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Television Reloaded
theodp writes "The TV times, they are a-changing. Over at Newsweek, Steven Levy offers a serious tome on the future of television, including time-shifting ("people will follow schedules only for real-time events like sports and election night"), space-shifting ("Now that you've stored your show on a TiVo, it's only logical to take it with you on your laptop, hand-held viewer or PSP game player") and the move from broadcast TV to broadband TV. Meanwhile, Conan O'Brien lightens things up with his own vision of the TV future ("Toddlers' bowls will have a television at the bottom, and children will be encouraged to eat all of their mush so they can see Morley Safer.")."
I think I'll just buy one of these instead.
Great, so the shows are going to be portable ( pipe dream? I don't doubt the possibility, I doubt the IP laywers will let it happen ). What about decent shows?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I'm already watching most of my TV on the subway on my way to work using my PSP. MythTV records what I want and then I use PSPvideo9 with avisynth to transcode with just a few mouse clicks.
I'm not sure why this is modded funny! Maybe because there is no "tragicomic" tag.
My brother works for a group that installs aftermarket items on cars, like A/C and Steros/DVD players, and in-dash DVD is a VERY popular modification. Not "back seat so the kids can watch Teletubbies" DVD players, dashboard. I'm not even sure it's explicitly illegal everywhere.
Brett
I believe an on-demand system could work very well the way state-subsidised public service television works in a lot of european countries.
Here in Sweden, anyone who owns a TV set (or, nowadays, a computer with a TV-reciever, or a television mobile phone), has to pay a TV-license of a couple of hundred kronors per year ($30-40). For this we get two channels with excellent quality content and no commercials. Most people add on to this with paying for cable channels that cost a lot more, and include commercials. But imagine a system where you could have just a large number of the public service channels for a proportionally higher price. There would be the traditional time-dependent broadcasts, without commercials but any old programming (that has already been aired) would also be available on-demand, perhaps by a bittorrent-type distribution network, that has proven very effective.
By the way, I've been wondering about the legality of downloading shows that I have payed for with my TV-license. A lot of american sitcoms, that are normally shown in America with commercials, for example, is shown on one of these channels. Would it be illegal for me to download an episode that has already be shown on Swedish television, since I have technically paid to see it, commercial free?
I know that Conan was joking with a lot of the things he said (i.e. wolf attacks because we can't watch our tv's in our houses since they're so huge) BUT as funny and ridiculous as this may sound, when I was reading his column I wasn't cracking up and laughing at it.
I was frowning and becoming more depressed because frankly that's where our technology will take us. Wrap-around screens on our coffee cups, made so cheap that they're disposable playing commercials or coupons for other coffee related products, and yes, maybe even tvs in our bowls, but I personally do not think this is desireable as we'll end up being surrounded by television (we already are, TVs are in every room, on our phones, pda's, computers, psp's, other hand held games and so on.
Can't wait to watch those commercials while I'm sitting on the can in a bathroom stall.
I liked the article, but one thing that bugged me was that the author kept using the word "channel" and writing about how there would be more and more "channels". The future of TV is zero channels. I want to download and watch. There is no need for a "channel". The channel metaphor implies a continuous stream of information. I like the metaphor of a "library" instead. I browse titles through some sort of on-line catalog, then download and watch later or right away. A library is not a channel. I would say zero channels, many on-line libraries. Or maybe just one on-line library named "Google".
Your lucky, I thought it said bowels.
Think about it. TV is the ultimate capitalism machine. It turns kids from developing countries into placid consumers instead of violent ideologues.
Those who grow up watching TV are aware that there is a much larger world around them, filled with attractive wealthy people who enjoy high standards of living. It has been statistically proven that kids living in conflict zones are much less likely to turn themselves into suicide bombers if they grew up watching MTV.
There is a lot of anime I'd like to see properly dubbed (or even subbed, for some of the older stuff). On-the-fly translation with a similar-sounding voice would be a killer app.
Too bad I'll probably be drawing my (ten cents on the dollar) Social Security when that happens.
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
"If I've made even one mistake I'm certain the good people at NEWSWEEK,
who never make mistakes, will refund you the price of this issue."
Gotta wonder if this was a jab at Newsweek or coincidental?
While I do agree there is a paradox of choice, I know that there are solutions.
Utilizing "Editors" or collectives to sift through the vast content available and mark their recommendations. Slashdot provides that for "news for nerds," which editors, other sites such as delicious popular provides community "voting" on what is interesting.
Using social networks we can subscribe to other peoples interests, and "mine" through the mountain of content.
If you have seen it, check out EPIC for one possible future.
Believe it or not, Comcast already does this.
They have this on-demand feature built into their digital cable boxes. The selection's a little lacking, but in effect, you can play any TV show or movie they have any time you want, it just costs a few bucks. They even have a fair amount of free content (no doubt to get people using the service), and the selection's not too bad. It seems most HBO shows are on it, and a lot of major cable networks seem to be on board; Discovery, Comedy Central, the History Channel, and quite a few others.
I'm no big fan of Comcast, but I've got to say, they really nailed this one.
This is how cable was originally promoted -- you pay for the privilege of not having commercials. Then along came MTV which was one big commercial, and that was the beginning of the end. (More or less.)
It's harder to convince sponsors to pay for x-number of eyeballs when there's no guarantee past "the bits were delivered".
Interesting though that they can't offer that for standard TV-over-the-air. People could be doing the ironing, having sex or whatever. Yet the advertisers seem happy that x million homes were tuned into that channel, Doesn't matter if you weren't watching.
If we downloaded officially we'd spin the ads on anyway, just as we do with taped stuff/Tivo.