01 Feb Five Best Free Video Streaming Services You Should Know
With so many subscription-based streaming video services available today (Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and a lot more), it’s easy to run up a big monthly bill for your TV viewing. However, there are a growing number of free streaming video services available, or you can play online blackjack to get busy.
Below are five of the best free video streaming services you should check out.
There are more than a dozen free streaming video services, many offering a similar mix of classic TV shows and not-so-recent movies.
Let’s take a look at some of the most popular services, curated by experts of leroi johnny.
Crackle
Let’s start alphabetically with Crackle. This service features on-demand programming in a variety of genres, mainly movies but also some older TV shows. You’ll find series like Barney Miller, Benson, Charlie’s Angels, The Facts of Life, Fantasy Island, The Partridge Family, and Starsky & Hutch.
Movies include a good mix of classics and newer fare, including the original Spider-Man trilogy, as well as numerous films you’ve probably never heard of.
IMDb TV
IMDb TV is owned by Amazon and complements the company’s paid Prime Video service. IMDb TV offers both on-demand content and a “live” channel guide.
It also offers more well-known content than on some other free services, as well as programming not available on other services. That includes more popular (but still older) movies, as well as TV series like Chicago Fire, Desperate Housewives, Little House on the Prairie, Lost, Murder She Wrote, Night Court, and Spenser for Hire. IMDb TV is also the exclusive US home of the popular Canadian comedy series Corner Gas.
Plex
Plex is one of the newer players in the free streaming space. Best known for its media server software, Plex offers both on-demand and “live” feeds displayed in a program guide format. Programming includes more than 200 individual channels of programming, including movies, TV shows, documentaries, reality programming, news, sports, and music-only channels.
Note that few offerings are exclusive to this service. Instead, Plex sources a lot of its programming from Crackle, Shout TV, and other similar services.
Pluto TV
Pluto TV is owned by Paramount, so it includes content from all of that company’s properties, including CBS and Viacom networks. Pluto was one of the first services to organize its programming into “live” channels, displayed in a traditional channel grid that you can scroll through.
Pluto TV currently offers more than 250 channels, as well as on-demand programming. These are organized by categories such as Movies, Entertainment, News and Opinion, Reality, Crime and many more.
It even has channels devoted to specific shows, such as Gunsmoke, Happy Days, and Star Trek. Because of its Paramount/CBS/Viacom connection, Pluto TV arguably has the widest selection of quality programming of any free streaming service.
The Roku Channel
Pluto TV and The Roku Channel are the acknowledged leaders in free streaming video. The Roku Channel started as a service for users of Roku’s streaming media players and TVs. However, it’s now available on most other media players and TV platforms (including Amazon Fire TV and Google Chromecast devices), as well as on the web for computer users.
Programming is a mix of on-demand programming and “live” channels, including true live programming from AccuWeather, ABC News, Cheddar, Fox News, NBC News, and other services. It also offers “Roku Originals,” which are programs obtained from the now-defunct Quibi short-form video service.