JUST WHEN you thought you could head for the hills with your Freeview box, television seems set to completely change again.

We are no longer talking about extra channels, however. The idea of rival packages will be painfully passé. What is now on the horizon is the chance to watch any programme or film, whenever you like, most likely at no charge.

Welcome to the world of internet television. Whether you want vintage episodes of The Tube or the original print of The Man Who Knew Too Much or Friday night's EastEnders, it will never be more than a few clicks away.

Last week, there were two more signs that these delights could soon be upon us, both in announcements from companies that are far from being household names. The first came from Tioti, or Tape It Off the Internet, a London and Seattle-based venture aiming to provide a searchable database of all television programmes and films on the net. Having been trialling to 16,000 early adopters for the past few months, it is committed to a full launch in June.

Then it emerged that Blinkx, a more general video search engine, is to demerge from its Cambridge-based parent, technology firm Autonomy, and seek a listing on the alternative investment market next month.

With video searching far more difficult than text searching because of the lack of words for the program to latch on to, Blinkx is reckoned to be as close as anybody to making it work; including Google.

If there is finally a buzz around companies offering video search methods, it is because the content is finally arriving online in a big way. Pirated versions of the latest Hollywood blockbusters or hit shows might have been available online for a number of years, but average broadband speeds are now such that the big media is finally wading in.

It has been a few months since Channel 4 launched its 4OD service, which offers customers a mixture of free and pay-per-view programmes, including shows such as Hollyoaks, Desperate Housewives and Wife Swap.

The BBC, which has long been offering its current affairs and news programmes free over the internet, is shortly to launch a seven-day catch up service for a much wider selection of programmes. ITV broadband, albeit behind schedule, will appear in the coming weeks too.

Things are proceeding more collegiately in the States, with old and new media names alike erecting big internet tents of free programmes that make their money by forcing viewers to watch the adverts.

NBC and News Corporation recently announce a venture with around another 50 content providers, so far unnamed, which will go into competition with fledgling services by the likes of Joost and Babelgum.

Joost in particular has been getting a lot of media attention. It is the brainchild of Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the makers of internet phone service Skype and music file-sharer Kazaa. Having been testing for the past few months with about 500,000 users, Joost is gearing up to launch in June.

It has already done deals with National Geographic, Endemol, All3media and Viacom to carry programmes, the latter including the content from the likes of MTV, Comedy Central and the CBS network.

The idea is that these kinds of services will revolutionise the way we watch television. Instead of wasting time with channels or viewing schedules, viewers will just go straight for whatever programme they want to watch. Having already been broken in by the enormous growth of programme series on DVD, there are many who believe they could render traditional channels irrelevant as on-demand becomes the main type of viewing.

Paul Cleghorn, the joint founder of Tioti, says: "The whole television audience is basically going off-piste. Viewers are no longer tied to schedules in the way that they used to be."

Tioti is planning to capitalise on this by providing a place online where they can go to find their favourite programmes. If you select, say, The Sopranos, Tioti will give you a list of all the legal and illegal places online where it can be either downloaded or streamed, together with advice on any added complications or restrictions.

It also offers a TV guide that allows users to rate shows and communicate with one another, adding a splash of social networking into the mix.

It aims to make money by selling advertising around programmes, although this is notoriously difficult to attract in large amounts. If it grows, however, Tioti is also hoping to attract revenues by offering Google-style sponsored links and possibly by selling data about who clicks through to which programme. Tioti is also trying to persuade the likes of Channel 4 and the BBC to let it carry links to exclusive content in return for a share of any ad revenues it makes from its site.

Graham Lovelace, a media consultant at Lovelace Consulting, is one who believes a navigation tool such as Tioti or Blinkx will be absolutely essential when the market takes off. "Theoretically, any programme in the world by any broadcaster, professional or amateur, at any time could be available from somewhere. The key issue is how you are going to find those programmes," he says.

Claire Enders of Enders Analysis takes the opposite view. "What do you want a search engine for? I don't see why you wouldn't go straight to whoever's going to offer you that programme," she says.

Her colleague Ian Maude adds that even though a service like Tioti might have the potential to become a "nice little business", it is unlikely to move beyond the niche market because of the power of the main players. Brands such as Google and Yahoo will corner this area sooner or later, he believes.

The broader question is how internet television will develop. Everyone agrees that it will be big, but the timeframe and its eventual importance are far more debatable.

One issue is whether the web will truly cross over to television screens in the living room. That has never happened yet, with no digital adapter to convert the TV screen getting anywhere near the mass market, but that could soon change.

The new BT Vision boxes offer viewers a range of on-demand programmes over a broadband connection, and Sony recently announced plans to launch a television branded Sony Bravia that will do something similar Meanwhile, Apple TV, which was launched last month, consists of a wireless router that transfers one screen to another, although viewers can only download programmes from iTunes.

All these offerings restrict the places where viewers can get their content, but that is unlikely to remain the case for long. As Lovelace says, if the concept of Apple TV catches on it could see platform-neutral adapters taking off in the same way as the iPod undoubtedly drove sales of other MP3 players.

There are also set-top boxes emerging, most notably the Xbox console, which can be plugged into the television and broadband connection and pump internet channels down the cables.

The other thing that needs to happen, says Lovelace, is software that can automatically cope with all the video file formats around.

With techies having to work with everything from mpeg to Real to Windows to QuickTime files to watch videos online, Lovelace says: "Ordinary viewers won't understand it. The technology has got to do more work."

When this happens, however, Lovelace believes television will soon be transformed.

Ian Maude is less bullish, arguing that the older generation will stay wedded to scheduled television and that internet programming will steadily grow alongside it.

He points to research that shows that viewers with all options first look on the big five channels for what to watch, then on multichannel, before finally turning to pay-per-view or on-demand.

"Channel-based television from the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky is going to be around for a very long time," he says.

That will not stop the traditional broadcasters from watching the likes of Tioti, Joost and Blinkx extremely closely. Everyone is sure the world will soon look very different, but no one quite knows where this great upheaval is going to end.