SOURCES FOR WATCHING MOVIES AND TV SHOWS ONLINE LEGALLY AND FOR FREE

Gone are the days when people used to plan their time according to when their favourite movies or TV shows were on. Today's hit is online viewing. There are many streaming services to choose from, with a huge range of films and TV series even in Czech, but they have one thing in common: they are paid. If we wanted to watch content without paying anything, do we even have any legal options?

Why legal? There are two main reasons. The first is ethical. It costs something to make a film, and if it's a commercial project, it's not fair to deprive the creators of income. The second is less altruistic - safety. Illegal platforms are at best on the edge of the law, often beyond the edge, and are at risk of malware attacks. So what options do we have if we limit ourselves to our Czech pond?

TV stations

Television stations that we can tune into on regular broadcasts offer access to live streaming over the internet. In addition, we can access at least some of the content in the archive of varying lengths for free. These are typically the creation of the station in question, so they are not restricted by licensing conditions.

TV Nova

TV Nova offers access to live broadcasts only for logged-in users. However, the account is free. However, while watching, you may occasionally encounter a message about a missing internet broadcast permission. In addition to the live stream, you can also watch recordings of Nova shows such as Survivor or On the Hunt. You'll need a paid Voyo account for ad-free viewing and access to episodes that haven't aired yet.

Voyo; Source: svetandroida.cz

prima+; Source: svetandroida.cz

iVysílání Czech Television

This is a big project of Czech Television. We can find a really large number of all possible genres to watch here. The shows are clearly divided into main categories, where we can find movies, series, documentaries, news... and each of them is further divided by genre (comedy, family, drama...). We can find here mainly shows produced by Czech Television, including real treasures in the form of films for memoirs, but not only those.

There are also foreign films, series and documentaries, but you should not delay watching them for too long, because they have a limited time for which they can be played. For some shows, we see a warning about the end of availability, or in the worst case, a message that the show cannot be played for licensing reasons.

Source: iVysílání

In addition to programmes from the archive, iVysílání allows you to watch live broadcasts of all Czech Television programmes.

Seznam TV

Seznam TV is a full-format television. It offers its own programmes, which it supplements with Czech and foreign content. There are films, series, cartoons, documentaries and news. Shows are broadcast by programme, but you can use the web environment to go back in time or if you watch Seznam TV on a regular device, you can use the HbbTV app (red button).

Zdroj: svetandroida.czStream.cz

Although, like Seznam TV, it is operated by Seznam, there are fundamental differences. While Seznam TV is more or less a mainstream broadcaster, Stream.cz specialises in original content created for an internet audience. Here you can find original Czech series, films, documentaries and other formats not normally available on broadcast TV.

Source: svetandroida.cz

YouTube

There is a wealth of content available on YouTube. Type in a relevant search phrase such as "free documentaries" and you'll get a wide range of playlists. However, I have not been able to verify whether the videos are actually on YouTube legally (put there by the rights owners or at least agreed to by them) or whether they remain available according to the saying "where there is no prosecutor, there is no judge". That is also why we do not provide any specific link. YouTube as such is available for free, but you cannot avoid advertisements. You can, however, purchase YouTube Premium, where, in addition to removing ads, you get YouTube Music and the app lets you play videos with the screen off. This is handy for music or podcasts.

Operators

All the big operators also offer TV packages and sometimes offer promotions. When it comes to long-term TV viewing, T-Mobile offers free Magenta TV in the basic version with its voice packages with unlimited data. You get 26 channels that you can watch on one device. You can activate Magenta TV in the My T-Mobile app as follows:

Magenta TV; Source: svetandroida.cz

After ordering, you will receive a username and password that you enter into the app. This is a really basic application, plus you get an error message when you try to access the archive.

O2 offers basic TV Blue with fixed internet, not a mobile tariff. Similar to T-Mobile, you get login credentials, you can share these between multiple devices, but only one will run at a time.

As you can see, the options are there, but you only ever get a limited range for free. The exception to this is Czech Television's iBroadcast, but we actually pay for that with licence fees. Which service you choose, or whether you prefer one of the paid options, is up to you. But as always, we'd love it if you'd share your experiences in the comments.

Do you watch free movies or prefer paid services?