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TV Isn't Broken, So Why Fix It?
PolygamousRanchKid sends this quote from a contentious article at CNN that questions the need for further development of TVs and the entire TV-viewing experience.
"The technology industry is absolutely bent on reinventing television. ... But nobody seems to be able to answer the big question: what exactly is so broken about TV anyway? The tech industry is filled with engineers and geeks. They naturally want to optimize the TV experience, to make it as efficient and elegant as possible, requiring the fewest number of steps to complete a particular task while offering the greatest number of amazing new features. But normal people don't think about TV that way. TV is passive. The last thing we want to do is work at it. ... As long as there's something on — anything — that is reasonably engaging, we're cool. Most of us are even OK spending a few minutes just shuffling through channels at random."
So, what do you think is broken about TV right now? Is there a point at which it'd be better for us to stand back and say "We've done what we can with this. Let's work on something else"?
Have you SEEN what's on TV?
I can't imagine life without a PVR, being a slave to some executives scheduling decisions is no way to lead your life. It also helps that my PVR includes comskip so I spend 1/3rd less time watching tv and my kids aren't bombarded by relentless advertising.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Now a 3-d tv, thats a good reason to spend 2k on right?
Right?
TV is broken because, with a few exceptions, content is tied to a specific time and location.
I want to be able to watch my favorite shows when I remember I want to watch them, not a time set by someone else. I also don't always want to watch them from home.
Take away Tivo, Slingbox, etc and these things are not possible.
The only thing broken about TV is the massive proportion of it dedicated to advertising instead of actual content.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
The part which is broken is the networks and cable companies, who add nothing but get between the consumer and the content creators. Those who decide which content gets produced with our money, and who enforce regional distribution restrictions, exclusive digital streaming rights.
I'll take a crack at this.
It's expensive as hell.
The cost exaggerates how much crap there is to sift through to find anything worth watching.
Often the "worth watching" query comes back empty.
The STB's are universally awful.
Even if you DVR and FFwd, the commercials are an annoyance.
I'm sure there's more... but that's what I can think of off the top of my head.
Commercials, among other things. Because everything has to be dumbed down to gain mass market appeal and advertising dollars, there is a real lack of quality programming. But hopefully we may see the internet change all that, once all the DMCA type shenanigans come to an end, and people figure out that you can still charge for content even if people steal it.
Too many fake reality shows. Way too many. Less Jersey Shore, Lady Hoggers, and the like, and it will be just fine.
Because it is passive, they cannot measure the degree of effectiveness of their mass control initiatives, resulting in more time and money spent to repeat the message enough to guarantee assimilation. They want ways of getting feedback.
Why should I pay for a bunch of channels and service I don't want?
If they offered modular, on demand service I wouldn't have to monkey around with xbmc, encoding etc.
Services like on-demand streaming of movies/tv where you pay exactly what you want are the future. The cable company can't let go of their monolithic 'screw you cuz we can & always have' thinking. Eventually they will go the way of the labels as far as monopoly via audio CD's - technology will evolve past them (already is/has) and they'll just be left waving their wizened fists angrily, struggling for relevance and trying to screw people over with control of cable internet.
I want to see channels from any country, in any country.
That's all.
... fixed schedules and they show only the content that will get them the most (average) viewers. So programs cater to the lowest common denominator. You can't simply just watch what you want to when you want to relatively (obnoxious) ad free.
The great thing about the internet is you can find old shows like cartoons and whatnot from earlier in your life that no network will broadcast anymore. As bad as content industries make 'piracy' out to be, they can no longer forcibly send old shows offline permanently (which is a good thing). If anything piracy will be a great boon to future historians of entertainment, the arts and humanity generally speaking.
Primarily the mode of delivery. It made sense that the internet would piggyback on existing infrastructure (cable and telephone) but the tables have now turned, and it would make more sense to piggyback TV on a line specifically meant for Internet (fiber).
Complexity is an interesting one. Modern TVs are freaking complicated. My grandfathers set blew about 2 years ago so I helped get him a new one. Trying to find a larger screen TV that doesn’t require a geek to operate is pretty damn hard. There would seem to be a huge market for people that just want something you turn on, change volume, change channel, turn off. Even if you get a geek (like me) to set it up for you, you still end up with either multiple remotes (one for TV/one for digital box, one for DVD player) or a just as complicated “smart remote” that kinda works.
Some very basic functionality that should exist (but I haven’t seen) would be that the TV should detect a signal on an input and auto switch to it via some kind of hierarchy. Turn on the DVD player.. input should go to that.. turn it off.. back to digital box.. turn that off, back to analog cable. This seems basic and maybe it has been done, but when I looked I couldn’t find a TV that supported this.
What's broken about TV? This: the vast majority of the content is utter crap pandering to the lowest common denominator.
Yes, almost everyone watches TV. Even more so outside the geeks, but even most geeks download and watch their favorite TV shows.
So am I. It's got enough inputs that I can hook up my Playstation, VCR/DVD and my PVR so I just don't need anything else. When this one eventually dies, obviously I get something more up to date. But I don't watch sport, and don't own a Blu-ray player so I just don't need either 3d or HD.
The thing most broken about TVs today is the blasted set-top box.
Maybe in the living room it's ok to have an "entertainment center" with all sorts of electronic boxes wired together, and to have multiple remote controls, or spend $$ to buy something like a Logitech Harmony. But for every TV you've got?
For the past few weeks Comcast has been putting the "You're not doing this right." messages on some channels on my TV. It looked like it might be merely "going digital", but last week I did a rescan on a digital TV, and didn't find the channels that warn. I'll rescan again Wednesday, after the switchover, but I'm not optimistic. So now the second TV (which actually is digital, unlike the "first TV") is about to need some sort of extra box, extra remote, and of course when the extra box is active we won't be able to get the broadcast HD channels without extra fiddling, etc. (Or we could spend more $$$ for an HD set-top box, etc.)
THAT's what's broken about TV - and I don't see Apple TV or any of these other gizmos fixing that, unless they accept CableCard.
Oh yeah, this upcoming change is going to break MythTV, or at least badly decrease its usefulness.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Nothing.
THAT'S THE PROBLEM.
How's a TV manufacturer supposed to get more money if people aren't buying new TVs/their current doesn't have planned obsolescence?
Then there's that pesky "internet" that's killing the cable cash cow.
About half of TV is not "watched". It's just "on". (Radio is almost entirely in the "just on" mode today.) A sizable, although shrinking, fraction of the population likes the rigid schedule of TV shows.
3D TV was an awful idea. Everything, including the viewer, has to be positioned properly for it to work. If you lie down on the couch watching a 3D TV, you will have an eyestrain-inducing experience as your eyes try to converge on misaligned images.
The model itself.
Originally it was said it'd be subsidized by ads. Try running a stopwatch during primetime...at least ten years ago you could get nearly 45% or more advertising in movies, and 30% plus in 30 minute specials.
In theory--cable would cover this cost. Except instead you just get more channels with the same unsolicited bulk broadcast.
To go away from that, you need...oh... pay per view. Costs as much as renting the fucking thing, plus delivery.
Or you can get HBO or cinemax which at a minimum of about 15 a month is near worthless assuming you want to watch a movie once a week, but are only a 1 in 4 chance of enjoying any given movie.
So you get to pay about $100 a month or more in order to have irrelevant ads slung at you. And then you have that nice awkward experience of sitting down to watch something with your parents when a 'little blue pill' commercial comes on. Or a public service announcement. Or somebody asking for my money to feed children so they can take their 80% administrative fee.
Let's try to sum up the problems with TV:
- too much advertisement
- not enough relevant content
- cable top boxes making it hard to space shift in my home
- artificial difficulty in time and space shifting
- viagra
- inability to watch when I want
- insufficient box office content
- serials pushed all over the fucking place by sports
- networks moving things to different times, days, or even other networks
- reruns.
- It's damned near impossible to get a tv guide in paper.
- The digital tv guides don't work reliably unless you have a cable box (and those are hard to scan quickly since the boxes are slow)
- Oh yeah, the boxes are slow
- A thousand other things
Please, can we just brutally fucking murder the entertainment industry for holding something that was a simple, easy, functional service utilizing public spectrum utterly hostage?
The way TV currently works I'm asked to conform to a schedule set by an Exec that thinks will bring in the most eyeballs. When I was growing up (before we had a VCR) we would schedule our lives around what TV shows we wanted to watch. I remember that Monday was usually take out or quick meal night because that's when my mom wanted to watch her shows. New TV shows were introduced after the old ones we already liked. How many sitcoms were stuck in the spot after "Friends" in the hope that it would draw people too lazy to change the channel?
My setup right now is SickBeard to Sabnzbd+ to XBMC. I paid $50 for a block of 1TB that I've been using since the middle of last year. I don't know and I don't care when most of the TV shows I watch are on. My TV time is usually midnight to 4 am. I'm in grad school, work and do a ton of other stuff on campus (Swing Club, international cooking classes, hang out with friends).
Every TV show I currently watch has come from a suggestion from a friend, Slashdot, Reddit, or Fark. To avoid the disappointment that follows numerous shows I usually wait until the 3rd or 4th season to get into them. I just started Dexter this year. I watched all previous seasons in the span of 3-4 months. I literally just started Farscape. Breaking Bad, Community, Game of Thrones, It's Always Sunny, Chuck, etc. All came from suggestions.
Then you have "Well if it's not in the #1 spot, it's failing" mentality of broadcast TV. Community is one of my favorite shows. Season 1 had me in stitches with some of the episodes. I lost it at the first Halloween episode when Abed was Batman. But NBC decided to bench it so "Whitney" and some other female comedian can get a boilerplated TV show. Cable TV is much better. HBO & Showtime seemingly don't care their global rankings but more about if they can get a core group of die hard fans. But those are "premium" channels and I'm sure as hell not going to pay $100+ a month to get them (because you need to add all the other channels I don't want). Chuck was brought back by a fan campaign and I'm glad taht it's going to get a proper final season but NBC seems intent to kill it anyway I heard they shifted it to something like Fridays. Because 18-30 year olds aren't doing anything else on Fridays? Seriously.
Give me a legal torrent seconds after the TV show ends leave in the commercials and I'll watch it. But until then I can't imagine going back to "Oh, this airs Thursdays at 4"
This comment only applies to the USA. It may or may not apply to other countries.
Here in the USA we basically have to pay some provider a monthly subscription fee. Yes, you can try to watch over the air (OTA) TV for free if you are lucky enough to get a good signal where you live, but the channels are very limited. So we get suckered into buying more channels than we want just to get the channels we do want. For example, you may want one particular sports channel but you have to buy 15 different ones in a package to get it and you'll never watch the other channels. TV providers fear letting customers buy channels a la carte as they know that their income would plummet. Off the top of my head I would think that most people would probably be happy with paying a lot less money for only 20-30 channels if they could pick those individual channels themselves. I have to admit that I have just about reached my limit with TV charges and another rate increase might just make me drop the whole thing and resort to cheaper alternatives to watch the shows I want to see at a later date and time. Some people argue that "Oh if you switched from cable to satellite" or vice-versa that you would "save a lot of money" but the reality is that once the introductory offers expire, the prices are pretty much the same whoever you get your TV from. What we really need in the USA is a way to drive down the costs to the consumers to subscribe in a way that doesn't take away our favorite channels. As long as the providers are able to get away with avoiding a la carte pricing, they've got us trapped.
However, I have to say that I am not at all an Apple fanboy, but I am really impressed at how Apple took mobile telephones and pads and turned them into something actually useful that were generations ahead of earlier attempts to do so. It's been rumored for some time that "Apple TV" is going to debut next year and I am curious to see if Steve Jobs figured out something on TVs that Apple can make better in a way they did for portable music players, mobile phones and pads.
Don't miss it.
Deleted
A thing does not have to be "broken" in order for change/progress to be made. Telephones weren't "broken" when cellular phones were invented, and the horse drawn carriage wasn't "broken" when the automobile was invented. It isn't broken, companies are just trying to make money by making progress in a technology that people are interested in.
There is absolutely no reason in with today's technology that we can't have real video on demand. There is no reason I shouldn't be able to watch any show I want, whenever I want. If the providers want to include commercials, then so be it, but they're delaying the inevitable and forcing people into piracy with limited availability of programming online and by only allowing viewing within a limited window. The major television providers now offer "on demand" services, but these have serious limitations. All they're doing is giving people a taste for what could be. A cable company that offered true video on demand could absolutely clean up in the market, but the content providers are far to unwilling to shift their business models to match the desires of consumers. 50 years from now, children will express disbelief when told that you had to wait for a specific time to watch your favorite program, much like I had a hard time I had as a child grasping that television used to be only black and white.
The very fundamental principle of using television as a revenue generator is broken. I would gladly pay for a service that allowed me to watch whatever shows I wanted, when I wanted, with no commercial interruption. I am not willing to pay for a service that forces me to watch three minutes out of ten of commercials, and I certainly don't like to adjust my viewing schedule to accomodate the shows I want to watch! It is much easier for me to download shows and watch them later than it is for me to be in front of my television while they are being broadcast. If I want to watch a live event, such as a sports game, I can always head to the local pub and watch it there. I currently have basic cable and I pay ten dollars a month for it. The only reason I have that is that I purchase my internet through the cable company and, even paying $120 for the whole year, I was able to save a bunch of money on my Internet services ($300 off over three months, plus a 5% discount on my total bill, that amounts to a savings of $240 over the course of a year). I rarely turn it on. Not even for sporting events. Fix the delivery system and make it more accessible. Charge based on what you watch, rather than what channels you watch. If I was charged $0.25-0.50 per show I watched I would be inclined to watch more. But paying a monthly fee for a bunch of stuff I will never watch? Not worth the money.
.sig
It is very important that TV continues to exist as it is, as well as PVRs. Otherwise, people won't be able to upload the good tv series on usenet so I can download commercial-free episodes and watch them on my PS3.
House, the Big Bang Theory, Family Guy, the Mentalist, Supernatural, Storage Wars, Dexter: good entertainment for about 400MB/hour (I don't care much for HD).
A good usenet provider with a decent retention is not free (maybe 10$/month) but the insanely fast download combined with the excellent filtering provided by hand-crafted search engines (such as Nzbmatrix or Newzbin) is worth it. And for the poor people, I think there is some stuff available on P2P (if you don't mind getting some weird midget porn when you look for Disney content), but I find it slow and dirty.
lucm, indeed.
"So, what do you think is broken about TV right now? "
I'm a spectator so maybe that question could be answered by a different type of stakeholder. The stakeholder who might be interested in using the Kinect to ensure that adverts stop while the spectators go to the toilet; or that stakeholder who wants internet streaming to be protected from skipping the commercials. That stakeholder will find plenty things broken in the current state of the TV technology.
Even Apple knows that you wouldn't spend $1500 for an Apple TV. That's probably why that product is $100.
Honestly, I don't want, will not pay for, or even deign to give a red cent to telco companies and their garbage they call TV for a number of reasons.
1) TV doesn't do its job anymore. News in particular. Entertain and inform were the tasks at hand. Instead I see middle American slobs neither entertaining nor informing me of anything useful. Reality shows and garbage slant news coverage is not something I will pay for. 2) The TV that is good is covered up, hidden, made inaccessible, or mired in advertisements - if it survives some political TV executives wide-swung axe. (Examples: Eureka, Firefly, Community, and many others.) 3) The price is exorbitant. When people say they are paying for 1,000-3,000 channels they are forgetting they DO NOT NEED 1,000-3,000 channels. Nor will they watch that much garbage content. They are forcing a justification to price gouge you. 4) TV in its current iteration is a problem that telcos have forced us to have. Its complex, there are huge software issues, huge time slot issues, and even bigger hardware complexity issues that make it so unwieldy most leave the damn thing off. We're paying middle men of middle men for the right to look at content that is shit. I don't need more middle men. 5) It does not meet demand. It demands of you. 'YOU BE HERE AT THIS TIME AND THIS PLACE AND I'LL SHOW YOU SOME MILDLY ENTERTAINING TRASH.' I don't think anyone should pay for that - not today not ever. I run my life, not some damn box. I don't care if its a sporting event, debate, or "hit show" b/c it will be forgotten inside of a year.
We need a simplistic a la carte system where we can pick what we want, when want, and how we want it, and how much we're willing to pay for it. Nothing more, nothing less. Because of monopolistic practices inside of the communications industry and due to network greed we don't have that. Instead we have the opposite of that and then some.
Help me, help you. - Jerry McGuire
Channel-flipping worked fifteen years ago when we had maybe 50 channels. The hundreds we have today, often duplicated in different formats? Not so much. The entire experience is just awful and broken:
* Content discovery is awful
* The menus, channel guides, and other navigation stuff are some of the worst experiences I've seen (I generally avoid TV, so when I see them in use at friends' houses I cringe)
* We still have the idea of content being delivered by channels in timeslots. Talk about being stuck in the past. Everything is delivered digitally now, yet we still push content in a way that was built around the restrictions of analog broadcasting. I realize it's not exactly the same, but given that we re-use the lines for cable internet connections, it's clearly possible to have two-way communication. We use DVRs as a lousy hack to get around this, but the future is clearly a more iTunes-like experience in the sense of "get the three most recent episodes of the show"
* Pricing is a mess. They try to hit you everywhere for all sorts of different things. Six levels of TV service, PPV options, premium channels, rental fees, etc. There are so many things they could do to make this simpler, and yet they continue to make it more confusing, presumably to trick people into being upsold. That can't be sustained indefinitely.
* Content overload - and nothing worth watching (obviously that's a matter of opinion)
* Extremely complicated set-up. All of these digital systems have such poor integration with each other, despite decent attempts to make systems smarter. HDMI was designed in part to alleviate this, but I'm still trying to get everything working in harmony. Even just some UI tweaks and speedups to flip between input sources would be a huge improvement. Why must I slowly (very, very slowly!) scroll through a list of uselessly-named inputs? Just put up a grid of things that are receiving content and let me arrow between them. And for the love of god, make it more responsive.
I may be a poor case study not being a big fan of "I'm bored; placate me with mindless content", and I find TV to be a very ineffective way to get news; however, I can still look at the overall experience pretty objectively. Hulu and iTunes among others are making steps in the right direction, but that experience is still largely limited to the computer, and what's done on TVs is kludgy at best. The AppleTV is decent and the Hulu app for internet-enabled TVs is, last I used it, extremely buggy and also requires a premium subscription.
I've wasted enough time thinking about it for now, but the headline of "TV isn't broken" is just absurd. I can hardly think of an experience that would be a better poster-child of "barely-functional, bordering on unusable".
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
And I don't mean the band.
Television is so chock full of advertising it's almost unwatchable. It's corrupted game-play in sports (TV timeouts) and it's becoming less free than ever before. Most College Bowl games, as an example, are now on cable/satellite channels - channels you have to have a subscription to watch. Several years ago they were on ABC/CBS/NBC, but not many anymore.
HDTV, which was the dream for decades has arrived, but now there's so little worth watching in HD (hey, I can see the pancake makeup on the host's face, yuck!) Writing seems to be at an all-time low in quality, same for acting (good looking or former comedian seems to be the main qualifier)
Can't seem to get that A La Carte bill passed, either. Geez. What's it going to take? Oh, perhaps when the broadcasters and cable/satellite companies aren't twisting arms in capitols... Nice to see the people of the UK have finally won a big one in court, you can watch the continental broadcasts for less than the UK providers for football. That's sweet. Too bad America keeps protecting markets, rather than allowing someone on the West Coast to rather watch a NYC station, because they prefer it over the delivery of the local station.
Yeah, lots wrong with TV. Not likely to get better, either.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Just discovering what programs are available is a huge problem outside of the conventional broadcast TV paradigm.
Set-top box program schedules stink. Nobody buys the TV Guide any more. Yea, there are third-party (and cable-company supplied) program schedule apps, but most of them stink too. (Anybody else try the useless Cox schedule guide on iPad?) If you're really into it, there are web sites that discuss shows ad-infinitum I'd imagine, but most people won't bother, and don't want to sift through the crap.
Finding on-demand programming is a hassle. You have to navigate with a horrible on-screen interface, and most people don't know what network a show they've heard about is on. So, they have to do a search, which is horribly painful. Click, click, click, click, there's ONE LETTER.
Program discovery is so bad that most people revert to "what's on?" and flip through the channels. Even if a show is marketed heavily, and you see a banner drug by an airplane and wonder what's up with the guy that thinks he sees a dog, how many people are going to bother to painfully type-in "W _ I _ L _ F _ R _ E _ D when they get home, and then go through the rigmarole to set the VCR?
The big problem is, there are so many choices that it takes major time to sift through them. You have to know what you are looking for, but how do you know what you are looking for in the first place? Sure, I can go to NetFlix and decide I want to see a Fellini film easily enough. (Though I'd be best served by going to the website and putting it in my Instant Queue than by navigating the horrible on-screen interface.) And, oh, BTW, they're going to have to mail me that Fellini film 90% of the time, so we're Not There Yet.
Now, if the marketing says or even implies it's a prime-time show on a major network - you might remember the time-slot and go surfing for it if it's around that time. Otherwise, it's pretty hit-and-miss.
Clearly, though, ultimately, scheduled programming (other than live events and breaking news) are inevitably going to go away. I think I think that's necessary to prepare the public is to change terminology. No more show times. They're release times.
Every show should be available on-demand in some form. Some people will still eagerly anticipate "release times", and gather in front of the set to be the first to watch a show, just as some go out to a theater to see a movie when it's first released.
Someone with tech ability programs it with things like "watch tv", "watch bluray", "listen to radio", "watch laptop". The person using it just hits the appropriate activity on the touchscreen and it starts up the right pieces of gear and configures all the physical buttons on the remote appropriately. As long as you use that remote for everything then you're good.
I got a refurb for half price, works really well. We no longer need to deal with six separate remotes.
Speed:
Channel switching speed: It keeps getting worse. Analog TV's were instant channel switchers. Even analog TV's with digital readouts were instant switchers. "Digital" TV can't do that. Cable boxes and their insane 'menuing' system. It's supposed to help you see what's on, but it makes 'flipping through the channels' more like 'trudging' through the channels. Even with OTA HDTV, there's a pause while it gets enough signal to show you a picture. They need to be working on eliminating that pause.
BOOT up speed: I'm lucky. I have an HD CRT. There aren't many of those. You push power, the screen makes a funny noise. The CRT warms up in a second or two. You're in business. The experiences I've had with LCD screens aren't good. When you turn it on, you get a POST screen, a manufacturer logo, some other 'boot-up' processes. It takes a LONG TIME. If I had one of those I'd be tempted to never turn it off because I wouldn't want to wait through the boot-up. That definitely needs to be fixed. If there was ever a place for 'instant on' technology, it's in the TV.
Cost:
It's hard for me to complain here because I don't pay for it, but I think the fact that I refuse to pay for it should say something. I've never caved to the 'Pay TV' bandwagon. No cable, no satellite. Over the Air all the way. I actually do pay for TV now. It's called Netflix. It's $8 instead of $50, and I get to pick what's on. (And no commercials.) Pay TV is way too expensive and doesn't make any sense. That needs to be fixed.
Now to be hypocritical. My wife won't watch commercials. She rather skip the program than watch a commercial. Not only is she always annoyed by them, she's often offended by them. I'm pretty sure commercials are the most heavily studied aspect of Television, so I don't really have any suggestions that the 'experts' haven't already beaten to death.
As for Content. I don't think that's part of the discussion. (We'll at least the FA. which I didn't read.) The shows are not the technology. I don't think you can 'fix' the shows. That's like dictating what music will be popular with teenagers. Good luck with that.
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
1. Dump all "reality" shows.
2. Get rid of the incredibly annoying pop-ups during programs. Seriously, I stopped watching "Rubicon", which had at least some promise, because these are horribly disruptive and offensive.
3. Convince the History Channel, the Learning Channel, the Discovery Channel, to focus on actual history and actual science...and not myth, superstition, and nonsense.
4. Please note that #3 does not cover Mythbusters, which, while occasionally a bit self-indulgent, at least features actual experiments.
5. Try showing movies without censoring, interrupting or editing them.
6. Stop remaking things. Hawaii 5-0 (among many, MANY others) did not need to be remade, and you're embarrassing yourselves, as well as putting crap on the air.
7. Lose the talking heads on news. Lose the theme music, lose the captions, lose the scroll, lose the catchy titles for every major news event. Try something different: sober, reasoned, analysis. Don't tell me that "you only 20 seconds left to discuss this"; you're a fricking network, all you HAVE is time. And stop pretending that there are two sides to every story: when one side is obviously insane, lying, or stupid, there aren't. Instead: call them on it.
8. There are occasional treasures in the archives. Not only should you air them, you should back them up to the world by posting them for free, unlimited download.
9. Run all commercials by a panel of 15-year-olds. If even they mock it, then what reaction do you think intelligent adults will have?
10. Teach everyone on your staff that "/" is a slash, not a backslash. Make it a policy that you will instantly fire anyone who calls it a backslash. If they do so on-air, then armed security should tackle them, handcuff them, and drag them off the set while the cameras are running. (Okay, so this one is selfish. But I would it find it immensely satisfying to watch.)
People still say things like this makes to make themselves feel superior?
This comic sums it up nicely.
Regardless of the method of transmission, television is dying, and the culprit is dumb content. People have more entertainment choices than ever before and television just can't keep up.
One major problem is that television content is dumbed down. Advertisers know that their commercials have less effect on intelligent people who are better at critical analysis, so they instead target kids, teens, seniors and the unwashed masses. Broadcast networks need content that will pull in those demographics. Make your content too complex and nuanced and you'll lose your targeted demographics. The result is a partnership between networks and advertisers that aim for the lowest common denominator sitting in front of the screen.
For a few decades, we had niche programming channels that offered something that wasn't stupid, but those channels have mostly been bought out by networks that have discovered that the LCD model is more profitable. Now those stations are content deserts, filled with little else besides reality shows about midgets, vagina clown cars, crabs and motorcycles. PBS is still around, but their programming is a niche within a niche. So we get this downward spiral where smart people are turned off by television, content gets dumber, more mainstream people are turned off by television, content gets dumber, and the IQ bar keeps falling.
The other major problem is that the way we receive content is dumb. Intelligent people have been buying gadgets for years that give us on-demand access to information. As the price has come down and those systems became more mainstream, everyday people got used to it as well. But television content mostly comes from unintelligent sources. On-demand IPTV might change that, but the content owners are fighting it. It is why streaming sites like Hulu and Netflix, as well as cable TV on-demand systems are hodge-podge patchworks of content.
I can't count the number of times that I have been frustrated because of the distribution methods of media. Netflix will have a series available for streaming, but then you hit one episode that is available only via disc rental. Hello, Bittorrent. Hulu will have content for streaming, but then you missed the cutoff for how long a new episode remains up. Hello, Bittorrent. I'll want to record two shows to my DVR that play the same time/night, but I only have one tuner card in my PVR. Know where I'm going by now?
The last problem is more of an issue limited to North America, but our OTA DTV system just doesn't play well with small, portable devices. We have too many channels that broadcast on VHF bands that require large antenna. The ATSC standard doesn't work well in areas bombarded with multipath interference or with moving devices (although it has gotten much better). Granted, the VSB standard was picked because it is more efficient over large areas, but it would be nice if any ATSC extensions would add OFDM as well. Large cities could have a low power UHF OFDM SFN (single frequency network) mesh for mobile handsets and apartment dwellers, while suburban and rural areas would still receive the main transmitter on the VHF-Hi VSB bands with their roof mounted aerials. Too bad that DTV for the VHF-Lo bands sucks and that the military occupies the area right above channel 13 on the VHF-Hi band.
I pay a content provider a subscription for a show. For instance, $0.75 for a season of House without ads, or $0.05 for a season of House with ads. $1.50 for a season of "The Daily Show" without ads. $10.00 for a restart of Firefly without ads (Yes, I went there), and so on. The greater the demand, the less the cost (and, obviously, the greater the show run, or the more cost to create, the higher the subscription cost). This will put much more money in the hands of the content providers directly, rather than having the cable middlemen taking a large chunk, and will still keep all but the most obsessive tv-watcher's cable bill at about the same price as it already is.
Content providers can poll me on my interests for new shows. They can also use those interests to customize the ads I get, if I am agreeing to get ads.
The content provider releases episodes on their regular schedule via a private BitTorrent tracker (or similar methods) in a DRM-unencumbered format, so I can watch it on any device I choose. This releasing is done using a customized-to-the-user RSS feed (only the shows I subscribe to from that provider appear in that feed), which is secured using HTTPS and a unique "user key". Trailers and pilot episodes for new shows can also be published on the RSS feed (especially if they may match my recorded interests). Keys cannot be shared, and abuse of such will result in the key being revoked (or at least, changed, so the user has to update his client with the new key if he wishes to continue, which will make it difficult enough to make sharing of feeds like this unfeasable).
News channels and current events can be subscribed to for live streaming using Multicast (preferably) or Unicast systems, in much the same way.
Cable companies can then become "content aggregators" or local CDNs, So rather than having to go to hundreds of different content providers, you can just subscribe through your cable company, and they aggregate all the available feeds for you and serve your content to you from local servers. Of course, going directly to the source is still an option, if you wish to track more directly, or if your particular cable company doesn't carry that provider's content. Cable companies can then either add a small surcharge to the price of each subscription, or charge a "content distribution" fee for running the local cache.
Emergency broadcasts can be implemented with special RSS feed items, or signed and timestamped playlist files that point to a live stream, to be picked up and (dis)played immediately by boxes or computer systems. This is about the only part that isn't possible right now, and I shouldn't think it'd take that much work to implement.
This way, when you go to the TV, there's always something you're interested in watching available. You never miss an episode of your favourite shows, and you directly support the people who make it.You don't have to get, and don't have to watch, anything you don't want to, and you can do whatever you like with what you've paid for. It also means that niche shows don't get canned, and providers have a completely accurate dollar-based view of just how popular shows really are (rather than having to rely on a very limited number of Nielsen households), and it also means that shows aren't competing for ratings by being forced into a timeslot, giving a false impression of popularity (or lack thereof). It would also make it easier for indie TV producers to get up and running. You'd probably also have a fast addition to Google in the form of "Which provider makes this TV show".
Unfortunately, the way Hollywood, and the MPAA/RIAA/Media fatcats see the TV industry, and television consumers as a whole, this will never come to pass. They are so much more fond of their walled gardens and "Prime time slot"s that the idea of abandoning them and allowing people to live their lives not beholden to their scheduling whims is abhorrent. It would be so very nice, but I hold out little hope in it happening. And
Maybe you don't remember the programming in the old days. It was horrible. It seemed like there was one or two shows a decade that were worth watching. The movies were bad too. We see old movies and old tv shows now that are chosen because they were the watchable ones.
Today we are spoiled for choice. There are lots of shows worth watching. Sometimes two a day on the same channel. And there are more than 3 channels now. There used to be very few channels.
The article and the question are referring to the TECHNOLOGY behind TVs. How can we streamline the technology to make the viewing experience better? 90% of these comments are about how bad commercials are and how bad the shows have become. Missing the point a little aren't we?
Perhaps we're missing the point. Or perhaps TFA asked the wrong question.
I am not a crackpot.
who thinks that 20 year old TVs (with the analog knobs and all that) were a LOT easier to use compared to the TVs we have today? Have you ever had to do "TV tech support" for someone in your family? I swear, the UIs are progressively getting worse and most people don't know about 90% of features in their TV or how to use them. Hell, *I* probably don't know half the features of my TV and how to use them and I am rather technically-inclined 28 year old male.
What's broken?!?! Not enough quality content, too many commercials, not playing when I am ready to watch, hardware nightmare of too many remotes and input modes (TV, Cablebox, DVR, DVD/Bluray, Stereo, game console, Rovio, etc.). HDMI blocking digital content with DRM methods. DVR recording (former TiVo owner) doesn't cut it. I cancelled my cable TV last year and haven't looked back.
Solved the TV problem already. Oh, I don't actually watch Live TV any more. I watch TV Shows and Movies minus commercials, advertisements, trailers you can't skip through, etc. I don't watch the news, I don't watch sports, I don't watch reruns, unless I really want to. I can get everything I care about online within an hour of broadcast, dumped to a small household SAN. I just input what I want to capture and automated systems retrieve it for me. The content is out there floating around the Interwebs free for the taking. I stream locally over my own private network to the multitude of televisions and iPads in my home. I use my iPhone as a remote control for the TV's. I can pause a show in one room and resume it in another. I can also stream web shows like Revision3, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. Pipe my music through the same system and family photos / videos on the TV. I can capture funny web clips using a browser and view them on the TV later. I have one remote control per room. It's so dang easy to use, my wife understands it! I even have her shows available.
You're a bunch of Geeks, figure it out. The tools are all there for the taking, I just happened to find the right combination of existing systems that work well together. It is like one big happy Unix command prompt, piping content metadata from one system to another. But like Fight Club you don't talk about this...
I would gladly pay for an on demand subscription based system where I specifically choose the shows I want. I would even consider watching advertisements. But I want the freedom to watch what I want when I want. I want to start up a show mid-season two or three and get all the back episodes without having to wait months or years for the show to hit DVD. But that is not what I am offered. I have to choose a package that gets ridiculously expensive and includes boat loads of channels and content I do not want. Then shows get blacked out for political station to station infighting, etc. The networks stream shows but it sucks with the ads and the Flash interface is crap. You can't pickup where you left off. You can't send the content to a TV. Another issue is they don't offer all the back episodes only a handful of episodes. So how am I to find out about a show late and get caught up? The Season DVD's won't ship until the season ends.
I believe that Apple is the only one to solve this problem. They haven't done it with iTunes TV shows yet, still too expensive. It's like buying season box sets at a slight discount. I don't need to "own" the shows, but I do want to stream them whenever I want. I think iCloud is going to make that happen. I would plunk down the dough if Apple produced a full solution. I am already using several Apple systems in my architecture of the ultimate Internet DVR. I want to go legit, but because of my skills and knowledge I found the solution, it's just not for everyone. It's highly automated and works 99% of the time. I come home and I've got new stuff to watch. It was not easy to setup and get it all working but once I did, it's like an appliance. Apple could deliver a similar mechanism and rescue the dying TV business in the process. The one area this breaks down is live sports games of which I am not a fan. But it's a very important category to millions of fans. MLB/NHL functionality on AppleTV2 is darn close. But it's still restricted to blackouts, etc. Why not deliver the ultimate viewing experience. Watch the game and switch from stupid over the air commentary to technical feeds on a side bar. Run your own instant replays and camera angles, etc. It could be so very awesome! Build in
I cancelled my cable subscription 10 years ago, and have never reconsidered. The TV I own, is really just a big monitor for displaying content from my computer and AppleTV box (the latter being quite rare too.) The cable subscription model is what is broken because at least in Canada:
1 - I would have to pay for basic content that I do not want
2 - Most premium channels are only available as a subscription bundled with other channels I don't want
3 - There are really only three or so shows per season I actually have time to watch. Why do I have to pay for the rest of the garbage?
4 - I want to pay for the content. I don't want the advertisements, or the restrictions. I would rather and do actually pay for the DVD box set or even the iTunes subscription to content.
5 - I want my money to go to those who produced and made the show, I don't care about the distribution system. I don't care about the broadcaster or the cable company. Why anyone would want any dollar to go to them beats the hell out of me.
I love watching movies by the way and have no problems paying for the experience. I also stopped going to movies, because the theatre experience sucks. I didn't pay a sizeable sum to be: ripped off for crappy food/beverages, to watch 30 minutes of advertisements, to be reminded again and again about anti-piracy.
Could corporations stop screwing their customers?
It's not the content that's the problem, it's how it's delivered and the cost for that delivery. I'm not happy to watch just anything. I want football on Sundays, tennis during the Opens, Daily Show and Colbert, and like two other TV shows. And someone thought that was worth $700/year and I can only watch the shows when someone else tells me to. Unless I use the DVR, which is another $60/year. And there are times where I can't watch the TV shows AT ALL because they aren't available anywhere but a P2P network.
Fix this.
Jersey Show is still on the air and Firefly was canceled in the middle of the first season.
-- Will program for bandwidth
When "good enough" becomes a target, you get a major reduction in innovation and improvement. This is what happened with the auto industry, and it took a financial crisis to change things. The big question is why you don't want to see improvements to the technology, rather than asking how TV can be improved.
So, higher refresh rates...for a 1920x1080 display, you really do not NEED 240Hz, but if you think about it, if 240Hz were the norm, then that would enable higher resolution displays, which SHOULD be the goal of manufacturers. When computer displays for the most part are limited to 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 due to trying to share technology with the TV industry, that is where we should ALL be asking for better and better TV technology.
Many people I know never saw a "need" for stereo TV back when that first started showing up, and many people today don't see a need for surround sound, even when it DOES enhance the experience. Going 3D, in terms of having objects that pop out of the screen at viewers is useless, but well implemented 3D is more about depth of field, and giving that sense that what you are seeing has depth. Or even the move from regular resolution to HD, many initially didn't pay attention to how much better things look on a HD display compared to the older SD displays, but now, they would never want to go back.
Content is content, and that is not where you see change. Going from mono to stereo to surround sound may not have been NECESSARY, but it did improve the experience, and isn't THAT what it should all be about? Progress...why is that so horrible? For computers, we are generally happy that computers have gotten more powerful and allow for doing more things at home today than professional level computers could hope to do back in the early to mid 1990s, yet the only people who complain are those who don't like the idea of progress, or that it makes it so buying something new is a positive experience, rather than just throwing money away to get something that is in better condition, but is no better than what they had previously.
I have a general rule about purchases, and that is that expensive purchases SHOULD give you the sense that not only are you getting a refresh of what you had before, but the new item should be BETTER than the old. From cell phones to computers, or even to cars, wouldn't you feel you wasted your money if you are buying something, and there has been NO improvement? For televisions, if you spend $1200 today, and you spent $1200 four or five years ago, wouldn't you expect the new one to be better for the same price? Larger, or better quality, or more features, or better refresh rate, you want more for your money, because you expect there to have been progress.
In general, what is broken about TV is how the networks are generally aiming for the lowest common denominator, and are afraid to upset the "delicate sensibilities" of the people in the midwest of the USA. We should see a lot more programming that is aimed at adults, even without needing "adult content" to get there. People use profanity in the real world, it is all around us, yet TV programming does not properly reflect this. You want to know why people are drawn to the premium channels, it is because the original programming THERE has not been toned down.