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back to article Aussies learn to love downloading

ABC’s iView has emerged as the leading site for legal on demand video downloads, followed by iTunes, Foxtel and on demand BigPond TV, according to new research from Ericsson. The Ericsson ConsumerLab Report TV & Video 2011 – Consumer trends Australia, reveals that Australians are shifting their viewing habits rapidly towards …

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  1. hitmouse

    Where are the vendors?

    Australians have an iTunes that is poorly populated with overseas content, no access to any digital downloads from Amazon and other IP-restricted stores, and the country is shuffled off into region 4 for DVDs. While most DVD players in Australia tend to be region-free, DVD-ROMs in computers and laptops are increasingly immune to region-breaking software.

    The news content from Europe and North America is filled with spoilers and advertising for shows which have yet to air or will never air in Australia.

    Australian content vendors are also lousy at publishing content in overseas markets where 5% of the population lives and works (that's over 1 million Aussies living/working overseas). The only way to legitimately get a lot of Australian music, TV and movie content is to pay an arm and and a leg for physical media to be shipped overseas.

    With music stores closing down left, right and centre the range of available music is actually diminishing, and certainly if you want uncompressed music the options are extremely limited.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Sorry, this video is not available in your country"

    I've gotten really fucking sick of seeing this message and its variations on every second video site out there - with no indication from the thumbnail or promo link that this is the case, thus wasting my time clicking on things only to see this stupid message.

    Until these fools realise that by-country releases belong back there with VHS tapes and CDs, and stop this geolocation bullshit, I will continue to get my TV shows from Demonoid and Pirate Bay.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The number one reason i download illegally is to watch them as they are released. Waitiing 6 months and sometimes up to a year to get tv shows broadcast in Australia is ridiculous these days. The last 2 mini seasons of sci-fi show Torchwood were released in Australia about a day after they were broadcast in the UK and you know what, i didn't feel the need to download them.

    People don't want to wait and frankly there is no reason, aside from out dated broadcast rights.

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  4. P. Lee
    Mushroom

    Oz has a harsh environment

    Shows are frequently cancelled part-way through a season.

    Running shows late is pretty much standard practise (a misguided attempt to prevent non-live watching and to spoil competing channel's scheduling)

    Not just DVDs but software, books etc all frequently get 50-100% markup over retail in other areas. The region-encoding thing is still alive and well and profitable.

    However, catch-up tv websites are now pretty good which means picking up the odd missed episode (on FTA) doesn't require piracy, but I'm not sure how the fanbois cope as I think it's flash-based.

    Mind you, I took my myth system down for a major upgrade the other day and I was surprised how horrible live tv is!

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    1. hitmouse
      Reply Icon

      Re: Oz has a harsh environment

      I concur. It is often cheaper to personally import the hardback release of a book from Europe or North America than to pay the local paperback price. Historical partitioning of the Australian market by overseas publishers has horrible side effects.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Let's add to that, the TV broadcasters here keep playing the same repeats over and over again, and any new airings of shows/episodes aren't that reliable on time or even on the same day as the week before.

    And don't forget the number of series which don't make it through to completion, as the local networks end them due to ratings. If you air something, how about making at least a full season commitment to it!

    Media of all kinds in Australia is just shit! It's no wonder we are among the highest downloaders in the world.

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  6. BlackKnight(markb)
    Pirate

    abc iview - only view abc shows there are a couple i would watch but not many.

    can get netflix due to region

    itunes charges more for australians to purchase then americans which is interesting since our dollar has been on par of stronger for a while now.

    foxtel you have to subscribe to and have a box downloads are a mute point with them anyway as you get IQ.

    Bigpond tv you need to have telstra as an ISP first and when you do you get a media box from them, no difference from foxtel there.

    When the media organisations want to provide a service to us I will want to pay for it. until then shove it.

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  7. andro

    Why do people always think that browser view = on a laptop or at a computer desk? I myself have a latop plugged permanently in to my tv, and wireless keyboard and mouse with the rest of my remote controlls, so do my parents so do many of my friends. Most the people I know who use iview do watch it in the lounge, on the TV and through a decent stereo. While you can have, you still dont need set top boxes, or anything more complicated than a desktop pc and wireless controls. The sooner more people realise this, the better! I'd have signed up for fetchtv by now if I could view it in a web browser alongside iview. The required set top box is a deal breaker, though. Iveiw has it right!

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  9. Roger Jenkins

    I'd love iView

    I'd love to have iView, but we have restrictive download caps and restrictive speeds. It's all very well for the city slickers with good cheap ADSL in it's various forms (even they have download caps). We who live outside of the cities rely on satellite which has horrid download restrictions that make the likes of iView impossible. Roll on NBN, get those birds in the sky and give us what we need.

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  10. bep

    Free to air TV

    in Australia is appaling. It's astounding that the commercial channels provide the 'service' they do and still have the gall to complain about file-sharing.

    Programs start late, the ratio of ads to programs is laughable, the time slots get switched around without notice and repeats are regularly shoved into the schedule, it's just unbelievably bad. The service is bad, so people go elsewhere. I'm one of those who has his computer connected to his TV so I watch iView in the lounge room on the big screen. SBS also has a time-shifting service that is OK. It's compressed but still watchable, high definition is nice but high definition crap is still crap.

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