TechTV.com RIP

SlashdotOgre writes "It has finally happened, www.techtv.com is no more. This was somewhat expected after Comcast decided to give the ax. This is a bit of a shame; as many users know, the site was an excellent resource for both product reviews and software. Most noteably, the Call for Help section has disappeared and The Screen Savers only has recent episodes in the Episode History section. If Comcast does own the rights to older material, I do hope they decide to post some of it (but I doubt that will be enough to ge me to watch their "new" network)."

Comments

TechTV isn't gone.

[Judg3]

It's merged with the G4 network and is now G4TechTV.

Just as well to, as I get G4 on my current digital package, but TechTV was up on a higher tier. To get it, I'd have to get out of my current promotion and reassemble into a new package with the techtv tier - taking a normally $6.95/mo tier up to almost 40$ - since I'd lose the savings I was currently getting!

Re:TechTV isn't gone.

[davidj0228]

yeah but instead of Call for Help and some of the other computer shows, we'll get to see "Invent This!" quite possibly the most shitty show ever. this show doesnt even relate to real technology and has such useful inventions as the show with a wheel on the back so it can be used like a roller skate and a very inventive dogpack that can also be used as a poncho for your puppy. it amazes me that the merged network has failed to cancel this worthless waste of valuable TV time!

Re:TechTV isn't gone.

[System.out.println()]

"Invent This" has nothing to do with the G4 merge (though I agree it sucks). If you want to discuss TechTV shows being overrun with crappy G4 shows, let's talk "Players". A bunch of celebrities who might (I think?) know how to press a button in a favorite video game that stars (surprise!) them. Ugh.

Bring back Tech Live please (or move it back to its old time slot, if it's still there.)

Re:TechTV isn't gone.

[MagicDude]

Tuning into tech TV these days is met with a blue screen with white text reading "An error has occured on channel 87. If this error continues to occur, please contact your local comcast representative. Change the channel to continue." Turning the TV on and off seems to have no effect on the problem.

Re:TechTV isn't gone.

[SimplyCosmic]

The original posting wasn't in regards to the actual TechTV channel, but of the website.

While there is a G4TechTV website, it's missing a good deal of content that used to be contained on the TechTV site, as is mentioned in the original posting, much of which came in very useful to search through, particularly older Screensaver episodes and any of the Call For Help series.

Re:TechTV isn't gone.

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

has such useful inventions as the show with a wheel on the back so it can be used like a roller skate

Like you, I mocked these shoes when I first saw them, but I was out walking the other night and witnessed someone who had developed a pretty impressive hybrid running / gliding style using them. So... uh, that's about it. They're not quite as dumb as they initially seem. I agree about the dog poncho however.

Re:TechTV isn't gone.

[Dinosaur Neil]

While TechTV wasn't all roses, I have to agree; I have yet to see any post-merger G4 show that wasn't either dull or annoying or both. While I do game, I guess I'm just not hardcore enough to watch other people play with smug and "clever" commentary from the hosts...

I seem to recall (from a previous /. article) that the TechTV crew has another month or so before they either move to LA or get sacked. Any updates on that?

Re:TechTV isn't gone.

[coyotejoe76]

My situation is the complete opposite. I had TechTV on my analog cable package and G4 was on digital cable (which I didn't have). Now the combo G4TechTV is only on digital. Now I have to consider whether I should upgrade to digital or not. I liked it better when I didn't have to.

With some of the reviews I have seen in this story thread, I am not sure it is worth it to see the new network.

Re:TechTV isn't gone.

[zaffir]

I enjoy Invent This quite a bit. I really like the style in which it's presented, and seeing creative things people have done is interesting. They just need more episodes.

What i really wish they had done away with was Robot Wars. That shitty british knock-off of Battle Bots is the most worthless show ever. Except for most of the shows from G4. Their entire lineup is pretty lame; none of the gaming shows come close to the entertainment of XPlay.

Re:TechTV isn't gone.

[ThePuD]

battle bots is the shitty stateside knockoff of robot wars, which had quite a following in the UK and on american PBS before battle bots ruined the whole concept.

Re:TechTV isn't gone.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want some semblance of the old prime time lineup that was TechTV. I'm not a gamer, really, so why should I watch a bunch of lousy gaming shows? I really miss Screen Savers, Fresh Gear, TechLive. About the only things left are X-Play (OK), Unscrewed (POS), and Anime Unleashed (fun). I don't watch those enough to make up for the loss; they are all in reruns anyway.

Re:TechTV isn't gone.

[SoSueMe]

Don't bother.

Archive.org

[BodyCount07]

Archive.org has some archives of the old site. Much of the old data can be found there.

Re:Archive.org

[antdude]

I tried to get http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/howto/story/0,2 4330,3433785,00.html but it seems like Archive.org missed it. :( However, Google's cache has it and who knows how long it will hold on to it. :(

Re:Archive.org

[System.out.println()]

However, Google's cache has it and who knows how long it will hold on to it. :(

So, download the page and cache it yourself.....

Or send archive.org to the Google cache ;)

Re:Archive.org

[antdude]

How do I grab the larger images? Thumbnails of the photographs are easy. :(

Re:Archive.org

[zoeblade]

Archive.org also has episodes of another computer show, Computer Chronicles. It's much older (mainly eighties episodes), but they don't do things by halves: for the online database episode they interview people from Q-Link (later renamed AOL) and Compuserve, and in their music episode they interview John Chowning, who invented FM synthesis.

I'm trying to...

[ericdano]

I'm trying to shed a tear but.........I can't. I thought their reviews to be lack luster, and the "reporting" to be subpar. They were, at their best, like Slashdot on a very bad day.

Re:I'm trying to...

[Anonymous Coward]

They were, at their best, like Slashdot on a very bad day./i

I never head Leo Laporte say "Propz to GNAA!"

Re:I'm trying to...

[MightyPez]

The reporting got me the most. Ugh, it was shameful.

I recall when the nVidia clip planes in 3dmark03 were discovered, it hit most of the major news sites. When TechTV (via The Screen Savers) read the Inquirer article about it, they showed the clip planes and said it was ATI cheating.

Re:I'm trying to...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, 2 errors in a good 9 words (not counting the C&P). I suck at life today.

Re:I'm trying to...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but ATI deserved it. The whole Quake/"Quack" debacle didn't get nearly as much press as it should've.

Re:I'm trying to...

[MightyPez]

Yeah, but ATI deserved it. The whole Quake/"Quack" debacle didn't get nearly as much press as it should've.

That was one of the most profoundly ignorant things I think I have ever had the misfortune of reading.

Nevermind the fact that since the Quake/Quack issue was widely publicized among hardware review sites, there was no coverge that the final release of the drivers (yes, they were betas) fixed the IQ issue and maintained the performance.

Re:I'm trying to...

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. They were much worse than that. I was unable to watch for more than 15 minutes at a time because my neck got sore from wincing every time they said something inaccurate. If we need more inaccurate tech reports, we can always hit msn.com

Re:I'm trying to...

[bwcbwc]

This is true. Tech TV is like the Tonight Show of the computer industry. Vendors get on the shows to display their latest stuff like the actors that bring Leno their latest movie clip.

Give them credit though. Television is not a medium designed for in-depth reviews. The best you can hope for is a quick overview of a product and a thumbs up or down as a recommendation. Like PC Magazine in its time, they always find something good to say about a product because they are dependent on the vendors' largesse. Taken with an appropriate amount of salt, they can be informative.

Re:I'm trying to...

[ScrewMaster]

I must remember that phrase: "profoundly ignorant."

Re:I'm trying to...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Give them credit though. Television is not a medium designed for in-depth reviews.

Television is often called a medium. It is neither rare, nor particularly well done.

I told you so

[LinuxWhore]

I saw this coming. I real shame too. I really liked TechTV. Now that I've moved, I can't get TechTV OR G4. The cable company didn't carry either network.

Archive will be up soon?

[davidj0228]

"Where's the Archive? The past three months are available now. The entire archive is coming soon! " on the site... guess all that good info will be back soon?

Re:Archive will be up soon?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

The are waiting for the launch of "Duke Nukem Forever" and "Half Life 2."

ZDTV

[simontek2]

Yes ZDTV/TechTV will be missed. It was nice having a geek network. So Who wants to start a new network?

Re:ZDTV

[Anonymous Coward]

If we're lucky, Slashdot or OSDN. But most probably Google, Yahoo or MSN.
/What do you mean rhetorical?

Re:ZDTV

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd be interesting to try launching a channel via the Internet using streaming video and maybe some P2P relaying to help spread out the bandwidth load a bit. I'm certainly no expert, but I bet it could be done.

Re:ZDTV

[bogie]

Nah, if it turned out to be any good I'm sure you'd just end up getting sued by the Networks. The thing is its a LOT of work setting up and running a show, especially one on technology. You need writers, a decent budget for products to review, actual access to hot new technology, and lastly you would need a decent set so your show doesn't look like shit. It can be done on a shoestring budget but it just takes more time and work then most people want to put it in. Are you willing to max out your credit card on new technology to review for a show that you put out for Free? Its going to be a long time before someone can throw together a replacement for TSS etc out of their home.

Re:ZDTV

[Lumpy]

anyone that liked ZDTV needs to have their heads examined... and G4Techtv exitst in full swing.

shows like Call for help sucked... it was a last ditch to try and keep it from completely dying by putting leo in it's lead position instead of that horribly annoying ADHD guy who had too much coffee..

It is a very low ratings, low viewership channel that could not survive on it's own... they knew it when they sold to Comcast. Comcast is currently in a Content Buying binge and they know that there is some viewership and will try to increase the content quality to appeal to a larger audience...

which usually means dumbing things way down for the general masses, eliminating all talk about "that linux thing" and increase the number of Microsoft and other companies 1 hour long infomercials.

so yes it will become something that most tech-people will despise... but that is the only way to make lots of money.

Re:ZDTV

[nuggetman]

shows like Call for help sucked... it was a last ditch to try and keep it from completely dying by putting leo in it's lead position instead of that horribly annoying ADHD guy who had too much coffee..


If you knew anything about the network, you would know that Leo hosted CFH from the beginning of ZDTV, until Chris Pirillo took over after Paul Allen/VV bought it. Leo was only reinstituted to CFH a few months ago due to major fan outcry.

Re:ZDTV

[mrtrumbe]

It is a very low ratings, low viewership channel that could not survive on it's own... they knew it when they sold to Comcast.

Bullroar. Absolute nonsense.

When did ZDTV come out? Let's see, it was probably 1998-1999, if I remember correctly. That's about 6 years on the air. During that time, they went from having very few advertisers, to having many (as some other posts here have actually lamented). They went from a few original programs to more than a few.

Basically, they could survive on their own. Sure, not the same way Comedy Central or TNT survives, but they had been around for quite some time and had been steadily improving the whole time. No telethons our pleading for cash necessary. They WERE surviving before this move, they just weren't a cash cow.

And why would ANYONE rejoice in Comcast picking this channel up to make it another cookie-cutter crappy cable TV network? Sure, it might become marginally more profitable, but we already have 150+ cable channels offering the same crap. YOU might not have liked TechTV, but it was unique. It was geeky, too, and that helped make it fun. What can we expect now instead of that "by geeks (even if you didn't like them), for geeks" feeling? Maybe all weekend movie marathons? Infomercials during non-peak hours? Stupid shitty gameshows? Maybe they can find a way to incorporate reality TV with a geek channel?

I had Comcast cable for over a year. They like to split channels. You know, Court TV from 3:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Comedy Central from 5:00 PM to 3:00 AM eveyday of the week. They show no signs of changing this fucking insanely stupid policy, even in the face of Direct TV which, *gasp*, allows you to get FULL TV channels 24 hours a day.

Somehow I don't hold high hopes of Comcast making this a channel I'd like to watch. Call me cynical, I guess...Or maybe I just learn from my bad choices in corporate content providers.

Taft

Re:ZDTV

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahem their programming ran a 6-8 hour cycle. they did not even have enough programming to fill a full 12 hour period.

Oh and if they are Sooooo popular why are they listed in the bottom of the advertising ratings tier?

Nielsen ratings show them down at the bottom with discovery Wings and Tvland. with Food network being significantly higher...

Scorobough ratings show them even more dismal...

I suggest you do some REAL research before you go shooting your mouth off... Lumpy is right, both G4 and TechTV was going to die without the purchase by comcast.... but he is also right that it will begin the massive dumbing down of the network in an attempt to being it's ratings up.

they are a bottom tier channe lthat most DO NOT ADVERTISE on except for the fact that is it a extremely cheap channel to advertise on. Hell the weather channel and the TV guide channel are more expensive to advertise on than Tech TV by almost 30%.

Re:ZDTV

[mgcarley]

Sky TV Here in NZ used to split channels. As I recall, it was Discovery and Trackside (Racing). Come to think of it, I think it still splits channels on its UHF service... but with the advent of Sky Digital, it doesn't need to split channels.

(Sky Digital is a crappy satellite service which is very dependant on good weather - even a wussy storm will make the picture pixellate and then we'll get the "no signal message")

We pay about US$40/mo for roughly... oh... 40-45 channels, I guess. That includes about 8 free-to-air channels, too.

Plus, what taunts me even more, is that we get adverts for FoxTel/AuStar Australia when we can't even consider getting it, so Sky NZ is essentially a fat relay-station and some CSR's on the phone.

So, for you Americans/Canadians complaining - well - stop your bitching. At least you have a choice! If I wanted to get these channels otherwise, I would have to pirate them from either the encrypted satellite signal or somewhere on the internet.

Which leads me to how crappy NZ is for internet connectivity - we don't have cable (Except in Auckland or Wellington, and even then only in certain suburbs), and our typical DSL connection options are: 128kbps down/up. Totals around US$40/mo. Oh, and there is a data cap on there too (Up to around 12GB).

Otherwise we get 256/128 down/up with 2GB cap. Or up to 8 MBPS with a 400MB Cap.

Otherwise its 56k. Satellite is worse. Wireless is coming in - there are 256k and 1MBPS options available with "unlimited" options available - but the [international] bandwidth is pretty much a 10-50MBPS pipe (I haven't checked the stats recently) shared among all the users.

Anyway, back to TV options - to be honest, I only really watch Discovery/ National Geographic/ History and the News Channels for the most part, and Sky 1 on Saturdays when they have full-days of Simpsons, Futurama etc.

I wish we had the choices that you guys do.

good side

[Anonymous Coward]

script kiddie abuse down:
no more dark tips

I've Been watching...

[drayzel]

The new G4TechTv on Dish. So far everything I have seen that has come over from G4 is really lame. I'm not saying that everything on TechTv was awesome, but the quality of the shows I've seen from G4 is not very good. Has anyone seen PLayers? Yikes, I really do NOT want to watch uninsteresting people play video games. Am I missing any G4 shows that are worth my time to watch at all? As it is I'd rather watch and laugh at 'The Big JOe Polka Fest' on one of the crazy community access channels... it's like a bad accident-- nobody wants to see it, but everybody looks.

~Z

Re:I've Been watching...

[MightyPez]

Not a fan of the G4TV as well. Arena I think burns my ass the most. LAN parties are enough of a social nightmare to go to in the first place, but when these people are put on TV and shown to play games while bantering back and forth about "ownage", it's a case to make for complete FCC dominance of the cable networks.

One more thing that irked me a bit. On an E3 preview show, the hosts were talking about Knights of the Old Republic 2. But instead of saying, "Knights of the Old Republic 2" they would sound out the acronym. So every time it left their mouths it came out as "coat-oar two."

Re:I've Been watching...

[timiscool999]

"Icons" is a pretty cool show (if they still have it on). It's a series on the major people in the videogaming industry (Sid Meier, Will Wright, etc). If you're into games, this is a great show.

"Starcade" is alright. It's the reruns of the old gameshow from the mid-80's. I used to watch it while eating breakfast and checking email in the morning.

"Pulse" is actually a decent gaming news show. Could give XPlay a run for it's money if both of those are still on.

Re:I've Been watching...

[AvantLegion]

Icons and Pulse are probably the best. Judgement Day is OK, if inferior to X-Play.

Arena is a guilty pleasure - a tournament show of 4-man teams playing a set of 3 games. It's lame, I understand why people don't care for it, but I like it. Like I said, pure guilty pleasure.

Pulse and Icons are the ones that I bothered to put on the TiVo, along with Arena.

Re:I've Been watching...

[ne0nex]

I don't think it's that bad actually.

I've been watching TechTV for years on Dish network now, and I don't think that the G4 merger is that bad for several reasons:

• The Screensavers was not the same without Leo hosting it, and I also enjoyed with Megan, Morgan, and Jessica were all on TSS. For me, the show hasn't been the same since then.

• Call for help hasn't been the same post-chris perillo.

• TechTV was still on a relatively short programming loop. I recall watching a rerun episode of TSS and seeing it again that same day before the new one aired! It would always work the same way: TSS, TechLive, Freshgear X-Play, rinse, repeat. That and did anyone else notice the ultra-long blocks of Robot Wars? Frequently would I turn to Channel 191 (dish) only to go "oh look.. robot wars again... oh, look, already saw this one..."

• Not all of the G4 shows are crap, I for one like ICONS and ARENA, did anyone else dig the ICONS show on Final Fantasy? They actually talked about FF3 (FF6 US)! I also really like all of their E3 Coverage.
  

That's not to say that everything that G4 has brought to the table is pure gold. I for one don't like the people on the show: G4TV.com and believe that it's the show that inspired this.

For all it's worth, I think that the merger has expanded the tediously short programming schedule. I for one enjoy watching less repeat episodes of Robot Wars.

Just my 2.18997 Japanese Yen

Re:I've Been watching...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Screensavers was not the same without Leo hosting it, and I also enjoyed with Megan, Morgan, and Jessica were all on TSS. For me, the show hasn't been the same since then.

You're right. TSS isn't the same without Leo. It's better. I don't understand why people like him.

Not all of the G4 shows are crap, I for one like ICONS and ARENA, did anyone else dig the ICONS show on Final Fantasy? They actually talked about FF3 (FF6 US)! I also really like all of their E3 Coverage.

Arena? Even Leo talking about his book is more interesting than a bunch of geeks at a LAN party.

Re:I've Been watching...

[u-238]

Agreed... the new G4 is really, really low. You just don't get the kind of genuine spontaneity with the G4 shows as you did with TechTV. They were a real community, a small nitch of people who you got to know, it was really a lot of fun.

The dialogue and narration on G4 feels so rehersed and forced, typicle of a giant beaurocracy. And with Leo now not holding any important role other than 1 minute pre-taped segments aired on the new, alienated screen savers... really miss that guy.

The new screen savers is analogous to the new wayne's world after it had been baught by some tv corp. and done on a set.. that's just the feeling you get with G4.

Re:I've Been watching...

[SalMoriarty]

I just don't get it. It's a network that focuses only on video games. It's cool in concept, but wouldn't you run out of ideas after a while?

"Today, we will talk to the cast of the Wizard on the 15th anniversary of the release."

I could buy into TechTV. Everybody seemed passionate about what they talked about and they showed some originally.

One Sumi Das jumped ship to MSNBC, I stopped watching Fresh Gear. I seem to care alot about the Scott Peterson trial though.

Re:I've Been watching...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wanta have some fun watching the Screensavers? Count how many times Patrick says "basically" per episode. The man can't talk about anything without saying the word.

Re:I've Been watching...

[Anonymous Coward]

You were checking email in the 80's? You must have been like rich or in the government or something. I'm jealous.

Re:I've Been watching...

[Sepodati]

If I had points, I'd mod you up. I think TSS is better without Leo, too.
They could use a few more hotties to replace the ones they lost, though.

---John Holmes...

Re:I've Been watching...

[michrech]

I watched an episode of Pulse. There is no way on this green/blue earth that it can give X-Play a run for it's money. The hosts were un-interesting to the point I wanted to change the channel several times. They also sounded too scripted. It was just sad to watch them try to crack the jokes that were on the teleprompter for them to read. I may not like Sessler very much (assuming I even spelled his name correctly), but he and his co-host at least seem to have some chemistry together. The fact that they don't sound like they are just reading everything off of the teleprompter like puppets makes the show FAR better.

Plus, looking at the sets for the various G4 shows that I have managed to catch so far, they look second (or even third) rate compared to the TechTV sets. Also, for some reason the picture quality wasn't as good. Possibly cameras that aren't as good as TechTV's? I dunno..

I rarely watched TechTV. What I did watch was The Screensavers. It started out interesting and Kate and Leo had me yelling at them all the time when they would give someone bad advice or wrong answers! When Kate got replaced with Pat, I still watched as it kept me interested. Now that it's Pat and Kevin, no matter how cute Kevin (OH, and FooFoo, and Josh) are, the content just changed to crap I wasn't interested in. It's been a long while since I've *wanted* to watch that show. I'll tune in here and there now that Comcast owns it to see what happens to the content, but if it doesn't improve, I'll not be watching ANY of that channel...

Guess I've gotten away from myself.. Oh well.. /rant off

Re:I've Been watching...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I don't mind the re-runs so much. I don't have cable at home (It's a quasi-religious thing I've made up and my wife hasn't called me to the carpet on.... yet.) About the only time I do watch cable is when we drop the baby off at my Mom's, at which point everything I see on the channel (for the hour I'm there) is new to me.

Slashdot TV!

[Anonymous Coward]

Insert Cowboy Neal joke here.

Old episodes...

[antdude]

Does anyone know if TechTV will still be letting users watch old episodes online or by request (e.g., copy of the episode). I am particular looking for video segment on The Ant Farm case mod (invalid link now) online or on tape/whatever media. I did e-mail TechTV staff a few months ago after this mod story was posted on /., but never received a response. I doubt I will get one after sending another request today. Anyone got this segment in their TechTV collection? ;)

I managed to savage the Web pages and thumbnails from Google Caches. Archive.org didn't have this Web story when I tried the original URL. :(

Re:Old episodes...

[dj245]

You aren't fooling me with those ant .CX links. I won't be fooled again! Never again!

Re:Old episodes...

[sabernet]

kevinerose.com ask kevin, he did the mod or yoshi.us yoshi, the modder's website including many of his older projects(like the yoshi box pc/console) :) leoville.com if you want leo's blog/board

Re:Old episodes...

[antdude]

sabernet: Yeah, I e-mailed Kevin in the past. No response. I did it again last night, and got a bounced e-mail (user doesn't exist). :(

Re:Old episodes...

[funklord9]

I know you can find some episodes of Screen Savers on SuprNova.org.

Re:Old episodes...

[antdude]

funklord9: Yeah, but what episode is it from? That's the problem. The article didn't say which one.

The old stuff's better than the new stuff...

[dementis_canis]

IMNSHO, the new site is so inferior to the old site that the title should read "G4TechTV - Stay Connected - Please?"

Re:The old stuff's better than the new stuff...

[wvitXpert]

I second that...

Re:The old stuff's better than the new stuff...

[wvitXpert]

BTW, I'm pretty much guaranteed a "redundant" modding on the above post aren't I?

The entire archive is "coming soon"

[kavachameleon]

If the poster had bothered to read the new site, they would have seen under the "what the tech?" box the following: "The past three months are available now. The entire archive is coming soon!".

This seems fairly self-explanatory to me...

What was the name of that White chick....

[Anonymous Coward]

...that used to co-host some computer survey show back when it was ZDTV? SHe then went to the X Show I think> All I remember is she had some nice legs and lips.

And Danielle Knox! Man that was one hot Negro babe.

Re:What was the name of that White chick....

[Araxen]

Her name was Kate Botello(sp?) and I always found her annoying. Bring Back Morgan Webb to TSS!!

Re:What was the name of that White chick....

[challahc]

Yeah, but I kind of got used to her. She didn't seem to know what the hell she was talking about but she was a decent tv personality. When Patrick Norton first came on, the show was kind of awkward and boring if you ask me.

Re:What was the name of that White chick....

[Anonymous Coward]

That's negress, you insensitive clod!

Sort of sad to see them go. Sort of

[Silvrmane]

TechTV did a piece on rendering a planetary flyby, and they posted the URL to my own website as a source of textures to use in your very own setup. No warning, or permission from them. Just a crushing amount of traffic on my little tiny "it won't draw much traffic" personal website on my company's server. Not as bad as being slashdotted, but the next best thing.

Re:Sort of sad to see them go. Sort of

[System.out.println()]

What's the best is getting Slashdotted on live TV. It's like the Slashdot effect, only crunched into 30 seconds - especially when Leo says "OK, everybody crash his server!"

Re:Sort of sad to see them go. Sort of

[xSquaredAdmin]

So... uh... what was your website again? *evil grin*

What I don't understand...

[Vthornheart]

Why did they keep mostly G4? Am I the only one who believes that TechTV was several orders of magnitude in higher quality than G4? I mean, to me it wasn't even a contest! G4 looked like it was being run out of some 70's revivalist's basement!

It had the ugliest sets, hosts that were more or less inept, and the same boring content played over and over. TechTV always had new content, their sets were professional and made you actually want to watch (as opposed to giving you the feeling that you should be going to a Disco), and their hosts were competent technical experts.

Which brings us to the final question. What sort of drugs were they ON?!?

Re:What I don't understand...

[System.out.println()]

TechTV always had new content,

I'm gonna have to sort of....disagree with you on that one.

I can't compare to G4 as I never saw G4 before the merge, but TechTV definitely had a lot of reruns. I know I saw the same episode of Wired for Sex a good six times....

A very good six times... ;)

their hosts were competent technical experts.

Sure, once they got rid of Chris Perillelilllo.

Re:What I don't understand...

[challahc]

G4 reminds me alot of ZDTV. There was only a handful of shows, and the overall feel of the channel was about the same. Seemed kind of cheap, and they played the same episodes about 10 times a day.

Re:What I don't understand...

[Anonymous Coward]

A game center here played G4 on their bigscreen for a while. Turns out they didn't get the channel there, the owner was recording 8 hours at home every few days and playing it over and over at the center.

The point being, that even the people who watched G4 regularly took months to notice what was happening...

Re:What I don't understand...

[SlashdotOgre]

I completely agree, TechTV seems like it would have a much broader audience then G4 ever would. I am certainly in their demographic and definitely qualify as a gamer, but I could never get into 90% of the shows on G4. Furthermore, although TechTV definitely had the tendency to recycle reviews of the same products between shows, the hosts were almost always charismatic to make it worth watching.

Re:What I don't understand...

[realinvalidname]

Why did they keep mostly G4? Am I the only one who believes that TechTV was several orders of magnitude in higher quality than G4? I mean, to me it wasn't even a contest! G4 looked like it was being run out of some 70's revivalist's basement!

It may have been several orders of magnitude "better", but the Comcast-backed G4 seems to have had several orders of magnitude "more money". Surely many noticed TechTV's bi-monthly appearances on FC. And since it was G4 that acquired TechTV, they win, which is why you see all production moving to Los Angeles (yeah, that hotbed of technology), TechTV shows and personalities (and surely staffers, if any were kept) getting demoted, etc. (life-lesson I've learned twice: when your company is bought out, always leave immediately)

Are they too vain to understand that their shows suck? Doesn't matter, as long as they have money and are willing to cut more checks.

Prediction: the awkward "G4TechTV" name is only a short-term ploy to try to lure the few TechTV viewers. In a year, it'll just be "G4" again, with few if any of the TechTV shows (e.g., they might keep "Anime Unleashed" only so long as they have broadcast rights to the various shows... I'd be very surprised if they renewed them, unless they did the really stupid thing and got the rights to anime based on video games, most of which are awful).

Understanding the fact that any remotely intelligent video game player would rather play games than watch bad shows about games is left to the reader.

--realinvalidname

Re:What I don't understand...

[timmi]

Frankly, the same thing happens on all the discovery channels... The Prime Time programming is a 3-4 hour block played twice sure, a lot of the shows were reruns, and furthermore, the original techtv content would often be seen in multiple programs, (Fresh Gear and Tech Live) Frankly, I think that they should've dropped "Unscrewed" and kept "Tech Live" because 85% of Tech Live was new content every day I got my replay TV set up to record "Unscrewed" and after about two weeks of noticing ads for a particular episode "This week" and never seeing it, I realized every show was a rerun and stopped recording it. I'll probably give the new shows a one week trial period and if they suck, I just won't watch them. as an aside, I wonder which network actually had more viewers?

Re:What I don't understand...

[Vthornheart]

As someone who did see (unfortunately) the prior G4, I can decisively say that TechTV had more new content. They had a few shows that played over and over, but almost all of G4's content was cycled over and over in an endless tedium of the same thing. It was painful to see, actually. Now I may be mistaken, and perhaps a couple of the shows had new episodes every once in a while... but if they did, I couldn't tell the difference (as most of their shows are just a cycle between showing commentary-devoid clips of games [it's much more eerie than you'd imagine] followed by a brief interlude with some annoying hosts on a butt ugly set). =)

Re:What I don't understand...

[ScrewMaster]

Competent technical experts? If that were true, explain Steve Gibson's appearance there?

As for drugs, I suspect it's the same one that the friendly staff at SCO have been smoking.

Re:What I don't understand...

[Quebst]

TechTv had many more viewers than G4, another reason to question why G4 is getting so much face time. There is a very different feel to the two channels, with techtv having the polish G4 didn't have. I'm on DirectTV and had only seen G4 a few times before at a friend's house, but have watched TechTV back when it when ZDTV(?). The annoying "hip" feel g4 shows has already made me turn the channel to espn. At least with TechTV you could watch a good episode of Future Flying Machines or catch an interesting story on Tech Live. I'll stick with the Screen Savers and ditch the rest unless I KNOW a certain subject will be on.(Dane Cook at E3 was pretty good if you like his stand up)

They really messed up.

[BrookHarty]

I really hate that G4 merged with TechTV. I tivo ScreenSavers, TechLive(g4 canceled) and Martin unscrewed. Xlive is fun to watch if its a game I want to buy. Great channel for geek news.

The website tv ep history is gone, its an ugly POS. Shame.

Wonder what g4techtv will become, because if it goes mainstream its going to suck.

Advertisers took over

[Urgo]

It is really sad to see this day finally come. I haven't watched techtv much recently but I was a loyal fan of ZDTV back in the day when the network first launched.

In addition to the computer related programming, I really liked having one channel where you didn't see the same old crap being advertised. They had mostly technology commercials and weird little artsy zdtv "amaze yourself" ones. Then they actually let users make their own little "we'll be back after the break" clips via webcam..... Its been mostly downhill since the big advertisers stepped in and redirected the network.... too bad.

I've only tuned into the channel once since the takeover occurred and was annoyed how their logo G4TechTV was now at the top of the screen, large, colorful, and covering up the computer screens that they were displaying.

Oh well. I still have my "ZDTV Dot Coms not Sit Coms" bumper sticker.. Good luck fired techtv employees.

Re:Advertisers took over

[TimTheFoolMan]

Having done about a dozen of the webcam promos with a cohort of mine, I have to agree. Seeing some of the bizarre (and frequently hysterical) things people would come up with for a "well be right back" blip gave you a sense that it was a network run BY geeks and FOR geeks.

Yes, there was plenty of lame programming, but it had the feel of a whole bunch of computer folks getting together and talking to each other, while allowing the general public to tune in if they cared to.

Oh well...

Tim

Re:Advertisers took over

[nuggetman]

Oh well. I still have my "ZDTV Dot Coms not Sit Coms" bumper sticker.. Good luck fired techtv employees.

I've still got my ZDTV foam squishy cube

It's a shame

[Anonymous Coward]

TechTV had some high quality poontang working there: Morgan Webb, Cat Schwartz, Jessica Corbin.

Re:It's a shame

[Anonymous Coward]

TechTV had some high quality poontang working there: Morgan Webb, Cat Schwartz, Jessica Corbin.

By "high quality" you mean, "not entirely disgusting."

Re:It's a shame

[Concerned Onlooker]

What do you mean, "quality?" Not one of them is a true Mac afficionado.

Open Source Developers....Network

[Niscenus]

Think about it for a second...it's just begging for a change in meaning.

Programming would almost certainly be sparse for a while:

SlashDot
- On the Hour and Twice a Day,
- News for the nerdy crowd
ThinkGeek
- Half an Hour of the Coolest Shopping,
- And whatever else they scrape up.
Forge & Savannah
- What released this very day??
- What might be the coolest thing today?
Open Magazine
- Let's bring it back with full force.
- Or combine with the half-dozen LinMags
Open Testing
- True Benchmarks
- Performed Live!
Security Watch
- The most important show
- Most likely to expand into a spinoff
Gamer's Dungeon
- And for the less geeky...
- Or is the extremely geeky?
FX Designs of...
- Most /. users would watch this.
- Most people would watch this!
UberGeek Interview
- If you stretch the meaning...
- You could get 100 different people!
DevTraffick
- What's new in Gnome? Kde?
- How about non-nix projects?
Hardware Hackers
- Now, finally, a COOL show
- Yup...finally....
DistroWatch
- So many distros
- Too much time....
TrendWare
- What colour blackberry is hot?
- How out of date is your new system?

And finally...Dilbert, Futurama, Lexx, Farscape, Stargate, Star Trek, and whatever else geeks would watch....

Re:Open Source Developers....Network

[AtlanticGiraffe]

This actually sounds like a pretty good idea. OSDN already has a good customer base in the advertising field and nowadays, one flash ad can be used for TV and the web (give or take some jpg resolution). With a studio and a few people with mouths, they could easily make a channel's worth of content, based on all the information posted on their sites everyday.

Re:Open Source Developers....Network

[-kertrats-]

Your name is already taken

Re:Open Source Developers....Network

[Garrett Combs]

I second that. Nicely compiled.

Re:Open Source Developers....Network

[binaryspiral]

I'd watch it... if I wasn't browsing /.
but then again, I could get a PVR card for my computer...!

Re:Open Source Developers....Network

[bzImage8]

That can be a really nice channel... Create a channel like that !! (you can start streaming on the web and then sell it to a network!!)

Re:Open Source Developers....Network

[Segway Ninja]

This is an awesome idea. You could also do random experiments, such as, throwing sodium into a pool of some kind.

Heh, ThinkGeek Shopping infomercials... now that would be awesome.

Restrict the Show reruns (Dilbert, Futurama etc) to normal TV hours, so we can also pick up the non-technically-minded people and get some extra viewers for prime time (ads)

Re:Open Source Developers....Network

[imemyself]

Sounds like an awesome idea! :) Hell, maybe I'd actually watch TV then(other than Fox News, and a coupla a sitcoms, I don't watch too much TV).

G4 and Comcast screwed the TTV Cast - hard

[binaryspiral]

They fired the entire S.F. studio - and gave only a select few the option of moving to the G4TV studios in L.A. Also the firestorm of hatemail, online petitions, and angery forum posts for Leo Laporte and Call for Help's demise I think really got G4 thinking "WTF do we do now?" So they negotiated a few 90 second clips with Leo to be aired durring The Screen Savers. His face is on their homepage, twice. And they're looking at selling his show to another network. Damn you Comcast and G4... now I have to answer even MORE noobish questions.

Re:G4 and Comcast screwed the TTV Cast - hard

[gerardrj]

I still don't get the uproar about Leo. What's everyone see in him? The things he says are wrong just about as often as they are correct, he can't interview for shit, and nothing he says/writes is from his own knowledge/experience: it's all scammed/borrowed from other sources.
Leo's "book" is a great example of this, it's a regurgitation of tips/answers from the shows he's on, but researchers or other hosts came up with the answers/tips. Then he consolidates them and looks like a hero.
Other than charisma (read: on-camera goofiness), why is this guy held up as a tech authority so often?

Re:G4 and Comcast screwed the TTV Cast - hard

[binaryspiral]

He has a pretty good on air personality but he's not a talking head for a batch of researchers. He does ask questions of the crew or bone up on information before he takes a call - that's just good sence. He does a radio show on the weekends along the same lines as C4H - KFI-AM 640, and he's got a pretty good blog/website with information. And he also guests on a couple of main stream TV shows. I think he's a good talent to have on any tech related channel - but Comcast lost them with the SF studio.

Re:G4 and Comcast screwed the TTV Cast - hard

[nuggetman]

I still don't get the uproar about Leo. What's everyone see in him? The things he says are wrong just about as often as they are correct, he can't interview for shit, and nothing he says/writes is from his own knowledge/experience: it's all scammed/borrowed from other sources.

What isn't borrowed from other sources, anymore?

Anyway, the reason most people like Leo is he can be talking about *nix one second, and the next be talking about burning a CD from some MP3s you downloaded in simple terms that Grandma can understand w/o being talked down to.

Re:G4 and Comcast screwed the TTV Cast - hard

[blaberski]

Exactly.

Alot of us tech people, have a habit of talking down to people that ask a simple quesiton, even if we don't mean too. I know I have done it in the past, and I try not to, but sometimes it doesn't come out he way it should.

Leo, has a gift for explaining things in a clear manneer without sounding like an some l33t 13 year old with a chip on his shoulder.

Re:G4 and Comcast screwed the TTV Cast - hard

[NateTech]

Leo's one of the few people willing to help others with the computer issues/problems at whatever level they're at without being condescending to them.

He's also willing to do it on the public stage where he gets idiots like you throwing tomatoes at him while he's trying to do it, while you yourself would never have the people skills, the production skills, nor the willingness to take his place in the limelight.

Shove off and leave the guy alone, he was doing good work helping the average Joe actually get something out of their computer other than an AOL account.

He was making the PERSONAL computer side of our industry look fun again for thousands of people who aren't techies and geeks, for the first time in many years. Explaining things like how to rip a music collection of CD's into MP3's in newbie terms and showing them how to do it on-screen in the very limited timeframe of a television show -- that type of thing does take skill.

You manage to do the same type of work, get up on stage and do it in front of thousands, and then we'll compare apples to apples by seeing if people watch you... or Leo. Good luck on that one.

He's not a "tech authority" but he's a "tech celebrity", I'd say. He's out there in front of people every day explaining how to use their computers -- work that few techies really want to do, but helps our industry immensely.

You're just another whiner in your recliner.

Can it die the rest of the way, please?

[Drakin]

Been watching the mergeged G4TechTV this past week (free preview). All I can say, is it's crap. Right now there's something about the NBA All Star week, some clips from games... feh.

Heck, even TechTV was watered down from ZDTV, which was rather interesting to watch when it first started up. It suffered from lack of shows, so you had the same episode 4 times a day (plus repeats on weekends), but it was catering to a different viewership, but I guess to continue to exist, they needed to get sponsors, and to get that, they needed wider viewership... and thus, dumbing down the shows.

Re:Can it die the rest of the way, please?

[binaryspiral]

It's the friggin' infomercials in the morning that I can't stand... I used to watch TSS in the morning, but now it's buttcrack cream or some torture device for leo-tard wearing freaks. Damn you Comcast!

Re:Can it die the rest of the way, please?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

It's really hard to cater to a crowd that prides itself on eliteism and non-conformity. Any declaritive sentence is gaurenteed to piss off half your viewership. And it's hard to develop a product line that caters to both the BWM driving corperate Ubergeek, the long-haird berkie wearking guru, and the starving code poet all tat the same time.

Besides any programming decision is met by threats from your hard core viewership to fork it's own network. /tongue in cheek

Also affecting TechTV Canada

[Viking5150]

This will also affect TechTV Canada, as stated on their website:

Toronto, On (May 13, 2004) - Recently TechTV in the United States changed names to G4techTV. This was as a result of the Comcast Corporation becoming the new owner of the channel thru G4 Media inc.

G4techTV will be the new name for the Canadian digital channel TechTV Canada. It will combine popular programming from both technology lifestyle channels, G4 and TechTV. As part of the deal, G4 Media inc. assumes one third ownership of TechTV in Canada.

Rogers Media, based in Toronto, will continue to operate the channel as managing partner and G4techTV will continue to be available on digital cable and satellite in Canada

The full press release can be seen here, and the FAQ for the Canadian merger can be found here.

Re:Also affecting TechTV Canada

[blackcoot]

having spent quite a bit of the past week watching the slow deterioration of a channel i actually liked (well, substantially more than the rest of the crap we get) i've come to the conclusion that comcast wants to get rid of g4 and techtv both, and they're doing it by cutting off any pieces of techtv worth salvaging and then poisoning what's left with g4.

Re:Also affecting TechTV Canada

[Graemee]

It will be interesting if the other Canadian specialty channels complain if their new format does not fit the orignial license TechTv Canada had. TNN is running into this when it became SPIKE TV.

The CRTC can pull them.

Re:Also affecting TechTV Canada

[Jardine]

It will be interesting if the other Canadian specialty channels complain if their new format does not fit the orignial license TechTv Canada had. TNN is running into this when it became SPIKE TV.

TNN changed from The Nashville Network (country music and Dukes of Hazzard) to SpikeTV (whatever 80s and 90s stuff Paramount has the rights to show). That was a much bigger leap than TechTV to G4TechTV.

The other thing to keep in mind is that TechTV Canada has been airing Electric Playground (a G4 show) because of Canadian content rules. TechTV already has some gaming elements to it. Adding G4 shows will just make the network more about gaming and less about technology in general. I don't think they have anything to fear from the CRTC for this.

G4TechTV

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when this channel [G4TechTV] was still ZDTV. I just happened to come across it accidentally and have been watching it ever since... now G4 ruined it. TechTV had some pretty good shows, G4 to put it nicely, is something left to be desired. Who in their right mind agreed to this deal???

Btw, their new site g4techtv.com is a POS.. also btw why can't I go straight to thescreensavers.com anymore?

stupid comcast

[challahc]

Last I heard, comcast in my area doesn't show techtv. Not even on digital cable. I've been watching it on cband satellite for a long time, since it was zdtv. Anyways, I don't think comcast likes to do what the customers want. So for those of you hoping for archives of the old techtv.com, good luck.

Re:stupid comcast

[AtlanticGiraffe]

"I don't think comcast likes to do what the customers want." So much for capitalism ;)

Re:stupid comcast

[pavera]

Well,
In the area of television since Comcast has a basic monopoly (ok maybe a duopoly, but really I don't think comcast competes with satelite) They don't have to do what the customer wants, just what the shareholders want.

Re:stupid comcast

[timmi]

In my neighborhood it's a quadopoly.

Comcast
WideOpenWest, (Formerly Americast)
plus the two nationwide satellite carriers:
DirectTV
Dish Network

Re:stupid comcast

[pavera]

yeah, I've got a triopoly, Comcast, and dish and direct... but I refuse to sign a 1 or 2 year contract when I only have a 6 month lease... so really I only have 1 choice.

Unscrewed

[rscrawford]

My sister's boyfriend is an intern on Unscrewed. So I'll probably still check it out.

Re:Unscrewed

[Fofer]

This show wasn't cancelled... "Unscrewed with Martin Sargent" is still on G4TechTV.

Not that I *watch* it. I just wish they'd kept some sort of "general tech" news type show, like TechLive.

Re:Unscrewed

[EvilTwinSkippy]

They don't call it "killing."

They call it "retirement."

This rsponse...

[zeruch]

...has little to do with being rational.

I hope Satan uses the skulls of the entire Concast e-staff as commodes.

Re:This rsponse...

[Seraphim_72]

Sir you are a boor and a crude SOB. Having said that I hope your post gets modded up to godhood.
Kisses
Sera

Re:This rsponse...

[ev1lcanuck]

I agree. I hope they rot in hell like the slimy weaselly scum bags they are.

Don't forget freshmeat

[b00m3rang]

Afterhours, of course.

We have a place for this

[Niscenus]

Bugzilla

Nice idea; please file it.

Oh Darn

[Niscenus]

OSDN will have to buy it, first, then ;o)

The new network.

[Raven42rac]

I have had the opportunity to watch the new network, and I am not sure if I like it. Many of the shows show potential, but are just plain boring in practice. I don't want to watch a bunch of geeks deathmatch on Arena. I did like the E3 coverage with Dane Cook, he is just a really funny comic though, I am not sure anyone else could have carried that segment. I am miffed that they kept Thunderbirds from TechTV, I don't know about any of you guys, but I think that show sucks bigtime. I do hope they keep Wil Wheaton, I was getting into his subtle ribbing of the callers on Call For Help. Comcast is making a huge mistake, IMHO, why fix something that is not broken? If they can get rid of all of the "robots battling each other" shows, I will be at least slightly happy. I will give the network a chance though, granted they keep Leo.

PVR Card!?

[Niscenus]

They have these? I've been hacking this crap together when this already exists!? D*!

Is it ISA or PCI?

Re:PVR Card!?

[binaryspiral]

Uh, yeah.

PCI, AGP, or USB

Uses your PC for the audio input, storage, compression, and display. The card takes care of the video in.

My Leadtek Win2000XP cost about $50 and has a remote control and good software. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.

It also includes (free) online guide for programing and scheduling recordings. No charge - something Tivo could learn from.

Visit Newegg.com and search for PVR.

Tux on TechTv?

[ryen]

I totally missed the TechTv hype... did it have any Linux "programming"?

Re:Tux on TechTv?

[Morgahastu]

The ScreenSavers often featured Linux. About once every few weeks they had Chris Dibolla (sp?) come on the show and talk about things open source, best distros for news, etc.

TechTV often covered the Mac aswell which made me happy. Call For Help and The Screen Savers also recommended the use of Firefox and Mozilla. I am sad to see station go away.

This new merged channel is ridiculous with shows that look like they were shot in my basement and hosted by random idiots. TechTV has a fairly wide audience in the geek world before but now it's limited to teenage spazes.

Positive Feedback

[Niscenus]

Quick, someone create a petition somewhere, so, I can sign it!

Favorite tech tv memory

[Sinful_Shirts]

My favorite tech tv memory was that guy who fumbled and broke that priceless phonograph recording thing. That was great. http://www.ebaumsworld.com/techtvblooper.html

Re:Favorite tech tv memory

[gerardrj]

That's so sad, and so funny on so many levels.

It's sad that the guy busted the one of a kind thing, It's funny how ignorant the host was of just how unique that item was.

Re:Favorite tech tv memory

[Pathwalker]

Blue Amberol cylinder records tend to do that - the inner core is clay, and slowly expands over time, until suddenly the whole thing shatters. The heat from the lights probably pushed it over the edge, but that one would have probably gone on it's own at any time.

They aren't that uncommon - I know people who have hundreds of them, and working wind up players as well. I've been planning on making recordings of the pre-1923 ones and posting them online - I just need to find the time to do it.

Re:Favorite tech tv memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh boy that was soooo funny I had to make a transcript:

This is a one-of-a-kind peice, there's no other one like this particular one in the world. You can see the tracks go this way and uh it's really cool because it it records much more accuratly but [CRACK] OH FFFFF SHIT, OH MY GOD UHHH...

Re:Favorite tech tv memory

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually saw this LIVE as it happened, and I always thought the whole thing felt like a "bit", like a setup. The old dude was trying to be funny. Could be wrong though; his hands were shaking thru the whole interview (before and after the incident). On the other hand his reaction (apart from the FCC-safe-for-basic-cable "shit") was rather reserved.

Re:Favorite tech tv memory

[falser]

Yup that was really great. Thanks for the laugh.

Re:Favorite tech tv memory

[/dev/trash]

That was Chris Pirillo. I lost all respect for him, when his newletters became a big marketing scam.

good riddance

[ErichTheWebGuy]

I have never liked Tech TV or G4. Their reviews were severely lacking any real substance, their reporting sucks, etc. This is not a geek network at all. Unless, of course, you are a yuppie wanna-be geek who blows all their money on the latest r0x0r windows and microsoft office suites...

Just my $0.02

Re:good riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to that !!

I was trying to remember that one.

[Niscenus]

And with Freshmeat, there would have to be Themes. You know, they could expand the idea into pretty things in general. FreshMeat ][ could be a general cover for the Forge & Savannah (and you could dump themes and pretty things there as well). Just before every commercial break, take half a minute to show off someone navigating their desktop with pretty themes enabled and so forth....

Bad merger names years too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like everything on TV, this merger name is years out of date considering what happened in the rest of the corporate world years ago.

How long do you think it will take G4TECHTV to drop G4 just as America Online Time Warner (AOLTW) finally dropped AOL to become just Time Warner?

Or, will Time Warner finally drop Time? Will G4TECHTV become G4 TV? Or, will it become just "TV" (as in "not internet")?

We'll find out in a few years when TV discovers bad merger names are out of style.

Re:Bad merger names years too late

[Anonymous Coward]

The way things are looking now, if they go down that route, then G4TechTV will drop TechTV.

Re:I tried, I really did...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, because that show, G4TV.com, is one of the few G4 shows I like. Yes the blond spiked haired chick is not cute, but the other one, Tina Wood, is a babe.

And how are their antics any different from Mr. Annoying, Adam Sessler?

Re:I tried, I really did...

[Anonymous Coward]

The "great programming" on HBO isn't the movies...

Leo Laporte

[OneFix]

Leo was probably one of the most tech savy folks on TechTV. He also seems to be the only regular that really embraced Linux...

For those that don't know, there's been a lot of discussion about the cancelation of CFH on Leo Laporte's forums. Here's the link to Leo's Comments.

Basically, Leo is still doing his 90 second segments on TSS, but he is working on some new projects...one of these will be Leoville.TV...he says that he is going to be getting some of the old TechTV folks to work with him. He also says that there are offers coming in from other channels, but he probably won't be back on TV on a regular basis until some time in the Fall.

Until then, there's always his radio show on KFI...

REAL Answers to your questions

[pappy97]

I think this makes perfect sense from Comcast's point of view. We may not like it, but we are a minority. This is what is going on: Money is in video games. Video games = cash. People in the mainstream are into video games. Comcast owned the G4 network, a 24/7 network for games. It stinks. Turns out anyone who likes video games, including their key demographic (males age 12-34), and tuning into TechTV. Why???? Because TechTV has enough stuff on video games: X-Play is better than G4 game review shows, and The Screen Savers and other shows talk about games/gaming hardware/software. So....what is Comcast to do???? Why not: 1.) Buy TechTV, thus eliminating the competition 2.) Merge G4 and TechTV, to make one network, basically dedicated to gaming, G4TechTV. 3.) Fire TechTV staff and (eventually) turn the "TechTV portion" into programming that is video game related. 4.) Thus while we lose the small minority of geeks, if we make a good video game network, consists of game/hardware/software preview/review/discussion shows, we'll get a larger audience. Basically G4 was hurting Comcast because it sucked, but Comcast wanted to tap into the video game market. Eliminating TechTV and making G4 better is the plan. If it will work remains to be seen. However, I'm sure Comcast isn't crying because the geeks will be leaving in droves. They are looking to gain a more mainstream audience. G4TechTV just might do that (just because you, the geek, are not watching doesn't mean it cannot go mainstream).

OH MY GOD!

[novalogic]

TechTV has changed? What am I gonna do for my MORGAN WEBB FIX NOW?! GOD HELP US ALL!

Re:OH MY GOD!

[wvitXpert]

I actualy didn't care too much for her. Cat from The Screen Savers on the other hand... Grrooowwwlll!!!

2 Words...

[ErichTheWebGuy]

Hell Yeah! People at OSDN -- If you had any brains at all, you would at the very least explore this idea!

All those great reviews...

[tutwabee]

I guess all those great software reviews are gone forever. I hope they will put the Dark Tips archive back up.

Two of Every Animal

[Niscenus]

Bring me Space, Bandwidth and Volunteers, and you, me and this Nigerian guy (who only wants $400,000) will be happy to assist in the ultimate dream.

PS: Beautiful women preferred ;o)

Does this look good me?

[Niscenus]

How does the title of "Station Manager" sound to you?

Re:Does this look good me?

[Segway Ninja]

Sounds awesome!

Then again, so would "Station Mad Scientest"
Plus extra danger money...

The problem with G4...

[OneFix]

The problem with an all games network is that there's just not enough that happens in a given day to fill up 6 or 7 full time shows.

What you get are about 5 "review" shows with pretty much the same content...a couple "lets watch people play games" shows and some "filler" (Anime Unleashed and Thunderbirds...while I don't mind either, neither has a place on a tech oriented channel..I know these came from TechTV, but noone's perfect)...

X-Play was ok, but it seems that ComCast is just sucking the soul out of what was TechTV...

Most of the shows on the new channel just feel like a badly done public access show. These people obviously don't know anything about the technology and I've caught more than a few of them with the "deer in headlights" look...Don't get me wrong, TechTV had its share of "Pretty Boys", but there seemed to be an attempt at putting someone who was "dumb" with someone that knew their stuff (Leo and Cat on CFH for instance)...

Of course I think Comcast would be best to look at why Leo Laporte was such a good host...he had radio experience and knew when guests were getting "boring" and would change the direction toward a more interesting subject...

Re:The problem with G4...

[mouth_rules]

Of course I think Comcast would be best to look at why Leo Laporte was such a good host...he had radio experience and knew when guests were getting "boring" and would change the direction toward a more interesting subject...

The fact that he worked in radio also showed with his voice work. Very professional, and easy to listen to. His voice had a professional quality to it that I never heard from anyone on G4.

Geek or not, Leo was a very entertaining and informative part of watching TechTV (ZDTV when I started watching) and will be greatly missed. My favorite part was when he started dancing to MC Hammer's Can't Touch This in the middle of a skit! Hilarious!

The important question

[EvilStein]

Where's Morgan Webb? :P

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Any why should we take anyone seriously who bitches about shit on slashdot and in usenet, instead of doing something USEFUL and filing a, um, bug report??????

And what's more, you describe the default behavior of 4 popular word processors! I suspect WordPerfect behaves the exact same way. So, in essence, you want to change the entire paradigm of word processor programs, alienating hundreds of millions of users, so you can save 2 mouse clicks???

My god man, get a clue!

Re:LOL

[bootedcat]

couldn't help to say: i don't want the pen mode to replace the default mode entirely, tho... there could be a switch.

Good Ridance

[Dwedit]

I got tired of TechTV's Unscrewed airing my flash movies on TV without contacting me first to let me know.

Sorry to see the screen savers go though...

Thank you

[Niscenus]

I'll make a note to go looking for one where something other than "just Windows" was being kept in mind.

I like this idea.

Re:Thank you

[binaryspiral]

Humblest appologies to the /. community for my windowed reply.

But really - these cards will work with Linux variants with the right software. Really... searching for linux PVR software on Google.com worked for me, you should try it.

MythTV looks promising.

Re:Thank you

[pavon]

I'll make a note to go looking for one where something other than "just Windows" was being kept in mind.

Hauppauge makes some good PCI cards, most of which work in linux (although the linux drivers are neither written nor supported by Hauppauge). Also have heard that the ATI all-in-wonders work in linux as well. On the software side you should look at MythTV or FreeVo. Have fun!

Oh and if by "other than windows" you meant mac, there are no PCI solutions that I know of, but a couple of USB units, including one by Hauppauge.

Re:Thank you

[Niscenus]

Thank you. I did mean GNU/Linux in general, as many an AbiWord user might know. I'll keep these in mind for the future.

Re:OT: A new idea for WYSIWYG rich text editors

[bootedcat]

i'm not going to file bugreoports for every editor... anyone interested in getting this feature implemented please file it for me.

software?

[Anonymous Coward]

What software is needed to play TechTV?

Bittorrent

[TheLoneCabbage]

Wouldn't something like this do MUCH better on a pay-for download basis? Shows like this are NOT expensive to produce, and using bittorrent as a distribution model (those who leach pay more) would make it more efficient to distribute.

Especialy since it's a tech oriented show.

Re:Bittorrent

[telstar]

"Wouldn't something like this do MUCH better on a pay-for download basis?"

• Possibly ... But while the range of their audience may be diverse ... their TARGET audience is typically the younger type ... the type that doesn't have a credit card. Makes pay-for-content situations a little more difficult. They may be able to convince mom or dad to let them do it once, but it may not be sustainable.

Re:Bittorrent

[TheLoneCabbage]

In a sane world I'd agree. But most "Kids" these days have a credit card. Welcome to the wonderfull wide world of consumerism, and obsene wealth.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/CollegeandFa mi ly/Raisekids/P40989.asp
http://www.fool.com/news/ commentary/2004/commentar y040406dy.htm

On a side note, I think most of our favorite shows could thrive this way. But it's risky, and big media is adicted to proven methods of easy money, and mo easy money.

G4

[Andrevan]

It has now merged with G4, to become some sort of evil warped mixture creation. http://www.g4techtv.com/

So what?

[blair1q]

I saw TechTV about 10 times in the past N years.

Not once did I see something that made me want to watch it for more than maybe 30 minutes, and nothing made me want to see it again the next day or week.

And it's not gone anyway, just monopoly-restructured into its competitor.

you insensitive clod

[Anonymous Coward]

youre just fucking stupid. get a life.

Goodbye who?

[Teahouse]

I wonder why the current format wasn't setting the world on fire...hmmmmmm..lets look at it.

Screen-Savers 8 hours a day.

The LAME Robot Wars 2 hours a day.

Other non-original progamming that had very little to do with real "tech".

These guys coasted for a year on nothing interesting. I switched on the channel twice in the last 6 months. Once, they were building a mod case out of an Army ammo can (uh...couldn't afford a REAL case?) The other time, they were reviewing music players (for the 13th time).
Hopefully, Comcast will actually keep it as "Tech"TV and then actually develop a few good series out of that instead of just rehashing the same 8 topics and the same 4 programs for the next 2 years. I liked the CONCEPT of TechTV, but I hated the REALITY of TechTV. Buh0Bye. Perhaps something good will come out of this (like a series where geek contestants test their knowledge of C++ for fabulous prizes, or they do a real, cooperative Gillagan's Island. They strand 7 geeks, and tell them there are hidden resources on the island they can use together to make things (radios, solar cells, etc) Anything would be better than watching those two middle-aged dorks cruise t the set in their mustang anymore. I was embarasesed for them.

Re:Goodbye who?

[pauldy]

You have to be kidding me. The screensavers had tons of content that was good and if anything the only thing they had on techtv that did not belong was thunderbirds. I know there are people out there who love the show but did it belong on techtv?

In any event to even suggest that watching people code would somehow be more entertaining than the screensavers puts you in contention for the most boring person in the world. Was it your call to cancel techtv? I would bet you probably don't watch much tv to begin with. Your second show idea is just as lame. As if watching a couple of geeks building fox hole radios and trying to survive without the internet on an island would be fun for more than a couple of hours at best.

Re:Goodbye who?

[Teahouse]

The screensavers was interesting the first few times I watched it, but they honestly began repeating themselves after 6 months. Case mods, case mods, case mods. Ipod, nomad, ipod, nomad. Digital cameras, digital cameras, digital cameras. Oh, and lets not forget the countless game reviews. Maybe it's just me, but the topics just started blending in to one another. Nothing new.

I do watch a lot of TV, and I didn't cancel the channel, but had I the power, I would have. You see, while both you and I might both be geeks, I have a life other than tech. Sorry if that upsets you, but my opinion is still valid. When I was 19 and doing nothing but writing code, I probably would have enjoyed TTV more, but at the age of 38, I no longer eat, drink, and sleep the same 5 topics anymore. There's more to being an Obi- power-geek than the 5 topics TTV kept rehashing. They had two years to do something more, and they blew it.

Wait till you see the 'Judgement Day' show...ouch.

[Viewsonic]

Talk about lame hosts .. These guys dont even play games, they just go on and bash everything left and right. Tonight they bashed an RPG because it had too much text to read. I mean jesus, G4TechTV should at least hire some people who aren't poster boys for A.D.D.

I'm glad they kept X-Play though, great solid reviews, whacky hijinx, and a great looking girl to seal the package. Keep on truckin' Adam!

awwww fuck

[bl8n8r]

No more Leo...That's too bad. It was a good show - had something for everyone if you waited long enough. They didn't leave out the Mac or Linux crowd (even think I remember them talking *BSD a few times) and weren't just a bunch of Windows Power Users filling a time slot. All good things come to and end I guess.

Re:awwww fuck

[EmagGeek]

Don't forget that Microsoft owns 7% of Comcast and holds significant influence in their board of directors... the reason techtv was killed was precisely because they had the cuddly stuffed penguin on the set... and no, I don't mean Leo... hah...

Re:awwww fuck

[pauldy]

From jones computer network on these people won't die that easily. I think it is very naive of comcast and shows how little their execs know. I have already put in my sell order and I am canceling my cable the day after the sopranos finale. Vote with your wallets folks its then you can sit back and watch them flounder as they try and fire everyone from New York to California in a vain attempt to appease their investors and figure out why they are suddenly bleeding money.

Hahahahaha....

[Viewsonic]

Thanks for that link. I haven't laughed quite like that in a long time.

Same place she's always been. X-Play.

[Viewsonic]

They kept that show. It is now the only thing worth watching that channel for. The rest of the gaming shows are terrible. The G4 hosts all need to be replaced, and quick. All of them.

what do you expect

[bl8n8r]

from a country that is outsourcing all it's technology to other countries? I bet if you go to the comcast website in India, you will find 100 openings for a new TV show there.

G4 ---Tech Tv review

[Stanleverlock]

I have watch G4$/comcast programming a little. What i have seen i will characterize as Kiddie -corporate X-box power hour. I have never owned an X-box or X-box game nor do i intend to. Great programming if your only gaming experience is an X-box or your microsoft stock owner.
G4$/comcast programming is aimed at the saturday morning set and they have a very long way to go to address the more mature users of computers.
G-4$/comcast, i expect will do little to help open source like Tech-Tv did!

AS for Tech-TV, my impressions of most slash-dotters are somewhere between my skill level with a computer and extreme power users. Thus Tech-Tv addressed power users issues very little.
Tech-Tv, i felt was some what like slash-dot would be if it were on TV.
Tech-Tv however did address ordinary users technical issues and provide a lot of real and helpful hardware and software information for less skilled computer users.
Leo Laporte was very good, but he was a tad bit overbearing on the Screen Savers. He was however, an excellent source of technical information and did support the open source movement. All the other TEch people on Screen Savers, Call for Help and the other shows were of pretty high caliber and informative.
I wish I could say the same for G$/comcast programming
and the chicks on Tech-Tv were HOT! Laura Swisher,Morgan Webb,Cat Schartz And the red haired news chick - I Want you to bear my children!

YOU watch FOX news?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that is all right wing christian fundi neo con fantasy fodder, dont you?

I only watched TechTV once

[foidulus]

But they had Lisa Ling doing a fairly in-depth report on flat screen LCD's. Hot asian woman, nice technology, too bad we can't get a network to combine those two things 24/7. I'd never leave the house.

Re:I only watched TechTV once

[foidulus]

I do love those asian women! Yum! Too bad they all hate me :(
LP!
Last post!

Re:I only watched TechTV once

[foidulus]

LP!
you fail it!

Re:I only watched TechTV once

[foidulus]

LP!
You fail it!

Re:I only watched TechTV once

[foidulus]

woot!

Re:I only watched TechTV once

[foidulus]

ack! no unicode!

Re:I only watched TechTV once

[foidulus]

woot!
Damn speed and lameness filters!

Re:I only watched TechTV once

[foidulus]

I need more laundry soap!

Re:I only watched TechTV once

[foidulus]

Maybe you can borrow some off of your female roomate.

Re:I only watched TechTV once

[foidulus]

I need to kiss a girl or I will go crazy!

Re:I only watched TechTV once

[foidulus]

Man does that guy have a big face!

Re:I only watched TechTV once

[foidulus]

Croooooooooooooooow!

Re:I only watched TechTV once

[foidulus]

pointless flame!

If I heard right...

[caldroun]

The other night, I watched The Screensavers, and I believe that Patrick said that they were migrating all of the old info to the new site.

BTW Last week was awesome with thier Washington trip. (going to the FCC, NSA, and the Nation Archives) I believe on June 1st is a special with all of the Washington stuff.

merged with G4....

[caino59]

whoopee.

G4 sucks. Comcrap didn't even give me TechTV. Speakeasy 6/768 service should be installed this week. Bye-bye comcrap.

TechTV Site Isn't gone...

[Anonymous Coward]

But the style of TechTV is. Look at that site! It's FUGLY!

Well..

[nuggetman]

They claim it's coming back
http://www.g4tv.com/feature.aspx?article_key =729

Waiting on Wil

[fleener]

I do hope Wil Wheaton refuses to do the new show. No one of character would support the destruction of something beloved. I'm wondering when Wil is going to comment on recent events in his blog.

Unscrewed

[gad_zuki!]

>and Martin unscrewed

Canceled? More like a mercy killing.

Apparently I am in the minority

[dk4]

I've always thought that TechTV was crap, and G4 is one of my favorite channels. My main complaint about G4 was the repetition of episodes, but my new main complain is all of the crappy TechTV shows taking up the lineup. And I don't know what anyone sees in X-Play, it is a shoddy copy of G4's programming.

Re:Apparently I am in the minority

[Darcojin]

It couldnt be a copy beings how it was around before g4 exsisted, also the programming on techtv (while not always pointed to the more advanced crowd) gave some usefull information on technology. I tried to watch g4 when it first came on the air and could not stand it. BRING BACK TECHTV FOR CRIMENYS SAKE, at least it was watchable.

G4TechTV

[GE32]

I have been watching G4TechTV over the weekend, (while working on exams) and thus far I have seen just about every show on G4TechTV, (or part of it) One word...Crap..Crap (all right two) the sets all seem to be from the seventies and are all brightely colored...(Filter I'm thinking of you) They need to have a disclamer before the show.."Sets best viewed stoned" (not that I support that kind of thing) also every single G4 show seems to have stayed (not sure if they cut any) I mean atleast cut the crap..like Pulse (hour long weekely game show where they jump from topic to topic sometimes in under 15 seconds) The only good thing I've seen was that behind the scenes of the new Riddick game, which has me looking into it and I might buy it (once I get an X-Play review :D)

All the reporters on G4 are all in there 20s and have almost no experience..they talk WAY too fast, I can talk fast, but I have a hard time understanding them sometimes...

Notice how it is G4TechTV...and not TechTVG4...they merged TechTV into G4 and what they should have done..was merged G4 into TechTV..(drop Thunderbirds, robot wars...) except I do not see any content that G4 has that should even have anything to deal with TechTV.

Boycott?

[Adolph_Hitler]

Perhaps we should boycott direct TV?

Re:Boycott?

[brolin9]

What does DirecTV have to do with this? They aren't Comcast, and the apparent replacement for TechTV is still on DirecTV's standard lineup. Given this and what I've read about their treatment of cable internet customers, it sounds like Comcast is the one that's due a boycott. I've been a DirecTV customer for close to 5 years, never had a single problem with them, and find them to be one of the most responsive companies I've ever dealt with.

When will we have SlashdotTV?

[Adolph_Hitler]

What can we replace TechTV with?

I pulled the trigger...

[Prime Mover]

I'm a sys-admin at TTV and my claim to fame is that I made the DNS change on the TechTV end that redirected all traffic to g4tv.com
AFAIK, TechTV is no more. I know it is called a merger but I think a more appropriate term here is a scavenge. Comcast bought us and G4 picked the best parts of the carcass. It definitely isn't a meeting of minds to take the best of each channel.

How can we start a new tech channel?

[Adolph_Hitler]

If all of the rich geek techtv fans were to pool their money and start a new channel then it wouldnt be a problem would it? I'm assuming all thats needed is a business plan, donations, etc

Start another channel

[slash2000]

Anyone want to start another channel? I know the right people to get it going. We just need some good content to get it going. We should know what's good/bad by remebering what was on TechTV, so we could end up with an awesome channel.

Re:Start another channel

[Anonymous Coward]

Leo Laporte is already working on such a project.

Old articles

[iantri]

It says right on the front page:

"Where's the Archive? The past three months are available now. The entire archive is coming soon!"

So hopefully, yes, the entire archive of TechTV show content will be back online.

I'd pay for a subscription

[Adolph_Hitler]

I'd pay for a subscription to the channel if you can get the talent that was just fired from TechTV to be the hosts. This is not really a matter of money, most of us would pay for this. Also we are geeks so we have money, advertisers should want this channel

Right now...

[djkoolaide]

Looking at the guide on my digicable, I see exactly 8 hours of G4 programming and 4 hours of TechTV programming over a 12 hour time span. Now I dunno about you guys, but something is really wrong with that.

I hope the new set for The Screen Savers won't look as bad as the G4 sets. Obviously G4 has a main audience of six-year-olds, judging from the colorful bubblegum sets.

Maybe they'll start to realize that they need to bring some of the tech back when they notice people aren't watching the channel! Personally all I've watched on the G4TechTV is The Screen Savers and G4TV.com, since those are the only two good shows they've left.

The OpenChannel (The LinuxShow)

[Adolph_Hitler]

The Linux show would be a good start. Also a show about hacking, maybe a gaming based show, and then some entertaining shows like martin sargents unscrewe d or some anime stuff

TuxTV?

[Adolph_Hitler]

Why can't we just start our own damn channel? We have the money, we have the technical skill, we have the community here at slashdot and other sites. All we need to do is make a site, gather up all the communities like slashdot, all the gaming communities, etc and then spend months hyping up the launch of the new network. If properly hyped just like the PS2 or Longhorn, it can work.

Re:TuxTV?

[ryen]

do we even need our own channel? i'd rather visit sites like slashdot and the like before spending more hours in front of the idiot box than i need to.

Re:TuxTV?

[Adolph_Hitler]

Some people watch tv while surfing 2-3 websites and listening to music. We multitaskers actually prefer the ability to get our information from multiple sources at a time.

Comcast: The Microsoft of Cable TV

[ALeader71]

Proof once again that if you can't beat your competition with a better product, if your parent company has lots of free cash lying around, you can buy and liquidate them. So long TechTV, you will be missed.

G4 is the worst

[sfr79]

The two dweebs G4 has reviewing games are horrible. X-Play wasn't great by any means, but at least it was fun to watch. Let alone the fact that TechTV didn't have every show sponsored by Pringles or something else. The only good show that G4 has is the ICONS show. Their awards show was painful to watch, let alone the 2 hour roundtable they showed 6 times a day for the two months leading up to it. TechTV had some bad programming as well, but to think for a second that G4 brought more to the table is a complete joke. Its clearly the egos of the comcast management at work here.

Re:G4 is the worst

[SWG_Eddie]

G4 is great. Sure more programming would be great, oh wait, now they have it. Hello? They merged two channels which were lacking enough content to avoid repetition and which clearly complement of each other. G4 for games, TechTV for tech. Its a win-win situation in my book.

Re:G4 is the worst

[pappy97]

I think it's definitely a win for G4. G4 proved video games 24/7 didn't cut it. Before the merger, G4 was showing episodes from 2003. Having TechTV programs fill the spots of OLD repeats is good. TechTV had a similar problem, but not as bad. Look at the weekend on TechTV. All of TSS of the past week (and any other new show of the week) repeated, along with repeats from earlier this year. It would be nice for TechTV to be able to have G4 programming keep us from watching the same Fresh Gear or X-Play episode over and over again. But is it a win-win? I don't know about that. Firing TechTV's staff (okay, not really a firing. Moving to LA) was horrible. The TechTV part of it should never move from San Francisco, which was close enough to Silicon Valley to mean something. Sure LA makes sense for G4 (I guess), but not TechTV. Even with that said, TechTV shows will get a good cast. Even SoCal has some geeks! **(Of course I can't help wonder if our San Fran crew could have been saved if Morgan Webb and company had posed for Playboy. That kind of hype would have brought enough attention to TechTV that Comcast would have likely moved all G4 stuff to San Francisco [And fired all G4 dudes, and all G4 chicks who wouldn't go naked] and at least kept TechTV as we know it intact) Another sad reality is that G4 wasn't even as good re: video games as TechTV. TechTV reviews, whether on X-Play, Fresh Gear/TSS (game hdware reviews), etc were very unbiased. G4 review shows do a decent job of giving pros and cons about games, but I don't remember them ever calling out any game to be horribly bad. If I remember correctly, their reviews for games seemed always to be lukewarm -> hot. G4 never did a good job on PC games and PC gaming hardware. TechTV gave equal time to PC games and talked A LOT about gaming hdware. Again, the merger favors G4 as TechTV's video game programming may rub off on G4's. Thus G4 wins, TechTV loses, and G4TechTV (unless changes for the better are made) looks to be a mediocre (read: average) network. It will have its moments, and it will have its lows.

How can we replace TechTV?

[Adolph_Hitler]

With all of our technology, all of our skill and talent, and all of our money I'm sure we can come up with some way to provide ourselves with a TV community. I mean we came up with slashdot and all these websites online, we need to do the same sort of thing on TV.

Re:How can we replace TechTV?

[BugZRevengE]

I think the good thing about /. is it is text based, a tv version? all us geeks on tv? think of our eyes... think of our eyes!

Re: make up your own excuses

[Anonymous Coward]

"People in the mainstream are into video games"

Yeah well, even MORE people in the mainstream own computers and have internet access. Did you know that? That makes shows like CALL FOR HELP way more valuable to the mainstream, than an entire half hour dedicated to people PLAYING games. The only kind of people who would want to WATCH other people playing games are people who like games but can't afford to buy a console.

There's a reason people watch sports on tv. It take alot of planning and coordinating many people to get together and play most team sports. You can't do that at the drop of a hat. So people like to watch it. That and the fact that athletes who are a million times better than us are interesting to watch "doing their thing".

But games?! Death matches? If I'm in the mood for games, I can just flip on my console. There is absolutely no need to watch others "playing". How stupid.

Then shows like "Players"?? Watching some NERD teaching a dumb blonde how to play a fighting game? (ie: recent episode with Bonnie Sommerville). I don't even need to say it.

And yet they get rid of informative shows with good talent, like Call for Help. Why? It's not "glitzy" enough? Uuggghhh

The problem with all these video game shows is they DON'T appeal to a mainstream audience. They appeal to a small niche of 14 to 20 year olds.

In-fighting on set

[Himring]

I once watched Leo Laporte explain Quake internet/multiplayer play as if it were Doom multiplayer. He said, "the entire server can only run as fast as the player with the slowest connection." And went on in an elaborate description of all online, internet games as if they were built on Doom multiplayer. I changed the channel.

For the most part though, I did enjoy the reviews and tech tips, and picked up lots of info on technology from TSS.

More than anything, I enjoyed watching the blaring interpersonal battles that the hosts shamelessly let slip on to camera day after day. Sometimes, the hosts obviously battled with producers as they were being reprimanded via their ear pieces, and Leo one time even bucked that (cuz I guess he was high and mighty). Watching Dvorack and Laporte go at it was fun too until Dvorack got axed.

It's too bad we can't watch the /. crew hate each other....

Re: That's your problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I watch the Screen Savers almost daily @ 7pm

It's a show definitely aimed at the Slashdot crowd (and a bit of mainstream mixed in)

OSDN.TV is also taken...

[MsGeek]

Does this guy have anything to do with OSDN or is he a cyber-squatter?

Domain Name: osdn.tv
Registrant: Michael Blomfield (mike@mha.ca)

4639 Woodburn Road
West Vancouver, BC V7S 2W7
CA
604-925-4444
Administrative, Technical, Billing Contact: Michael Blomfield (mike@mha.ca)

4639 Woodburn Road
West Vancouver, BC V7S 2W7
CA
604-925-4444
Record expires on:
Record created on: Jan 26 2005
Jan 26 2001
Domain Name Servers: ns1.mha.ca
ns2.mha.ca

Canadian TechTV

[Jouster]

[url=http://www.techtvcanada.ca/]Canadian TechTV[/url] is still up and running....

Jouster

It's like Software Etc. a few years back.

[JoeCommodore]

Software Etc in the 90s had a generally good selection of software, lots of different categories (a whole shelf of word processing/spreadsheet programs, etc.) then it was bought out and merges with a bunch of other video game stores and turned into just another games store (along with the other names like Babbages, etc), you are truly lucky if they even stock just MS Office besides the tons of games now.

I think Tech/TV G4 is going in the same direction, you will be lucky if you see a review for something that isn't a videogame, MS, Adobe, Nvidia of another big bux company.

I don't think the big advertisers really like screensavers or call for help all that much, too much of helping people by fixing stuff they already bought instead of plugging their new prodcts.

Yep I'm going to Tech-TV too, until something better comes along, then I'll be watching that.

Maybe Bill Gates Can Save It.

[Porkster]

Maybe Bill Gates Can Save It.

New Site Link

[CrashRoX]

www.g4techtv.com

Do a live internet streaming as a test run

[Ex-MislTech]

Do a live internet streaming as a test run .

If it get a large following online via streaming video then
that will prove it will have a viable future on non-net TV .

Good Luck !!!
Ex-MislTech

OSDN, Overtly Secretive Dumchit Netverk, ja

[Niscenus]

I never said you can trust a Canadian; it could be, however, that osdn, in that case, may mean something else.

MythTV

[Niscenus]

This is not a card, but software to function with typical-PC hardware that is geared primarily towards being a TiVo; a FreeVo, if you will.

The difference? The people.

[KhusTheRed]

I never had G4 before, but after only a weekend it seemed obvious that Comcast made their biggest mistake by keeping the lion's share of the personalities they were mistaken enough to hire in the first place. Content on both the G4 holdovers and the TechTV leftovers actually fairly similar. (Anyone else wonder why there are approximately sixteen game reviews shows on one channel?) Yet even watching Judgment Day versus X Play, you can see which hosts are trying too hard to be geeky-cool and which two (yes, Adam and Morgan) are simply geeky cool because they're comfortable with their own personalities (and each other as co-hosts). The Pulse pair remind me too much of failed SportsCenter anchors who couldn't get past their own non-clever one-liners to get a job. And four minutes into watching him, Tommy Tallurico's (sp? ah, who cares) schtick was tired. One minute after that it was annoying. I didn't wait any furter to see what emotions his grating ego would evoke. The G4 crew reminds me of a bunch of college sophomore frat punks trying to be something they're not--authentic. The flak over Leo Laporte's dismissal illustrates this best. On screen, he wasn't the most technical guy on the planet, but you knew he could be if he wanted to. He wasn't the pandering idiot that "mainstream" networks tend to hire, either. He was geek, but he was *accessible* geek that the noobs could generally understand but the tech-savvy could still relate to. IMO, that's what TechTV had in spades that G4 is failing miserably at. I'll be watching the guide for TechTV programming, and passing on the G4 schlock.

Attention!

[Niscenus]

As this will eventually ticker off, I've created a journal entry to keep track of the idea. (It's the only one, so, you can safely click the journal link to get to it.)

Rape him!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, that's it! Mod that troll fucker down! Anyone who speaks the Truth should have a rock tied to his neck and tossed into a deep lake.

It's Dead Jim

[oldstrat]

G4 has kept all of it's content, added The Screen Savers, Unscrewed, a couple other pieces of crap.

Ok ZD/Tech TV wasn't perfect but it was the closest thing there ever was to a Nerd Channel.
What killed it?
Paul Allen, the man has failed at probably 98% of everything he has invested it, the remaining 2% recooped his losses.
But Mr. Allen lacks stick to itiveness, he lacks vision and he lacks dedication.

Employees are not given a chance, be it TechTV, High Speed Access, or any other Vulcan Venture.

Bye Bye ZD/TechTV many of us inside and outside the network saw it coming a long time ago.

Re: make up your own excuses

[pappy97]

Does anyone have any ratings numbers on TechTV? Yes more and more people have computers at home. That doesn't mean they are/were watching TechTV. TechTV has always appealed to geeks and geeks alone. G4TechTV promises to appeal to a broader audience. From Comcast's perspective, it makes sense. I don't like it: I love TechTV, but there is no use getting pi$$ed off. People who are getting pi$$ed off over TechTV are the same people who think "Firefly" is a great show, when I think it stinks, and so does the rest of mainstream america. (Please give up the "Friday night banishment argument." FOX already know Firefly would only appeal to Whedon fans (if that), so they gave it a "cult night.")

G4 is nothing but games

[p51d007]

I quit subscribing to the digital part of cable years ago, since the only channels I was watching were Tech TV, and Discovery Wings. I was at my parents over the holiday weekend, and scanned their satellite, and was looking at the schedule and it was (or seemed) 99% game related. I suspect that G4TV or whatever it's called will fail, if its all games, and sex tv or whatever that stupid show is. I use to like the screensavers back when it was Leo & Kate, but since she left, it seems to have gone downhill FAST. RIP......it was a nice ride while it lasted.

Comcast dumps International viewers

[LinuxLuver]

Another side to the Comcast throttling of techTV is they withdrawal of service from markets outside the US of Eh. In New Zealand, TechTV has been a popular element of the local cable TV service.....and customers were notified a couple of weeks ago that techTV was being removed from the service. Searches on the web indicate that the Comcast worls extends to the Lower 48 and maybe Alaska and Hawaii. This is a myopic world view that folks outside the US are all too used to.

Wrong!

[cqnn]

Chirs Pirillo is an old gray-haired gent with
a collection of classic recording equipment?

No. The clip the parent poster mentioned is
available around the net, and clearly shows
it was the gentleman who brought the old
phonograph cylinder on to the show that broke it.

He didn't so much drop it, as it shattered in
his hands, while he was discussing how fragile
those cylinders become with age.

Re:Wrong!

[/dev/trash]

But wasn't Chris also in that clip?

Re:Start another channel -how to help

[Stanleverlock]

This is an excellent idea! how do help Leo and the gang get this started?

Bring Techtv back!

[Drakeuser]

I will go ahead and take the hit and say Techtv was getting old. They seemed to start playing the same episodes over and over again like they had run out of material. I would say however this has more to do with the producers and money behind the show and not the hosts. I mean the hosts can only work with what they are given. It would be nice to see shows like TSS and CfH find a new home and keep the shows alive and fresh in the old spirit. However, Techtv offered a lot as people have said and it obviously meant a lot to tons of people that Leo had to ask people to stop emailing G4 on the air about the CfH. For myself I loved searching the site and finding tons of tips and new websites. When I started using Linux Techtv was a good place for open source information. It was awesome to have a tech channel not 100% dedicated to Microsoft. Also, I agree with some others that G4 will fail. There are more people out there that want the tech knowledge more than the gaming knowledge. I mean how many times can they review the same aspects of games. I don't care to see the top 10 games of all time chosen by someone I don't even know. While I like FF games...do we really need 30 minutes of wasted time talking about which character was the best or had the best cgi? Gimme a break. I want Techtv back!!! I hope the people at G4 are reading these comments. Should reality and money prevail I hope someone creates or finds a website with all the tech knowledge combined. At least they can never take away Leoville.

I got yer ant farm story

[acedtect]

I mirrored it here.

I for one, will not miss their extremely bulky code. Yikes!

Re:I got yer ant farm story

[antdude]

acedtect: Thanks, but it has missing images. I can easily get the Web pages, but not the images (full size, not thumb nails).