A Look At Aereo: The Live Internet TV That's Scaring The Pants Off Broadcasters

Aereo/screen captureJames Bond on Aereo

Aereo is a service that let’s you watch live television broadcasts via the Internet for $US8 a month.

Broadcasters like CBS and Fox are not happy about Aereo.

They’ve been suing the three-year-old startup, which is backed by billionaire media mogul Barry Diller, so far to no avail.

In the meantime, Aereo has expanded its service to more cities nationwide. It’s available in Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, New York, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Miami, Salt Lake City, with plans to soon be in about 20 cities.

Aereo works by letting you stream live network TV (ABC, NBC, PBS, Fox, etc.) to your computer, tablet, or smartphone. You can also use it to record shows in a virtual DVR and watch them later.

The selection of stations isn't as fantastic as cable, but its pretty good. Here are the channels in Denver.

There's a slightly different selection of channels in New York including all of these ...

... and all of these channels in New York

The best thing about Aereo is all the features it offers. Like a DVR.

It shares a list of recommended shows with you and makes it easy to record them.

You can connect with your friends using Aereo on Facebook, but it's so new that I didn't have any Facebook Aereo friends.

You can still post to Facebook or Twitter straight from Aereo. It's great for chatting about the game, or other stuff you're watching.

The search feature is excellent. You can search for terms like 'comedy tomorrow night.'

... and it shows you all the comedy shows tomorrow night on Aereo, and lets you record them.

This is what it looks like to surf live TV shows.

When watching live TV, the quality is good ...

... but just like live TV you are stuck watching the commercials.

When using the DVR, you can skip through commercials, just like any other DVR. (See the skip button below the screen.)

You can watch TV while surfing around for other stuff to watch. See the TV screen in the corner.

If you have a Roku box, you can add Aereo to it and then watch on your regular TV that way.

You can add up to five devices from the same account (PC, tablet, Internet-enabled TV, your kid's tablet).

Anywhere you have Internet access, you'll be able to watch live TV, or your recorded shows.

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