All of the major broadcasters will be airing the Royal Wedding on live TV Friday morning, but so will several online venues. YouTube will be streaming the entire event live at The Royal Channel, built specifically for Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding. Livestream is also streaming the AP Live feed of the day's events, plus more coverage from CBS News, ET and the UK Press Association. And you can watch full streaming BBC coverage at BBC News' dedicated wedding site.
You can also watch the event live on a smartphone or other Internet device on the Sprint TV ABC News Channel, which is part of the carrier's basic Sprint TV channel package. T-Mobile TV will only carry pre- and post-wedding coverage but start-to-finish coverage is available through Xfinity.tv, which has apps available on the Android Market and on iTunes.
In most cases, live-anchored coverage begins at 5 a.m. Eastern Time(2 a.m. Pacific) and live coverage of the ceremony starts at around 6 a.m. ET (3 a.m. PT). That's pretty early for most people, so what to do if you don't want to wake up hours before dawn?
Here's the bad news: If you don't have a DVR, it's going to be tough to jump into the Royal Wedding broadcast mid-stream without missing a big chunk of it. The good news is that YouTube's Royal Channel stream of the event will be replayed immediately following the close of the ceremonies, which will be at roughly 8:30 a.m. ET (5:30 a.m. PT), as will the BBC's dedicated wedding site.
There are also a few apps out there for smartphones, tablets and other Internet devices that let you watch DVR'ed content on your mobile device—try AT&T's U-verse app or, if you have a Slingbox and $30 to spend, there's the SlingPlayer Mobile, which supports iOS, Android, Blackberry, Palm OS and Symbian OS devices.
Brushing Up On History
Before the event itself, you may want to catch up on a little royal history. But first, treat yourself to a first look at the Royal Wedding procession rehearsal.
Back? Now let's turn our attention to the BBC's Royal Wedding page.
"It's a really rich and deep archive of material," BBC World News America executive producer Rome Hartman told PCMag. "I think there's just a depth of understanding that we have. We know this story and we know this turf."
In addition to wedding-related news updates and BBC correspondents' Twitter feeds, the site features an enormous amount of archival material relating to past royal weddings, beginning with Princess Elizabeth's 1947 wedding to Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey, which the BBC broadcast to 200 million radio listeners around the world.
The Beeb also comes through with some really cool interactive media, like a 360-degree tour of Westminster Abbey and a virtual POV tour of the wedding route. Also be sure to consult the official schedule of the day's events and the seating plan for the wedding itself.
YouTube is also a great source of footage from weddings past.
You'll want to start off with the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana—the 1981 broadcast is available in full on YouTube, with the first of eight parts beginning here. You might also watch Prince Andrew's 1986 marriage to Sarah Ferguson, or catch a glimpse of last year's royal nuptials featuring Princess Victoria of Sweden and Daniel Westling.
Nor is there any reason for American audiences to feel completely left out—not while footage of JFK and Jackie's big day still exists.
