My revelation about watching TV
I was driving home from lunch today and was thinking about this surprising behavior shift I had over the last few weeks. Anyone that knows me will tell you I watch a fair amount of TV and in our house we have ReplayTV’s (I bought one on eBay with the commercial skip function), 2 Comcast DVR’s, and a Hummax Tivo DVR with DVD burner for those times people want me to record something and bring it to them. All this speaks to a desire to watch things on my schedule and to avoid the less interesting parts.
So, what’s the shift? There is now a show that I watch exclusively on YouTube. I was watching it on Cartoon Network but they air new episodes on Sat night so I had to wait a week between 30 min episodes. A friend called out the fact that the Japanese episodes are available on YouTube with English subtitles and I’ve flown from episode 30 currently on cable to episode 105 (of 199 or so) at my own pace. If you’re curious, check out Naruto on YouTube. The link takes you to my favorite contributer.
As I was driving home I heard an NPR story about how broadband is getting cluttered with all the new services and channels and how they’re trying not to add any unnecessary channels / shows. The solution to all this, Video On Demand (VOD) and how this helps is actually pretty simple. Instead of adding a new channel they just add a new show to the VOD servers and as users opt to see these shows they are streamed in real-time. This means you have one VOD channel and a huge number of shows available. The benefit to the cable provider is it gives them a way to test ideas without committing bandwidth and it also allows them to serve under represented communities.
Before my YouTube “Ah ha!” moment I wasn’t a huge fan of YouTube or VOD. I understand both and they seemed to work ok but weren’t perfect. If a friend sent me a link to a wacky video then I’d click on it and laugh and then navigate away. The quality and frequency of good videos made it hit or miss. If Alice and I wanted to watch a movie on a Friday night then we’d check out On Demand and frequently find the available options underwhelming (the HD options are worse still). Worse still is that the Comcast cable box is pretty weak when compared to my first ReplayTV back in ‘98. I can’t beleive how often the thing lags to the remote control commands or how often I need to rest the box to get rid of show fragments. But all that aside, now that I’ve started to see some practical applications it makes me want more.
My litmus test for technology adoption is to ask myself how hard something would be to explain to my grandfather. He’s 93 and in better shape than I am on most days but he’s less comfortable with technology (the first plane he saw was a biplane) so when it hits the “he could do this on his own” mark then I know it’ll have complete market adoption. The TV and VCR are there but I don’t think VOD is just yet.
Anyway- I’m off to watch episode 106 and see how Naruto gets out of his most recent jam on his way to becoming Hokage. 