TVSquad

Recently, TV Squad reported that NBC has added all kinds of classic TV shows to their online outlets. Now comes the announcement that CBS is also bringing a variety of well-loved TV dramas to the web. CBS Interactive is raiding the CBS Library, which is "one of the largest television programming libraries in the entertainment business," to present TV series online across the CBS Audience Network.

Like the NBC fodder, the CBS offering is gangbusters: full-length episodes of classic Star Trek, Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, MacGyver, Hawaii Five-O and Melrose Place. CBS plans to add more programs and clips in the coming months, including sports and other kinds of entertainment.

Zap2it isn't the only online TV listing site that's been busy working up a partnership with TiVo recently. Online TV guide/video streaming company MeeVee has just announced the addition of a "Record to TiVo" button on its web site.

Registered MeeVee users will be able to link their TiVo account with their MeeVee account. Once your account is set up, you can click the Record to TiVo button to schedule remote recordings. This is a great feature for anyone who's ever needed to schedule a recording from work on while on vacation. Say you find out that you're going to have to work late but you don't want to miss a football game. Or say you find out about that a movie you really want to see is going to be on TV Saturday, but you're on the road til Sunday. Just login and click the record button.

Of course, MeeVee isn't alone in offering this feature. As I mentioned, you can use Zap2it, but you can also schedule recordings from Yahoo! TV, or several other services including, not surprisingly, TiVo.com.

Pretty much every television network offers a way to watch full streaming episodes of popular TV shows these days. But you need to jump through a series of hoops and a dozen websites to find each show you're looking for. While companies like MeeVee, and Veoh have created streamlined interfaces for finding your favorite programs online, I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with TV Guide's new Online Video Guide.

TV Guide has been beta testing its new video guide for months, and the video directory goes live today. The front page features a list of popular shows and a column showing programs you may have missed last night. You can also search or browse for shows. If you were busy watching Prison Break and missed Chuck, TV Guide can help. Of course, so can NBC.com, but I really like the idea of having one place to go, not one for each network.

And unlike VeohTV, TV Guide's directory takes you directly to network websites to watch the video. In other words, you're exposed to every banner ad the network wants you to see and there's absolutely no reason for the networks to get upset and sue anyone.

[via lost remote]

MeeVee at its most basic level is a web site offering personalized TV guides. You select your favorite progams, and MeeVee will let you know when they're on. It will also examine your taste in TV shows, movies, genres, and actors and let you know when programs you might want to watch are on.

Now MeeVee has added online video search to the mix, locating videos on YouTube and network web sites that relate to your preferences. So if you select BattleStar Galactica, you can find out when the next episode is on and you can also watch video clips and fan-made videos all in one place. Well, sort of in one place. MeeVee actually has separate tabs for "On TV," "Network Video," and "Community Video." And seeing as how a lot of the content on sites like YouTube is video clips uploaded by users, there's really not much difference between the Network Video and Community video sections.

That said, I like where this is going. I'm not sure there'd be a better way to integrate online video and television listings. But I like that you can select "comedy" as an interest and receive information on upcoming comedy programs and links to funny videos online.

[via DownloadSquad]