OVGuide.com - crazy & chaotic, but amazingly useful

When I first heard about OVGuide.com I couldn't wait to check it out. What a great idea to have all the video content available online in one convenient place to search from. I quickly signed on, got my own account, and started exploring.

Upon first glance OVGuide.com looks like it's a dream, but after really exploring OVG it seemed more like a nightmare. The site looks too chaotic; the homepage is overwhelmingly crowded with paid ads promoting all sorts of sites that have videos, live streaming TV sites from around the world, regular US broadcast TV, news, sports, etc.

OVG is simply a guide to other sites, a portal of portals is really what it is... and a way for the sites owners to make money selling expanded text ads. But it can also be very helpful to those of us who watch TV, films, and videos online.

At the top of their homepage they have a search engine, which you will immediately try to use to find a specific TV show, film, or video. I searched for a Showtime series WEEDS and was given 10 results of which only 3 actually carried complete episodes from the first 3 seasons of the show. Next I searched for an old favorite of mine HIGHLANDER: THE SERIES and got 20 results with only 3 sites that carried the show, but only had season 1 available to watch online. All the other results were for other HIGHLANDER films and trailers.

Next I searched for another Showtime series I watch THE L WORD. I immediately got 4 sites from their search engine and I was able to watch episodes I had missed the first time. I really appreciated this as I had been searching all over the net for the epi's I missed and could not find them anywhere. One quick search at OVG and I had a choice of sites to choose to watch my preferred show from.

Though the chaotic nature of OVG was off-putting at first, once I delved into it to try to find specific shows I was very impressed. After this experience I bookmarked OVGuide.com and plan on visiting it regularly. All they need now is for a zip code TV guide so I can also use their site as my own tv guide... my own online video guide.

I found OVGuide.com because I'm a bzzagent and it was suggested at their site. Read my frogpond review at bzz (if you want, but I've posted a much more complete review right here).

2007 YEAR END MOVIE REVIEW: Digital Dogs Grades the Films of 2007

Everyone has an opinion, and everyone who sees a film has an opinion.

Here’s Digital Dogs’ call on the films of 2007.

E-Ticket Rides

300
28 Weeks Later
Beowulf
Die Hard 4.0: Live Free or Die Hard
I Am Legend
Transformers: The Movie

THE TOP FILMS

OF 2007:

The A List

300
3:10 To Yuma
Amazing Grace
American Gangster
A Mighty Heart
Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The
Brave One, The
Bourne Ultimatum, The
Bucket List, The
Beowulf
Charlie Wilson’s War
Die Hard 4.0: Live Free or Die Hard
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
Enchanted
Hairspray
Hot Fuzz
Hoax, The
I Am Legend
Into the Wild
Juno
La Vie en Rose
Lust, Caution
Ratatouille
Rescue Dawn
Sicko
Transformers: The Movie

THE FILMS

OF 2007:

The B List

28 Weeks Later
Atonement
Away From Her
Blades of Glory
Breach
Darjeeling Limited, The
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Eastern Promises
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Fracture
Golden Compass, The
Gone, Baby, Gone
Great Debaters, The
I’m Not There
In the Shadow of the Moon
In the Valley of Elah
Kingdom, The
Kite Runner, The
Miss Potter
Music Within, The
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Namesake, The
No Country For Old Men
Oceans 13
Reign Over Me
Rendition
There Will Be Blood
Savages, The
Simpsons Movie, The
Spiderman 3
Smokin’ Aces
Sunshine
Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Water Horse: Legend of the Deep

Zodiac

THE FILMS

OF 2007:

The C List

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
December Boys
Control
Grace Is Gone
Invasion, The
Joshua
Knocked Up
Lions For Lambs
Lucky You
Michael Clayton
Mist, The
Number 23, The
Once
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Reservation Road
Sleuth
Superbad
Things We Lost in the Fire

War

THE BOTTOM TEN FILMS OF 2007: The D List, an incomplete grade

Don’t even waste your money on renting these losers...

Grindhouse – Yet another violent, unwatchable and incomplete film by the most over-rated director of all time, Quentin Tarantino. Folks, there’s a reason he has a hard time writing one complete film… he can’t! Stringing multiple stories together without reason does not make a feature length film, no matter which starlets you walk down the red carpet and no matter what kind of advance press you manage to get. The Robert Rodriguez section works much better.

Margot at the Wedding – Starring Director Noah Baumbach’s real-life wife Jennifer Jason Leigh and a botoxed-botched Nicole Kidman, this film was painful to watch because of detestable characters, ridiculous plot, and uneven direction.

Reaping, The - A painful waste of Hilary Swank’s talent.

Wind That Shakes the Barley, The – An important film about the beginnings of the IRA that was ruined by incomprehensible dialog. This film would have been more interesting were there subtitles. Please tell us director Ken Loach….exactly how many people in the world do you think are fluent in Irish? Don’t you think an important film deserves to be understood by your audience?

Youth Without Youth – A complete embarrassment for director Francis Ford Coppola and actor Tim Roth. This is a clear case of an auteur director indulging his fantasies in a confusing plot while forgetting that an audience has to be able to make sense of what’s going on. The look is beautiful, but the film is painful to see.

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© 2008 by Digital Dogs

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