I have been using my PlayBook as kind of a Home Theater PC replacement lately.  It isn’t as capable as a full fledged HTPC is, but it does do some of the basic functions very well.  For example,  almost all of the Television shows I watch I now skip the original airing and I watch them from my PlayBook’s browser instead.  That way I get to avoid the commercials and  it also allows me to watch the shows whenever I have the time.

Well last weekend I decided to do a little experimenting with my PlayBook and it’s Bridge browser. I unplugged my Comcast cable box and modem and then during the next three days my family and I watched just over 17 hours worth of streaming videos using nothing but the Bridge browser  To be honest, we don’t usually watch very much Television at all. So for this test we watched a lot of stuff we usually wouldn’t have just to see if we could.

The process was very easy and the experience was as enjoyable as watching that much Television can be. The vast majority of videos we watched were full length TV shows. We also watched several movies.  Almost every video we watched played from start to finish without ever pausing to buffer.  Most were viewed at home on our big screen TV, but we had just as good results watching Sucker Punch while riding in the car. The internet is full of streaming video sites and almost all of them will work on the Bridge browser.  The only sites that don’t are the ones that intentionally block the PlayBook.  I used several sites during the testing, but the most used by far was Project Free TV.

They embed or link to content that was uploaded to the different video hosting sites. Those sites have the videos and Project Free TV makes those videos easier to find and watch.  Each video hosting site is different. Some may limit your viewing time or streaming speed. Out of all of the host sites I used,  I had the best results using videos hosted by VideoBB. It took a little bit of trial and error to figure out what worked best for me, but once I did it has perform great. I am very impressed with the capabilities of PlayBook and Bridge together.  It’s quickly becoming one of my favorite features of the PlayBook.