SeeSaw have launched their new Video on Demand Service in the UK.
The service provides access to BBC, Channel 5, Channel 4 and ITV content through a Internet Browser so no Set Top Box is required.
The good news is that the service works very well on the Acer Aspire One running either Linpus or Mint Linux, although you may want to use FireFox rather then Chrome as Firefox displays video a little better.
To View SeeSaw point your Browser at http://www.seesaw.com/
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Channel 4 have launched a great selection of their on demand video content onto YouTube, and the good news is that because it runs in YouTube it works really well on the Acer Aspire One Netbook.
The most popular Channel 4 shows are on there, and to view the selection of shows available click here.
Yet another way to pass long journeys 
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There are several ways of watching Tv on the Linux Version of the Acer Aspire One.
I’ve already covered in these articles how to watch BBC IPlayer, BBC Live Channels and ITV Player, but I’ve found a great site which streams most of the Freeview Channels through a web browser.
There is a new Brilliant site for streaming TV channels including most of the Freeview channels
The site is TVCatchup.com and as long as you have a British based ISP you can choose to watch live streams of a number of TV Channels including: All BBC channels, all ITV Channels, Dave, Sky news Channels and several more.
The video streaming works really well and the Acer Aspire One handles the video very well even when full screen.
A total list of available channels is shown below:
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In this article I wrote about how to watch ITV Player on the Linux version of the Acer Aspire One.
Since I wrote the article ITV player has been changed to use Flash to deliver video.
This means that it works without difficulty on the Acer Aspire One although the performance is significantly worse then previously, and you may need to watch in a window rather then full screen
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More and more Tv stations are starting to stream their content over the Internet. This allows the consumer to watch TV through a web browser rather the through a TV, which adds felxibility and mobility.
Internet TV has recently had a big boost at the BBC have recently started streaming all of it’s channels over the Internet. The service is still only in Beta but looks to work ok and the quality actually pretty good.
Links to all of the BBC’s channels, for UK viewers are below.
To Watch BBC 1 Click here
To Watch BBC 2 Click here
To Watch BBC 3 Click here
To Watch BBC 4 Click here
To Watch BBC News Click here
To Watch CBBC Click here
To Watch CBeebies Click here
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**UPDATE** Since writing this article ITV player has changed click here to see the update.
ITV Player is an online catch up TV service similar to BBC IPlayer but for for ITV programs.
ITV Player uses Microsoft Silverlight to deliver Video, and this causes a problem for Linux uses as there is no Linux player for SilverLight, and as you can see in the picture below when you visit the ITV Player the video doesn’t play.
However there is a solution using a free FireFox add in.
Here’s how I got ITV player to work on Linux:
1) Visit http://chris.orr.me.uk/caughtup/
2) Click on the words “with just a click or 2” in the Installation / Updates section
3) Click on Install now in the Software Installation Window
N.B. You may get an error message saying that FireFox can’t allow the install in the tool bar near the top of the screen.
If this happens then click on the Edit button and the following window will display – click on Allow and close.
4) After the Add On has installed Click on the Restart FireFox button.
5) When you re-start FireFox you will notice that there is now a small TV icon in the bottom right hand corner of the FireFox Window.
6) Navigate to the ITV Player section which contains the video you want to watch and click on the new TV Icon. A menu will appear showing all the videos available to watch on the page, choose one, sit back and enjoy the video which opens in a new tab.
There is also an option to watch Live ITV channels.
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One of the applications I was keen to run on my Acer Aspire One was the BBC IPlayer, and initially I was disappointed with the jerky picture – especially in full screen mode, but there are a few processes that can be done to make things a little better.
First is to make sure that the Netbook is running at full speed, as default the Acer runs in Balanced mode, which Balances system performance against battery life, so the system battery last longer but the Netbook is not running at full speed.
To put the Acer Aspire One into Performance mode follow the following steps.
1) Right Click on the battery icon in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
2) Move the Mouse pointer over the Set Active Scheme Menu until another menu appears.
3) Click on the Performance Option.
The second is to minimize the over head of the FireFox Browser.
1) Fnd the Program you want to watch start.
2) Click on the Watch in Pop-Out Player option.
3) Close all other Firefox Windows.
4) Now Select the Option to watch in full screen if you wish.
If you follow these steps then the Performance should be improved.
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