Well they finally did it. Someone made the ultimate television listings freeware and called it TVTrigger. So what makes it special?

Not only does it feature all the main TV shows in a very easy to use categorised catalogue, but the information is exactly what you need to make an informed decision about whether to watch something or not. Ratings, description, episode listings, trailer and even the theme tune is immediately accessible from one show page. There are also direct links to review sites like TVRage.com and http://sharetv.org/ to add more detail if you need it.

But the real sauce comes with the integrated BitTorrent client and the services built around it. Using the show listings themselves or via a very nice BitTorrent meta search engine, you can select individual shows or seasons to download, set up automatic downloads of favourites so you never miss an episode, and buy the DVD from Amazon directly from the page if you want all the extra goodies for your collection. Here’s a video overview.

The weak bits? Well the weekly listings tab currently only displays a small blockbuster selection of what’s on out of the 3000 shows available. I guess this makes sense to keep the UI clean, you have to use the Browse menu to view the whole bunch in alphabetical categories or by network. Speed is also a bit of an issue, it’s not awful, just a little slow because of the Flash interface. And because it’s .NET based, you’ll have to forget it on anything other than Windows, which is a real shame. But these are nit-picks really.

Overall this has got to be the most well thought out and useful television service I’ve come across in this new digital network enabled age. It covers all the bases, makes it a cinch to synchronise your broadcast and net based viewing, and is something that deserves to be bundled in with every media player as a default service. Awesome stuff guys.