Find out which internet TV service is the best for you

THESE days, internet TV is as easy as owning a box that sits under the telly. But which one's right for you?

TV

GETTING television shows from the internet to your TV used to involve sailing the seven seas under a Jolly Roger flag and having a solid understanding of how to customise your modem.

These days it’s as easy as owning a special box that sits under your telly — but which one's best for you?

Here's the run-down on several of the most popular internet TV, or IPTV, solutions on the market.

Telstra T-Box

The T-Box combines the ability to record free-to-air TV with the ability to download movies on demand and choose from seven additional channels that stream through the internet.

Channels include BigPond's 24/7 news channel, a music video channel, plus five different sports channels, including ones dedicated to AFL and NRL.

Telstra is also leveraging its relationship with Foxtel to launch Foxtel on T-Box in the near future, bringing 30 Foxtel channels to your T-Box streamed over the internet.

All content delivered through the T-Box is unmetered through Telstra, which means that downloads won't count towards your monthly data allowance.

The box itself is available for $299, or you can buy it on contract.

iiNet Fetch TV

Using the internet to deliver Pay TV content, Fetch TV is almost more like a competitor to Foxtel than to the other boxes mentioned here.

It works as a PVR — personal video recorder — allowing users to watch and record TV shows from free-to-air TV, but also offers 15 additional Pay TV channels for $29.95 a month. You also get 10 free movie downloads per month thrown in.

With channels from National Geographic, MTV, Discovery and Fox Sports, plus the ability to add on extra packages including world channels or soccer, Fetch TV has one of the better content offerings of any IPTV box in Australia. There's also on demand movie rentals and TV shows.

Content is unmetered through its ISP partners iiNet, Internode, Optus, Adam Internet and Westnet, and the box can be purchased outright for $399.

TiVo

TiVo launched in Australia purely as a PVR box, but in 2009, it jumped aboard the internet TV bandwagon when it launched the "Caspa" IPTV service.

Offering a selection of classic and new release movie rentals, as well as rentals of popular (and not so popular) TV shows, Caspa is all about content on demand, rather than channels streamed through the web. TV show episodes cost $2.95 each, while movie rentals range from $3.95 to $6.95.

The TiVo itself $499 outright and it has a large selection of ISP partners who offer Caspa content unmetered, including iiNet, Internode and iPrimus.

Foxtel on Xbox

Who would have thought that a gaming console could be such a versatile machine?

Microsoft partnered with Foxtel last year to offer Foxtel on Xbox, a selection of 30 Foxtel channels streamed through the internet onto Xbox 360 consoles.

The service — which starts at $19.50 a month with 17 channels of content — includes unique viewing options using your Xbox Avatar, including the ability to watch a show with a friend online while chatting through the Xbox.

What’s more, this week at gaming expo E3 Microsoft announced that YouTube and Bing voice search functionality would be added to the console later this year, allowing you to find games and IPTV content simply by speaking out loud.

The Xbox also incorporates a movie service called Zune Video Marketplace, which offers HD movies to rent or buy online.

Foxtel on Xbox is unmetered by one internet provider, Telstra, however the Zune service is not.

IPTV vs free-to-air

The fact that three of the four top IPTV solutions incorporate TV tuners means we're still a while away from internet TV replacing regular free-to-air.

But the shift has definitely started, as Sydney web developer Rob Shaw discovered while using a variety of IPTV solutions to cater to his young family.

"Having three people around the house looking for content all the time, I went for Fetch TV on iiNet," he told news.com.au.

"But while the delivery was fantastic, I found the content quite lacking, so having an Xbox I got Foxtel on Xbox as well."

Mr Shaw said he also used an Apple TV and two iPads to stream content at home.

"We watch very little live broadcast TV," he said.

"We watch the ABC, and even then we have iView running through the iPads."