It's time to burn the schedules and seize control of OUR TVs

Safety in Numbers

I believe that the majority watch TV the old-fashioned way because they don't feel "alone" when watching live TV. It's as if there are thousands of others whose consciousnesses are all pointing the same way as theirs. It's kind of comforting! Video on demand doesn't quite have the same feel. However, I am in the minority and prefer watching exactly what I want, when I want and without adverts. But that's just me - born to be outside of the masses, like a dog rounding up sheep...

won't record them automatically as that would risk infringing on TiVo's patent??

Really!? Seriously!?

So TiVo "invented" that idea did they? FFS.

I used to like TiVo, but this is beyond ridiculous. Fucking patents.

..."users who don't want to venture too far from their comfort zone, namely the electronic programme guide (EPG)."

I'm not so sure it's the users who are clinging to the EPG model, in my experience every user who's spent more than about 30 seconds in front of a TiVo (and this includes my 80-something Mother) is perfectly happy without Ye Olde EPG, the content providers however are another matter...

A prime position in the EPG is a valuable marketing tool (and sometimes a revenue stream) for Sky et-al and I don't see them relinquishing control of the interface without a struggle.

Eeeh, when I were a lad...

... us only ad 2 channels, all in glorious monochrome. But the programmes were better. Even the test card was more enjoyable than some of the garbage that gets pumped out these days.

It's no good offering me access to download stuff across the net if there is nothing that I think is worth watching; or if my connectivity is so piss poor that it would take a week to download a 1 hour package.

Damn; I'm a misearable old git.

Am I alone?

Sit down. Scan EPG. Anything on in the next few minutes, or in a couple of hours, that might interest me? No? Anything recorded I'm interested in? No? Get up and do something different then...

Life need not revolve around the TV. I don't 'consume' TV, and the very concept of looking for something online/ondemand simply wouldn't occur to me. If there's something there, I watch it; if there's a film that might interest me I'll probably record it simply to skip past the adverts, if the channel is that way inclined. But I won't seek something out on the offchance. There are still too many books I haven't read, tomatoes I haven't pruned, paragliders I haven't crashed, friends I haven't chatted with, model planes I haven't built (and/or crashed), games I haven't played with granddaughter...

Linking episodes from a series?

It's a total epic failure. The system is completely incapable of handling the situation where a series flips between one channel and another (e.g. Michael Portillo's Great British Railway Journeys) or when a single programme such as the Wimbledon Tennis Championships transfers from one channel to another.

WHY OH WHY?

I find LG TV are a fine product indeed. Well the sound kinda suck but other than that its ok.

Other than the above I want to know why they removed PIP(picture in a picture)

I grew up on that and now LG does not support it?!?! WTH!

Set top boxes

Why do people keep calling these things "set top boxes"? How many people put them on top of the set? How many sets actually have tops that are both flat enough and deep enough to put equipment on? If it's a digital tuner or a DVD recorder or a hard disc recorder than just say what it is. It doesn't matter where it's located.

perhaps when my line speed is >=1mb

Perhaps then I will be able to use VoD, but until then...

Nope.

TV in my youth was a nightmare - waiting what seemed like forever for pretty much the only watchable TV programme on a Saturday, which wasn't even that great (The Pink Panther cartoon) which was surrounded by news and sports programs (hours upon hours of teletyped results). I don't even like sports.

I haven't had a TV or TV licence for years, since I bought a projector, which I replaced with a full 1080P 3D one nearly a year ago. I appreciate I'm in the minority (most people probably like to have the curtains open during the day).

I don't have to suffer adverts any more - if I'm at someone else's house, the blatant lies oozed at the viewers just serve to annoy, and the 10 minutes of film followed by 10 minutes of ads is just a joke. I even find the news distasteful (see Charlie Brooker's excellent Newswipe to see how all the news channels and newspapers do exactly what the psychologists and experts say not to do, if they want to avoid sensationalising the news and nurturing copycats).

I download movies and music and if I like them, I buy them on blu ray / CD - although sometimes I have to wait to do that, because of artificial delays to maximise the publisher's profit. I'd be happy to pay for TV shows on blu, but not £37 for 12 episodes - even of the excellent Dexter. On blu - perhaps £1 per episode while it's current, 50p if it's already been on TV but it's just come out on blu, or less when it's older than that. Most of the TV shows I watch are US (Dexter / Castle / Chuck / House / Greys and lots of others) and if I discover a new show (recommended by a friend or a random download of a s01e01) then I get to watch them in bulk, which is great when the show's really good and has been running for a number of seasons. Waiting for it to make it over the pond and watching the ads is not the way it should happen. Unfortunately, rights holders are (naturally?) tight with their IP, so would rather lose sales to downloaders than make it available everywhere at once.

It's a shame that the downloaders get a better experience than the legitimate purchasers (no ads, no piracy warnings, works on any kit, watch it when you like, watch it again years later, transfer to any device).

I don't believe that downloaded content in its current form has much value in itself - probably because there are ways to get it for free (sorry). If there is value added to the downloaded content (for example a 24bit studio master that is better than the CD) then I'm happy to pay for a download, but not for a poor quality MP3, which (unfortunately) a lot of people are happy with (I expect due to the poor quality hardware they're playing it on).

I have over 90 blu-rays, loads of DVDs and even laserdiscs, as well as 300 CDs (most of the music bought in the last century - not due to piracy but due to only about one CD a year that's worth buying) so at least I've made some sort of contribution.

Like I said in a forum years ago, charge me one monthly price (I think I said £30 at the time, maybe £50 now) for me to consume what I like ("stream" any music, any film, any newspaper, any magazine, any book, any game, any image, from any era), when I like, and split the money to pass to the relevant parties according to how much I used each item - and I'll buy into that scheme. Sadly, because so many companies own the rights to all this stuff, that'll never happen. Apart from that, it seems that you'd be lucky to get even all that Sky offers for £50 a month, never mind the other stuff.

I paid for a month of LoveFilm and for a month of Netflix, but because the alternative (downloading) offers so much more choice, it all seemed a bit limited. Even the shows they did have didn't have all the seasons. Logging on to either service in the US offered much more choice, which I'm afraid is a situation I won't pay to prolong.

I appreciate that if everyone did what I did, they wouldn't produce the content any more, as there wouldn't be any profit in it, unless you care to multiply all the stuff I've actually bought by all the people that buy even less than I do...

"You wouldn't steal a car" - no, but I'd drive it through a device that makes a perfect copy of it, that has no detrimental effect on the original.

Oh, yes?

"...Today's tellies will show us anything - yet viewers are stuck in the 1980s..."

Mine won't. I gave up having a TV a few years ago. It actually gives you time to do things instead....

Ok I know what was wrong with "Bob". What does that have to do with Metro?

This

sounds truely excellent technology, to give the viewer exactly what he wants when he wants it (or she of course)

Now all this viewer wants is some decent TV to actually watch, how about a nice science program or 3 where it is'nt dumbed down to the level of a 4 year old... some of us can cope with complex mind bending maths (but not too much)

MythTV FTW

Been using MythTV for a few years now

I find it hard to imagine having to work my schedule around TV viewing habits anymore

Media centre software is the way to go

I used to believe that dedicated set-top boxes (or built-in recording facilities on recent TVs) were the way to go, but when you look at it, they're quite limited:

* Firmware is often buggy and eventually abandoned not long after a newer model comes out.

* If you don't like the firmware (e.g. the UI is annoying or missing important features), then you're stuffed - there's no way to change it usually.

* If you're on the Freeview HD platform, then good luck trying to export HD recordings unencrypted. Ludicrously, the Freeview HD specs don't allow you to do that (even though Freeview HD channels are actually broadcast unencrypted), yet they do allow SD recordings to be exported unencrypted. 100% inconsistent, IMHO.

* A fair chunk of recorders don't bother allowing you to record multiple channels (e.g. 3 or 4) from the same multiplex/transponder simultaneously - it doesn't help that none of them seem to come with SSDs either to alleviate access times when recording multiple programmes.

* Very few recorders come with a Web interface to mirror what they do on the TV's UI (i.e. a full Web EPG, recordings list etc) - the ability to set recordings, stream them to another machine etc. without turning the TV on is a very useful feature.

Once I realised the above issues, it was a no-brainer for the Olympics to set up media centre software with sat+terrestrial TV tuner cards, SSDs, large hard drives and I got an extremely flexible setup that could do far more than any set-top box currently does (yes, including a full desktop with browser etc. using a wireless keytboard and mouse). For the record, it was Ubuntu+XBMC+tvheadend that did the trick for me - no-cost for the software too! I think tvheadend's backend Web interface is nothing short of super impressive - I doubt any other media centre Web interface comes close (most media centre software seems to think Web access is a minor feature: I think it's massively important myself).