SAN JOSE, Calif. — For consumers fed up with their cable companies, a new alternative is emerging.
Call it Cable 2.0: You get many of the same TV shows and movies, often with fewer commercials. Better yet, you get to watch what you want on your schedule, not the cable networks’, and you don’t have to pay for anything more than a simple broadband Internet connection.
But there are some catches, the biggest of which is that there’s no easy way to get the video from your computer to your TV — yet.
The next-generation cable TV is coming to consumers via video-aggregation sites on the Web, including Hulu, Joost and Veoh. Joining that group this week was , a similar site from the makers of the Slingbox.
Getting their content onto your TV is just one current shortcoming of those sites, but for some they are starting to become an alternative to cable.
“Not only is that a theoretical thing, but we’re seeing more and more people (saying) that that’s what they’ve already done,” said James McQuivey, a media analyst at Forrester Research.
The Web-video business has been developing rapidly. Digital-media leader Apple didn’t start selling TV shows through its iTunes store until three years ago and didn’t add movies until a year after that.
Apple has sold millions of videos through iTunes and has since started a video-rental service. But its offerings and similar ones from rivals such as Microsoft are more a replacement for buying a DVD at Target or renting one at Blockbuster than for tuning into the SciFi Channel on your cable box.
Over the past year, however, Web video has begun to look like what you get on cable. It has moved from a download model to the streaming one pioneered by sites such as YouTube. Through such sites, consumers often can watch video for free nearly instantly through a Web browser.
Sites such as Hulu, Joost and, now, offer thousands of TV episodes and a growing number of feature films from a wide variety of networks and studios. You can find everything from the latest episodes of “The Office” to “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.”
Sling has made deals with about 150 different networks and brands, including CBS, NBC, Fox, USA Network and the SciFi Channel. There are some big holes in the lineup — it doesn’t include ABC or ESPN, for example — but consumers can expect the selection to grow, analysts and insiders say.
Among the advantages of Web video is that you’re not limited to watching it just where you have a coaxial cable or set-top box. Instead, you can watch it wherever you can get an Internet connection and on a range of devices, from laptop and desktop computers to mobile phones and handheld devices.
But few consumers may be ready to ditch their cable service and tune in to something like Hulu or . Such services offer few live broadcasts, an obvious drawback to sports fans or news hounds.
