As the speed of our broadband connections increases, so does the quality and diversity of the media that we can watch on our computers.

A lot of this is free. Already there are tons of videos, movies, documentaries, and radio stations available to watch and listen to over the internet.

You don't need any special hardware to access this avalanche of multimedia content, just a half-decent broadband connection – the faster the better – with a very large download limit!

Some of this media is not of the best quality at present, because the broadband speeds are not quite fast enough to allow the highest-quality media downloads without it taking forever to download.

However, this is changing quickly. Already, great free and commercial programs are starting to appear, which allow you to organise and track selected media programs for you to record and store for later viewing.

Why is organising and tracking necessary? Because there are already so many channels and sources to choose from, plus enormous amounts of new material being added constantly, that is mind-boggling!

As one commentator put it: "You are be spoilt for choice. It is like having thousands of Foxtel networks available to you, from all over the world."

Some of this content you can pay for, but a lot is free. Some content is sponsored with an opening ad.

Miro is a free internet TV organisational software program. It is open-source and cross-platform, so it will work on Windows, Linux and Apple Mac. It will play just about any media file, music or video.

Miro TV screen shot

www.getmiro.com

Another approach to this is Chime TV. This works with flash, so there is no need to install any program, it uses your web browser as the interface.

This site is a mash up and collects and categorises the multimedia content from different internet sources, for easy navigation and organisation.

Chime TV screen shot

www.chime.tv

Already, the amount of content is mind-blowing, and increasing exponentially. A lot of the video content is short, and not of the highest visual quality, mainly to cut down on download times.

There is still large amounts of it which has very entertaining content.

Political correctness is not necessarily observed, plus a lot of it is just bizarre – comments and views you would not see or hear about on your local mainstream media.

The MiroTV open-source system has a number of advantages over the ChimeTV system, as it allows you to download large high-quality video content, sort it, and play it back later.

You can also download multiple items at once, pause the download and restart later. So you can leave your computer downloading overnight, and then watch the higher-quality content the next day. You can also store it, and set up a large multimedia library, of this content.

If you go down the path of storing the downloaded videos, you will need tons of storage space. There are commercial software programs available, that do basically the same thing as Miro and ChimeTV, but allow you access to paid content.

Miro and ChimeTV systems are just two examples of many more which are popping up like mushrooms all over the internet.

All this can be mesmerising, so remember to get up and walk around and let the family know you're alive. :-)

If you're an audiophile, home theatre enthusiast, or just love listening to music or watching movies, come along to SCCC Inc and find out how this all works.