Watching Classic TV Online, Legally for Free
Vintage Episodes from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s Now Available
Sep 26, 2009
You may already know that the big networks such as NBC, ABC and Fox have plenty of material on the internet to watch, including entire episodes of some of your favorite prime time shows. And it's all perfectly legal and free, except for the cost of your internet connection. What you may not know, however, is that some of the smaller, more obscure, cable networks are getting involved, meaning that the amount of content keeps increasing.
A Blast From the Past on Your Computer
In the United States, TV Land now has many classic episodes of various TV shows available, including Leave It To Beaver, 3rd Rock from the Sun, The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Gunsmoke, Hogan's Heroes and Sanford and Son. In Canada, the Global Television Network has also started doing the same thing with old TV shows such as The Facts Of Life, Dawson's Creek, Who's The Boss?, Good Times and Silver Spoons.
You may remember Silver Spoons, which first made its NBC debut in 1982, as a sitcom about a rich kid played by a very young Ricky Schroder. Of course, this was long before he appeared in NYPD Blue. Arrested Development's Jason Bateman also appeared as Ricky's friend in the first couple of seasons and in case you're trying to do math in your head, they would have only been 12 and 13 respectively.
It was only a decade ago when many of us had to rely on independent superstations to watch many of these classic shows. For those who lived in more rural areas, this meant either having to pay for cable or toying with the bunny ears to try and pick a snowy image of Andy Griffith on some obscure UHF channel. Remember UHF? But with today's technology, not only do you not need to have cable or an antenna, you don't even need to have a television set.
International Restrictions
When watching TV online, one of the biggest obstacles you may encounter will be that of international copyright restrictions. The copyright owner of a given TV show will vary from one country to another. For an example, NBC may own the exclusive rights to Heroes in the United States, however, in Canada, those rights were sold to Global Television.
Without getting into all the dry and dull details regarding international copyright laws, basically what you need to know is that if you try to access TV shows online, you'll usually have better luck if you go to the web sites of television networks in the country where you live. This is especially true for well known Hollywood productions. This is why someone living in Canada will get an error message when trying to watch Heroes off of the NBC site instead of Global.
Software Requirements
Other obstacles may be that certain software applications will need to be downloaded. When trying to watch free stuff from NBC's web site, you may be asked to download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. If this is the case, there's no need to worry as the instructions on how to do this are all right there. The download link will be in the same window as the error message. Click on that and a series of step by step instructions will instantly appear.
If for some reason they don't, you can also go directly to the Adobe Flash Player website or the site of whatever media player you require and simply click on the link marked "Install Now." But if you really want to make sure you're not making any mistakes, the License Agreement and System Requirements links are also right there on the same page, for your reading pleasure.
What if Your Computer Operating System is Just Too Old?
One final problem you may encounter will have to do with computer equipment which may no longer be compatible with the newest software. For an example, those of you who did actually read the System Requirements may have noticed that Adobe Flash Player is no longer compatible with Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows ME, Macintosh OSX 10.1 to 10.3, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4.
Sometimes you can easily get around this technical glitch by downloading an older version of the software. If you're using the above mentioned operating systems, try Flash Player 9 instead of Flash Player 10. Unfortunately, there may be other times where there's not much you can do short of buying a new computer. By the way, it also helps if you have a high speed internet connection.
However, in spite of some of the technical issues that may arise, you will find that it is worth the effort to search the web to see what's out there. Bottom line, there's enough content on the internet now, safely available for free, that one can't help but wonder why even bother to buy a television in the first place.
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