas, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, Desperate Housewives, ER, Grey's Anatomy and much more. Best content, but tricky UI.

Global
Global Full Episodes Page Features House, 24 and few others like Family Guy and Prison Break... Though, for some show it may display just "episodes coming soon". The only nasty think about Global's online videos - there is no way to get them to real full-screen. You have two options "small window" and "larger window". No full-screen...

City TV
No joy there. Just couple of episodes of Ugly Betty and Priveledged As of January 2010 CityTV Video site went through major upgrade and now features tons of shows, including 30 Rock, Mercy, Cougar Town, Murdoch Mysteries, Trauma, Supernanny and others.

And don't forget about Antenna. You can whatch all of these broadcasters for free over the air. Super-Bowl weekend is here. Sunday February 1st, 6:20 PM ET. CTV would broadcast game in Canada, NBC in US. All you need to get it for free - DIY TV Antenna.

Update: Sep 11, 2009 - For Kids
TVO KIds hosts full versions of Arthur, Little Princess, Miss BG, Mighty Machines and many other shows here...

TreehouseTV finally get some rather limited set of full episodes online here....

Update: Feb 15th 2009 E! Video Page has few shows like Knight Rider, Secret Millionaire, Deal Or No Deal, 5th Grader and some more. A Channel hosts Last and Private Practice (also available at CTV)

Update: Dec 1st 2009 Rogers Just launched RogersOnDemand.com - promising video-on-demand project, but for Rogers' subscribers only.

Update: Jan. 19, 2010 Major update on CityTV website.

Update: Nov. 18, 2010 ShowCase.ca video site features video od series like Weeds, Trailer Park Boys, Rent a Goalie ant others.