Comments on: The Boob Tube Gets a Facelift

By: Suzy

Suzy — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:24:08 +0000

For me watching TV shows on my laptop will not replace the experience of watching them on a real TV. Maybe if you live alone it doesn’t make that much of a difference but I found that anticipating that favourite show on a Monday night and sitting in front of a TV with couple of glasses of wine was a fun, bonding experience that I shared with my roommate. Even though it might sound a bit contradictory, watching TV can be very social. My roommate and I had our cable cut off three months ago and we have hardly spent any time together since then. It turned out that what often brought us together was the TV! Internet has not been able to replace that.

By: Ashley

Ashley — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:52:53 +0000

I think the key thing with TV is choice. There’s always going to be TV’s, they’re just going to get bigger and more like a movie theater as technology becomes cheaper. People are going to get their shows from the web and hook that up to their TVs. Sometime’s I’ll watch TV on my computer in full screen or I’ll check out shows in a small youtube format. Shows will be available on all sorts of mediums. The one thing that won’t change is that television’s format, episodic narrative that gives you time to connect with characters and plot will always be around and hopefully get even better and able to connect with all sorts of niches.

And you’re wrong about unauthorized methods of watching TV, shows need to be provided to every country at the same time or people WILL find a way to get TV shows and not bad quality. It looks pretty damn good and already tons of people watch Heroes, Prison Break and other shows months before they get them not to mention shows like Dr. Who and Merlin from the UK.

By: Gail J. Dahl

Gail J. Dahl — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:13:31 +0000

I just turned the cable on my television off three weeks ago. If I want to watch “The Office”, which I did last night, I take my laptop to bed with me and watch it on a rented dvd without commercials or interruptions.

It turns out that we only used the television in our house for watching rented dvd’s and playing Rockband and we only turned it on for 1/2 hour of cable comedy watching while eating dinner. By the way, my 13 year old daughter was completely with me in turning off the cable tv. She has her own personal mac laptop with wireless and high speed connections. She spends most of her time messaging her friends around the world, watching YouTube, doing her homework online and playing games on the internet.

Now the old tv cable bill is enough to pay for the new dvd rentals, I never have to be affronted with irritating commercials on what I should or need to buy, and our family does other things that allow us to become more creative and fulfilled in our lives. Turn off the fantasy and turn off your television. You will be amazed at what happens.

By: Frank the Tank

Frank the Tank — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:16:21 +0000

*Typo in sentence 3 of my comment above. It should read: “Instead of the Internet, I (and almost everyone else that I know) has had TV viewing habits transformed by the DVR more than anything else.”

By: Frank the Tank

Frank the Tank — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:13:26 +0000

I generally agree with Buzzcut. The Internet is great for grabbing shows that I have completely missed, forgot to record, or want to see short clips of. However, once you’re used to the quality of a large screen HDTV with stereo surround sound (particularly for shows with high production values, such as my personal favorite of ‘LOST’), watching a streamed version online is the equivalent of pulling out the rabbit ear antennae. Instead of the Internet, I almost everyone else that I know) more than anything else. I’ve become so used to the commercial-skipping powers of the DVR that I can no longer tolerate watching anything in real time unless they are truly live events (such as sports). The DVR allows people to watch TV shows on their own terms while also utilizing the expensive high quality home theater systems that they have in their homes. While the Internet will certainly continue to play an increasing role in how we receive content, I don’t subscribe to the doomsday scenarios of television’s demise (just as radio has survived for over 7 decades after TV was supposedly predicted to kill that medium off).

By: Jana

Jana — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:38:17 +0000

You mention Canadian content providers not wanting to lose their advertising revenue. The other side of that equation is having enough bandwidth to be able to watch either streaming TV shows or Netflix (or Zip.ca for us Canadians). Bell’s new Fiber service had a 30 gig cap upon launch (seriously?!?) and my Rogers account has a 95 gig cap (which when split among five Internet fiends isn’t that much). Until out Internet providers also begin to offer better packages, I don’t see online TV as being a likely option in Canada.

To Buzzcut, just do what we do. Connect one of the spare laptops to the TV and use it as a media box. Although we’re normally too busy multitasking to be fussing over quality

By: Buzzcut

Buzzcut — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:12:49 +0000

I don’t get why anyone would want to watch television shows on a small laptop screen, or even worse, on a mobile device.

Maybe I’m just a closet videophile, but after watching stuff on my HDTV, I don’t even like to watch the analog cable channels I have, or even worse, my Series II TiVo (which compresses the hell out of the feed).

Maybe one day there will be a high def “Apple TV” device to watch these videos on your HDTV in 1080p. But right now… that’s not what people are doing.