Live sports on PC

November 28, 2009 3:50 PM

What's the best way to watch live tv (sports mainly) on a PC? My gf's parents have a vacation cabin with only internet access and they want to be able to watch live sports while they are there. What's the best option. Her mother asked me about "Digital TV for PC" but I think it's a scam. They do have full cable at their main home so I was thinking of advising Slingbox. Anything else out there that won't require me installing hardware at their main home? Thanks!
posted by paulyballs to computers & internet (9 answers total)

You could try MyP2p Forums or ATDHE.net. The ethics/legality of these services, I'll leave for you to contemplate.

The best, ime, are Stream Torrent broadcasts, the next is SOPCast - both of which require a software install. There's a "emulate IE" for Firefox that you'll need to run SOPCast (iirc).
posted by porpoise at 4:30 PM on November 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

http://www.channelsurfing.net/
posted by wv kay in ga at 4:34 PM on November 28, 2009

Justin.tv has video streams of games. Quality is often decent.

Visit the Sports channel to see what's on right now.
posted by alligatorman at 4:37 PM on November 28, 2009

Depending on your cable provider you can get Espn360 for free, which covers a large number of games for free.
posted by cyphill at 5:12 PM on November 28, 2009

Is there a reason a small TV sat-dish is out of the question. I'm not a user, but my impression was that Direct-TV was pretty affordable -- even in a temporary use situation like this seems to be.
posted by mikelieman at 6:09 PM on November 28, 2009

If your parents have a reasonable upload speed on their home Internet connection, I highly recommend a Slingbox. I have one myself and it works beautifully. As for what is "reasonable," 384kbps will work, 512kbps is better, and 1mbps or up will give a nice picture. There are digital over-the-air tuners for PCs or laptops that are definitely not scams, but depend greatly on whatever is available at their location. If we're talking a little cabin in the mountains, they might not get any OTA reception.

On the other hand, if baseball is their thing, MLB sells out of market access to live games over the Internet at MLB.tv. Out of market means they would have to be reasonably far from home, as in Minnesota Twins fans vacationing in Seattle. The NFL doesn't appear to have such a service, and I didn't look for the NHL or NBA.
posted by fireoyster at 1:38 AM on November 29, 2009

Thanks for the input everyone. I will evaluate these options and see what works best.
posted by paulyballs at 2:38 PM on November 30, 2009

fwiw, seconding ATDHE and myp2pforum.eu

and streamtorrent
posted by knockoutking at 5:35 PM on November 30, 2009

Am I correct in assuming that Over-The-Air TV doesn't have enough, or the right type of, sports? (There's NBC's "Universal Sports" network now.) If they don't want to get a TV set, there's always USB TV tuner sticks for the PC that get OTA signals.
posted by sentient at 4:33 PM on December 1, 2009