Wednesday, August 13, 2008

A new kid on the block: Check out this Indian TV on Internet

So you are an NRI who longs for your favorite restaurant back home, or for the chat you have with your buddies on the street corner about the cricket world cup that just ended, or … ., Well, we haven’t found a solution for these yet. But if you are an NRI that longs for your TV programs – someone who lives and breathes mega serials - so much so you hate the weekends because they are not aired on Saturdays and sundays, who used to be glued to the Television when anything about cricket is on – even when SriLanka is playing Hong Kong in some inane two-country world cup – then there might be a website out there to get your fix.

Of course, one can scour the internet and find sites that bring some of these television content to you. But usually they invove a lot of searching. Even after you have found a site that has the programs you want, you are now facing risky downloads. All of a sudden you are invited to an online casino game when you are googling for local restaurants that prepare rumali roti, or someone offers you a million dollars and all they need is your bank account to transfer the money to. Ok, you have a great anti-virus, anti-spyware ant-everything-in-the-world-that-can-mess-up-your-pc, so you are totally protected from these. You painstakingly plod through the site to find the video and finally, there it is! You enjoy the programs today. Tomorrow you go back to the site, and it is gone! Well, another fly by night operation. Ok, lets start the search all over again.

If you were looking for enjoying a clean fun web site to enjoy Indian television shows, we would recommend you to check out GluTV (www.glutv.com). A relative new comer to Indian Internet entertainment scene, GluTV offers daily television on demand shows from major Indian Television networks such as Zee television. The GluTV carries shows for Hindi, Marathi, Gujrati, Gujarati, Bengali, Kannada, Telugu and Punjabi speaking junta. They have daily Bollywood Gossip on Zee Multiplex.

When you visit GluTV site, the first thing you will notice is the quality of video. It appears significantly better than most Indian sites and its player size is larger than one usually sees in many web sites. The quality of video is comparable to standard television in full screen mode. When connected to television using S-Video, the quality is acceptable. GluTV says it is planning on offering an Internet enabled set top box that will let users watch directly on TV. The specific dates when this solution is available. GluTV site is easy to navigate. Once a user is logged on to MyGluTV page on its site, user can easily navigate between channels, shows and various episodes of a show easily. Simple DVR like features help users to pause, forward, and replay. It is really neat that one will be able to continue watching from where they left of in the previous logon.

As of now, GluTV is bringing complete array of full length episodes from 12 Zee television channels. It includes an array of regional language channels in Marathi, Bengali, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati and Punjabi. Most shows are available on its site with in a day or two of its airing in India and are available for several months for on demand viewing. GluTV says it is in negotiation with other major networks and is expected to increase its offerings substantially by the year end. In addition it is planning to offer movies on demand and live sports.

You can think of GluTV as your Satellite/Cable TV, sling box and Tivo all rolled into one. But you will soon realize that is cheaper than Satellite/Cable TV . You will also notice that you don’t need a contraption to set up at home like in a slingbox, but you can carry your TV programs wherever you want on your laptop. As for the DVR, you don’t really need to worry about how much more hours are left on your DVR disk, or if you have remembered to record a particular show. GluTV records and maintains all of the shows in its servers so they are available for you without you having to record or managing it.

Compared to many web sites offering Indian television and entertainment programs, GluTV site is much simpler to use. It is not inundated with pop-ups and unwanted offers. It looks like GluTV has paid attention to single most important thing one would like to do on its site: Watch your favorite video with out any hassle!