SPB TV

CNET Editors' review

by: Jaymar Cabebe on August 25, 2011

SPB TV lets you watch over 150 television channels from all over the world, giving you both live and on-demand video streams right on your Android device. But be warned: watching streaming video does require a strong Web connection--preferably Wi-Fi or 4G--so if you don't have one, you may very disappointed.

When you first fire up SPB TV, the app takes a minute to download channel data to your device. Once it's done, you can go ahead and skip the prompt for your personal information, as the app works fine without it. From there, just swipe through the huge listing of channels along the bottom of the screen and tap the one you're interested in. This pulls up a short description and a screenshot of current programming. Some channels even include lists of upcoming live programs or, in some cases, different on-demand options. Tap the screenshot to pull up the channel and begin watching.

During the video feed, you can pull up extra functions by tapping the screen. You can change the volume, video quality, or aspect ratio of a video, or there's a button to exit. There's also a "Picture-in-picture" function which is a bit misleading because it actually just lets you check out preview stills of other channels while you're watching--no dual streaming.

While SPB TV does provide live and on-demand video streams, just as it promises, we still think it has tons of room for improvement. The video quality isn't particularly great, and the channel lineup, while extensive, isn't either. So it may prove difficult to find something worth watching. That said, if you're willing to sift through over 100 mostly obscure channels to find some potentially interesting video streams, SPB TV could still be a worthwhile download.