The recently launched SeeSaw offers a selection of both free programmes and shows to rent. The free stuff comes courtesy of the Channel 4, Five and BBC archives, offering much the same selection as you’ll find on YouTube.
The premium rentals cast the net a little wider, offering well-known US TV series such as House and Grey’s Anatomy, alongside series from the BBC archives such as Spooks and Red Dwarf.
With keener prices and improved picture quality, SeeSaw really could be one to watch
Shows can be rented individually or as a series, although prices aren’t much cheaper than a DVD boxset: £17.99 for a 23-episode series of Brothers & Sisters, for example.
Given that you get only 90 days’ rental of your series and that each episode expires within 48 hours of you first pressing the Play button, that’s appalling value (although keep an eye out for special offers). Plus, shows can only be streamed, not downloaded.
The SeeSaw site, however, is immaculately designed. Registering and renting is painless, and your rentals are stashed in your personal “latch”, ready to resume from where you left off.
Picture quality is respectable, with three settings to choose from: low, medium and high. But the “high” setting is nowhere near Full HD.
SeeSaw doesn’t state what resolution the streams are, but they look sharper than the 480p offerings from YouTube, which are fine for a laptop but merely watchable on anything bigger. Paying for premium streams doesn’t get you better picture quality.
There are issues, but with keener prices and improved picture quality, SeeSaw really could be one to watch.
Rating: 4/6
Internet TV software reviewed:
4 on Demand
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