Television

DirecTV, HD and the rest of the story

January 3, 2010

TV Antenna to get HD signals The Cotton Bowl, the New York Philharmonic's New Year's eve concert and the NFL's Giants playing the Vikings may not seem to be related. However in the strange world of DirecTV they share a common element. Now what could these events possibly have in common? Well if you want to see them in high definition (HD) and you're a DirecTV subscriber in Boise you'll need to shell out for another television antenna. In fact if you want any of the many HD offerings from PBS, NBC, ABC or FOX you'll need another antenna.

The DirecTV numbers game

DirecTV likes to advertise that they have more channels in HD than other providers. However this falls far short of telling the whole story. For example it neglects to mention that many of those channels are are only available with expensive packages. Even then what the numbers advertised gloss over is that they include several of the regional sports channels. Once you subscribe to several of these channels you rapidly realize that although there are more than a dozen of them the majority of their programming is shared. So you might have 16-channels of college football on a Saturday afternoon. It just happens that the 16-channels are showing 2-3 games.

NBC Olympics and equestrian coverage

August 9, 2008

I'm rather surprised and pleased with how good NBCOlympics.com is this time around. Sure there are annoyances like expecting users to download a Microsoft plugin, although it appears that the plugin is even available for Linux and Firefox. The site and approach aren't without their flaws. It remains clear that NBC doesn't grok the internet. They don't understand how people want to access data and they require you to click through a screen which says you subscribe to a local cable/satellite service as well as provide a zip code so they can target advertising on the page to their local affiliate.

So I'll certainly give the benefit of the doubt and say it looks like progress. I'm looking forward to the olympics of the future where networks compete globally and if the BBC has the best equestrian coverage I can not only view it easily but download and remix it in ways they never intended.

For now, this is better than a sharp stick in the eye. Although the next DirecTV terminator advertisement it might not be.

Cutting the cable

April 17, 2008

Tom wrote recently about ditching cable TV. Over the last couple of years we've been watching not much TV. With our move last winter we ended up in a house that for various reasons isn't suited to cable or satellite.

This situation brought out the rabbit ears and there is an amazing revelation that free TV is still available via plain old rabbit ears. The coming conversion to digital TV won't even render them useless though an old TV set will need a converter box. But there is the lack of TiVo. That all powerful system for time-shifting shows. Fortunately there is a reasonable solution there too.

Admittedly the Eye TV Hybrid takes some cash up front. However, it pays off in the long run. There are no TiVo fees, no requirement to use anything but a computer and some rabbit ears. Though I don't yet have even the latest software, it does a great job of turning a 20-inch iMac into a great media center. Hook it up with an AppleTV and it's even better than TiVo in many ways.

Little People Big World's Matt Roloff set to go on trial today

January 8, 2008

Father of four and star of TLC's Little People Big World Matt Roloff is scheduled to go on trial in Portland on Tuesday. Roloff is charged with driving under the influence and refused to take a breathalyzer test when he was stopped in June 2007. The Bend Weekly has a little more about today's trial. The Oregonian has the story of this morning's hearings.

Powerful Television

December 12, 2006

For those series I'm interested in I watch the DVD's when they come out. Since I am in a time-warp in this regard I'm just now getting to watch the last season of The West Wing. There were times in seasons five and six where the program struggled. Some suggested it jumped the shark. Having seen a great deal of the last season now I can definitively say it rivals Deadwood as the greatest show of all time.

Watching the show in a time-warp there was little doubt what would happen with John Spencer's character after he passed away during the production of the last season. Even knowing what was about to happen the show is so well put together that it seemed to reach up and grab the viewer and be completely realistic all at the same moment. It is hard to believe that it has been a year since Spencer's passing. That has more to do with how fast the arms on the clock are racing forward and is the topic of a different post.

TV Free

October 8, 2006

How does one explain to people that they really don't watch television. I have a TV. I watch movies and I do watch some TV series via NetFlix when they come out on DVD. I quit watching the TV about 18 months ago now. My choice came from the revelation that even the best TV both failed to improve my life but also managed to suck productive hours from my day.

It never fails though. Some well meaning friend or family member calls or IMs with the latest "must see" show or special that is on right now. The advice may well be good but for one little detail. Turning on the TV would make me far less productive and cut into the already too-few hours of sleep each day brings.

The future of news

October 5, 2006

From time to time when I'm traveling I'll catch a bit of TV news here or there. For the most part it's horrible. There seems to be about 40 minutes of sports and 30 seconds of everything else. There are self-promoting pieces about the latest Breaking News story from last week. All and all it is worse than watching a high school football game on ESPN Classic.

Given that it seems the same everywhere I figured I must be in the minority when it comes to what's important in TV news. Well the 2006 Future of News report seems to suggest that far from being alone my preferences register with the majority of the population.

DVR owners watch less TV

July 30, 2006

Market research cited in the New York Times suggests adults in households with digital video recorders (DVR) watch less television than their counterparts in households without. In our house it is true without a doubt. Since 2002 when we got a pair of TiVo DVR's our TV viewing has continued to decline. Prior to TiVo it was common to leave the boob tube on all evening with some educational show... it had to be educational or it wouldn't have been on The Learning Channel, right?

From Earth to the Moon

July 24, 2006

For years I've been a fan of the space program. For all its flaws NASA has an amazing record of achievement. As such I have a pretty solid understanding of the history of the space program and have seen many great and not so great films on the subject.

As a Netflix viewer I've had the HBO series From Earth to the Moon on the list for some time now. However with the general notion that there wouldn't be much new in the story I kept pushing it down the stack. Recently the first DVD arrived and it is so far from a stale retelling of the same fascinating story.

One of the big things the series did well is it abandoned the notion that the space story needs to be told chronologically. Following Part 4 - 1968 which shows the important impact of the Apollo program on bringing some light to a dark time, the next episode Part 5 - Spider starts in 1962 with the development of the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) and follows the process through 1969. This form of storytelling makes it possible to focus on the stories of the Apollo program.

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