How to Watch TV on PC

This wikiHow teaches you how to watch live TV on your computer using a television network/website, a tuner, or a paid streaming service.

Table of Contents

Watch on TV website

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Open a web browser on your computer.

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Find the website of the TV station or television network. Many local stations, as well as some major cable and network channels, often stream the final episodes of their popular shows for free on their homepages. Vendors also stream their own programming in some regions. Some of the major networks that stream content in the US include:

ABC: http://abc.go.com/watch-live
NBC: https://www.nbc.com/video
CBS: http://www.cbs.com/watch/
FOX: http://www.fox.com/full-episodes

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Find links to watch TV. Not all networks or broadcasters have this option. If certain sites don’t broadcast online, you can check others, such as a network of affiliate sites in other markets. In Vietnam, you can access the websites of major television stations such as HTV, VTV, etc.

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Click the link.

By subscription service

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Access the subscription service’s page using a web browser.

If you use cable or a satellite subscription, you can watch multiple cable TV networks by logging into the network’s page with your subscription information.

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Choose the service and package that best suits your needs.

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Watch live TV. You can watch live TV on your computer with a subscription to Sling TV or Hulu’s Live TV beta. Now YouTube is also launching YouTube TV streaming TV in some cities for a flat monthly fee.

You don’t need a cable or satellite TV subscription to watch Sling TV or Hulu, both of which have over 50 channels available.
Hulu’s streaming TV service is limited to certain devices, including Chromecast and Apple TV (fourth generation).

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Watch recent TV shows.

Hulu lets you watch programming from major stations and cable networks. In many cases, you can see new shows right after they air. Most Hulu shows have commercial timings, but you can buy a higher premium plan so you won’t be interrupted by ads.
HBO Now is HBO’s standalone paid service, where you can watch new and archived HBO series, such as “Game of Thrones” (Game of Thrones). The new episode will be released just a few hours after the original airing time. Unlike the affiliated cable service, HBO Go, HBO Now does not require a subscription to a stolen TV or satellite TV.

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Watch all seasons of the series on TV. Full seasons of many TV series are available on both Hulu and HBO, plus:

Netflix releases their shows, such as “House of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black” by seasons, not episodes. Netflix also hosts entire seasons of many TV series from various networks.
Amazon Prime offers a large selection of series stored with their programming, such as “Transparent” and “The Man in the High Castle”.

By TV tuner

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Buy an external TV tuner. Tuner TV allows you to connect an antenna or cable box to your computer, thereby viewing and changing channels using the on-screen control panel.

Tuner TV for PC is available at most electronics retailers or e-commerce sites like Amazon, Lazada, etc.
Many TV tuners also allow you to record TV shows and save them for later viewing, similar to a DVR.

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Connect the tuner to the USB port. Plug the TV tuner directly into a USB port on your computer or a USB extension cable if the ports are too close together making it difficult to connect to the tuner. Limit the use of a USB hub (USB hub) because it often does not provide enough power.

You can also insert the TV tuner card into the spare PCI slot in the computer, but this is quite complicated compared to plugging the tuner’s USB cable into the machine. See more online for how to install the PCI card.
Both have similar power but if you use an external USB TV tuner it will be much simpler than installing a TV tuner card.

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Connect the antenna or cable box. Some tuners usually come with an antenna. Or you can use a coaxial cable connector to plug the cable from the antenna or cable box into the TV.

If you want to keep the cable box connected to the TV and computer at the same time, you need to use a coax splitter.

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Install TV tuning software. You will probably need to install the software that came with the tuner. Follow the tuner’s instructions.

Windows Media Center has TV tuner support.

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Channel Tuning. Launch the TV tuner software and follow the instructions to search for available channels. If an antenna is used, the channel you can tune in will depend on the signal strength and antenna power. ^{[1] X Research Source}

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Now you can start watching TV.

Steps

Watch on TV website

By subscription service

By TV tuner

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