Watching My Neighbors Watch On-Demand TV

Josh Levin, Slate Magazine writes "I have a magical box that allows me to watch other people watch TV — their movies, their sports, their cartoons, and their hour-long procedural dramas. And sometimes, usually around 11:30 on Friday nights, their soft-core pornography... I solved the mystery by consulting online message boards. At techie sites like AVS Forum, other voyeurs described their adventures in freeloading. I was intercepting video-on-demand channels through the power of my Samsung's QAM tuner."

Comments

Bedtime is always softcore porn

[raventh1]

Yeah, between childrens tv shows and softcore porn there isn't much that interesting, except that when they watch the nudity scene in a movie and then replay it 5-8 times.

Article is dubious

[Timesprout]

Author says

My girlfriend suggested that I try plugging in the Comcast cable line.

Only an imaginary geek 'girlfriend' would suggest something like this.

I read it for the articles?

[Anonymous Coward]

Channels 97, 100, 115 seem to be the on-demand channels in my area.

I was showing off the ability to intercept on-demand programming to some of my friends the other day and we happened to come across some of the softcore porn being fast forwarded through. Curious to see what they were fast forwarding to, we watched for a little bit... the person fast forwarded to a dialog interlude. Our curiosity piqued, we watched a little more and noticed that as soon as the actual intercourse portion of the movie started, they fast forwarded to the next scene that included dialog.

Could we have found the only person in the world who reads playboy for the articles?

Re:I read it for the articles?

[Anonymous Coward]

well, the truth is, I've never had the patience to find out if a porn film actually had one.

"Patience" may not be the word you're looking for

Re:He's not watching his neighbors watch TV...

[TobyRush]

The article doesn't mention that he can watch anyone's TV except for this one TV he calls the "boogeyman." When he is watching that TV, it can watch him too.