There’s no question that the internet is changing the way consumers consume video entertainment. Being from an older generation, I still find myself most comfortable in front of my television when I want to watch something, although I have watched a few TV shows and movies online. My kids are an entirely different story, however.

I think it’s safe to say that my kids spend far more time watching video on the internet than on TV. They spend hours watching YouTube videos and TV programs on sites like Hulu.com. Since they practically grew up with a mouse in their hands, they feel pretty natural parked in front of a computer monitor as opposed to the glowing tube I spent countless hours watching when I was a kid.

This move to online video entertainment is not lost on DISH Network. Today they have launched a brand-new website that will allow viewers to watch DISH Network programming online. As soon as I learned about DishOnline.com I went to the site and was able to log in easily using the same username and password that I use to access my DISH Network account online.

I took a few minutes to browse through the programming that was available and it appeared to be a pretty impressive amount of programming, including popular programs like 24, Big Brother, House and many more. At the moment the new service is in “Beta,” and the number of programs available seems to vary quite a bit from program to program.

Personally, I’ll still be doing most of my TV viewing in front of my 51” HDTV, but where I see this service really coming in handy for me is if I happen to miss an episode of one of my favorite programs. Even with my DVR, I sometimes screw up and manage to miss something I really wanted to see. DishOnline.com will be a very welcome resource during those times.

I’m not quite sure if I am ready to tell my kids about this yet. I’m a bit concerned that they will start using outrageous amounts of bandwidth and get us on the “naughty list” with Comcast who we depend on as the only broadband internet provider available in our area.

I’m a bit unclear so far on whether or not all this new content on the DishOnline.com site will be accessible from my DVR. If that’s the case, I’ll be able to catch those missed shows in all their 51” HDTV glory.

Obviously DISH Network subscribers will have the most to gain from the launch of the new site, although there is supposed to be some free content available for everyone, so at least it will give DISH a chance to showcase some of their features.

As soon as my wife is done watching “her shows” for the evening, I will go up and give the features of my DVR a thorough going-over to see if there are any new ones that give me access to all that programming on DishOnline.com.

Recent developments in technology are blurring the lines that separate television and the internet. Sure, we’ve had YouTube and other popular video sites for a while now, and more recently we have seen major television networks offerings some of their most popular programming for viewers to watch online via the internet.

DISH Network is taking TV via internet to a new level with Sling technology, which allows DISH Network subscribers to watch programming in real time from their DVR systems anywhere they can access the internet. Using Sling technology gives users an experience that is the next best thing to watching from your favorite chair in the comfort of your own home without being there.

Although the inner workings of the internet remain a mystery for the majority of users, it’s well known that the internet offers criminals a gold mine of data that they use to fuel their criminal activities. News stories of company websites being hacked and customer data being stolen are not uncommon these days. What may be lesser known to internet users is that data can actually be siphoned from the internet in real time by someone who has the knowhow and access to tap into an access point.

With DISH Network relying on the internet to broadcast Sling content, the need to secure the data was pretty obvious. To that end, EchoStar, DISH Network’s sister company, has employed Widevine, a company that is described as a “content protection and video optimization specialist.”

Widevine’s DRM (digital rights management) technology will protect DISH Network’s programming content as it is streamed onto the internet for use by subscribers with Sling-equipped DVRs and receivers.

According to Mark Jackson, president of EchoStar Technologies: "Our innovative consumer devices embedded with Widevine’s widely adopted security bring peace of mind to content owners and service providers seeking to maintain their revenue model while providing consumers unparalleled flexibility to watch their content on the go.”

A Florida Federal Court walloped a DISH Network pirate with a $51 million judgment after he was found to be posting software on the internet that allowed people with Free-to-air (FTA) satellite systems to receive programming from DISH Network without paying for it.

Satellite companies like DISH go to great lengths to protect their signals with various types of encryption, but when someone figures out how to crack the code and receive programming for free, they sometimes share it with others who also end up risking prosecution if they are caught pirating a subscription channel.

The court held that the posting of pirating software code is a violation of the Federal Communications Act, and that statutory damages should be arrived at based on how many persons downloaded the pirating software. Considering the $51 million number, one heck of a lot of people must have downloaded that code!

These matters are taken very seriously and as one pirate who was foolish enough to advertise his illegal wares found out, $51 million is a pretty big number. Can’t imagine how the average Joe could pay that, but I sure wouldn’t want to have to figure out how!

I had wondered what kind of useful features DISH Network might be introducing when they announced a while back that we could not connect our DVRs to the internet. Due to the amount of work involved, I put it of for quite a while, but I finally got around to getting it connected via my home network a couple of months ago.

The big benefit I noticed right off the bat was that I had access to a lot more on demand content. Some of it was from channels I did not even subscribe to, so that was kind of cool. All you need to do is select one of the on-demand programs from the list and it will be downloaded via the internet for you to watch.

A while later I discovered another nice advantage to having my DVR connected to the internet. I could access and control my DVR from anywhere I could access the internet. I can sit in my office and browse the program guide on my PC and set up programs to be recorded while my wife is sitting in the living room watching TV.

Check out the story of how I managed to save the day by borrowing my son’s iPhone to access my DVR while riding in the car on the way back home one night after I realized I had forgotten to set the DVR to record something. Now that was cool.