Find More Streaming TV Online with Clicker.tv

Posted by DigitalGeekery on How to geek See other posts from How to geek or by DigitalGeekery
Published on Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:00:00 +0000 Indexed on 2010/06/10 18:13 UTC
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Looking for a way to access more of your favorite TV Shows and other online entertainment? Today we’ll take a look at Clicker.tv which offers an awesome way to find tons of TV programs and movies.

Clicker.tv

Clicker.tv is an HTML5 web application that indexes both free and premium content from sources like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, and more. Some movies or episodes, such as those from Netflix and Amazon.com’s Video on Demand, will require viewers to have a membership, or pay a fee to access content. There is also a Clicker.tv app for Boxee.

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Navigation

Navigating in Clicker.tv is rather easy with your keyboard.

  • Directional Keys: navigate up, down, left, and right.
  • Enter: make a selection
  • Backspace: return to previous screen
  • Escape: return to the Clicker.tv home screen.

Note: You can also navigate through Clicker.tv with your PC remote.

Recommended Browsers

  • Firefox 3.6 +
  • Safari 4.0 +
  • Internet Explorer 8 +
  • Google Chrome

Note: You’ll need the latest version of Flash installed to play the majority of content. Earlier versions of the above browsers may work, but for full keyboard functionality, stick with the recommendations.

Using Clicker.tv

The first time you go to Clicker.tv, (link below) you’ll be met with a welcome screen and some helpful hints. Click Enter when finished.

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The Home screen feature Headliners, Trending Shows, and Trending Episodes. You can scroll through the different options and category links along the left side.

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The Search link pulls up an onscreen keyboard so you can enter search terms with a remote as well as a keyboard. Type in your search terms and matching items are displayed on the screen.

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You can also browse by a wide variety of categories.

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Select TV to browse only available TV programs.

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Or, browse only Movies in the movie category. There are also links for Web content and Music.

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Creating an Account

You can access all Clicker.tv content without an account, but a Clicker account allows users to create playlists and subscribe to shows and have them automatically added to their playlist.

You’ll need to go to Clicker.com and create an account. You’ll find the link at the upper right of the page.

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Enter a username, password and email address.

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There also an option to link with Facebook, or you can simply Skip this step.

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Go to Clicker.tv and sign in.

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You can manually type in your credentials or use the onscreen keyboard with your remote.

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Settings

If you’d prefer not to display content from premium sites or Netflix, you can remove them through the Settings.

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Toggle Amazon, iTunes and Netflix on or off.

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Watching Episodes

To watch an episode, select the image to begin playing from the default source, or select one of the other options. You can see in the example below that you can choose to watch the episode from Fox, Hulu, or Amazon Video on Demand.

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Your episode will then launch and begin playing from your chosen source.

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If you choose a premium content source such as iTunes or Amazon’s VOD, you’ll be taken to the Amazon’s website or iTunes and prompted to purchase the content.

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Playlists

Once you’ve created an account and signed in, you can begin adding Shows to your playlist. Choose a series and select Add to Playlist.

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You’ll see in the example below that Family Guy has been Added and the number 142 is shown next to the playlist icon to indicate that 142 episodes has been added to your playlist.

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Underneath the listings for each episode in your playlist you can mark as Watched, or Remove individual episodes.

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You can also view the playlist or make any changes from the Clicker.com website. Click on “Playlist” on the top right of the Clicker.com site to access your playlists.

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You can select individual episodes from your playlists, remove them, or mark them as watched or unwatched.

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Clicker.TV and Boxee

Boxee offers a Clicker.TV app that features a limited amount of the Clicker.TV content. You’ll find Clicker.TV located in the Boxee Apps Library.

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Select the Clicker App and then choose Start.

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From the Clicker App interface you can search or browse for available content. Select an episode you’d like to view…

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Then select play in the pop up window. You can also add it to your Boxee queue, share it, or add a shortcut, just as you can from other Boxee apps.

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When you click play your episode will launch and begin playing in Boxee.

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Conclusion

Clicker.TV is currently still in Beta and has some limitations. Typical remotes won’t work completely in all external websites. So, you’ll still need a keyboard to be able to perform some operations such as switching to full screen mode. The Boxee app offers a more fully remote friendly environment, but unfortunately lacks a good portion of the Clicker.tv content. As with many content sites, availability of certain programming may be limited by your geographic location.

Want to add Clicker.TV functionality to Windows Media Center? You can do so through the Boxee Integration for Windows 7 Media Center plug-in.

Clicker.tv

Clicker.com


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