patndoris TechnoGeek

How I stumbled upon this site is a bit convoluted. Then again, isn't most everything I do? (Comments regarding said rhetorical question will be moderated - I warn you!) Anyway, I am a member of a word of mouth marketing site, that spawned a word of mouth check out the website kinda thing. On the very day one of my 13-year old male offspring's teachers advised I needed to rent the video "A Raisin in the Sun" so he could complete some work, I received an email from the word of mouth check it out website thingy (which I usually just delete) but something greater in the universe told me to look at it. (No it wasn't just the little voices in my head that told me to do it.) In the email was OVGuide. I said to myself...."Self - this looks interesting and since we do need to check for streaming videos online (free is always better than renting) - let's check it out! (For the record - self agreed.)

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I'm no stranger to watching video (live, streaming, YouTube, whatever...) on the internet. Watching streaming video is perfectly legal, I must point out however, in good conscience (and yes on occasion I do have a conscience) that while watching streaming video is legal, depending on the circumstance, those actually providing the stream may be doing so illegally. However, the FSI (Federal Streaming Investigators - uh huh...I made that up) are responsible for catching them and shutting them down - not me. I've found there are quite a number of useful sites for watching anything from videos, to sports, to TV shows, to full movies online. I've had a number of such sites I've checked out in recent months. In fact, I've found good online video site recommendations spread rapidly via word of mouth. But I digress...

So I clicked on the link to OVGuide and what a wonderful, incredible surprise! Think of OVGuide as a TV Guide meets Google search. You can browse by type of video or show you want to see, or type in a name and instantly be shown a listing of sites streaming the very video you want! If you sign up (free of course) you can also build playlists of various favorite streams or channels, and can share them with your friends. The "What's On" section gives a very nice listing of various sites you might like to check out based on type of video.

OVGuide seems to strive to be the most complete listing on the internet. A quick scan of their A-Z site listing reveals they have already discovered most of the sites I tried in the past. They even offer a chance to win $1000 (runners up get a T-Shirt) if you submit a site they don't already have listed. There are some rules however, such as not too many bad links, video must play in the browser (which eliminates a few of my favorite sites requiring the one time download of a player) and they review all the sites prior to inclusion, to weed out ones that don't meet their criteria or are unreliable. Still, any site that tries to be so comprehensive while still taking the time to be sure links meet quality standards gets a star in my book. (OK, so there's no book, but there's my site and my del.icio.us do they count?)

While I'd like to see them include sites requiring a separate player download, with the requirement clearly marked of course, I still think they are a top notch site. I suppose, with lots of little offsprings visiting such a site, even clearly marked downloads of players might get a few parental units upset. Never know what the little buggers are going to put on your computer. So perhaps, there is a method to the madness in requiring sites launch in the browser. Even without this, OVGuide will remain at the top of my resource list for finding online videos. It's certainly a great place to surf around and check out there's no doubt about that!