My square eyes are now widescreen

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1656749]

A quick definition for the non-technology-minded:
If you're watching it on iPlayer or via any website, or via Video On Demand, then you're streaming. If you download a file to your computer to watch whenever you feel like it then you're downloading.
Oh, and VHS tapes, for the purposes of this poll, count as shiny disks. You are also banished back to the Second Millenium.

Comments

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Like brick and mortar stores television channels will be around as long as baby boomers are around.

Their numbers are huge and they are uncomfortable with change so as long as they have the ability to spend money traditional outlets for advertising (such as television channels) and shopping (such as malls) will continue to flourish.

That said, expect a huge shift in television advertising from beer ads to cool adult diapers and laxatives.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Agreed, with the proviso that these things will last slightly longer if media companies etc do a few complete balls-ups when it comes to customer service. I'm actually switching from eMusic to buying physical CDs from a local independent record shop, because eMusic treat their customers like shit (and they're the least-worst of the online music retailers, god help us...)

[andlosers.livejournal.com]

Also, the context of a TV channel is likely to change. Think user curation.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Phone calls are still around, but the technology underneath them has been gutted and replaced by moving bits over the internet.

Likewise, TV channels will remain as an optional legacy view, a compatibility layer over the sea of on-demand and streaming video.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Odd that so far three out of three of your readers are TV-less...even where I work (a tech company) I'm the only one who doesn't bother watching *any* broadcast TV.

[andrewducker]

Possibly just the ones that are fastest to the poll are the techiest :->

I have a TV. The vast majority of the stuff I watch on it is either recorded (V+ box) or downloaded (and then played on a hacked Apple TV running XBMC). I can't remember the last time I watched something in real-time. I expect that as more people fill in the poll the "recorded from broadcast" option will take the lead. I could be surprised though.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I have a TV, but it only broadcasts shows in French and I'm an English speaker so I download or buy DVDs.

It's sorta grating because the cable company does have options to switch the audio on most of the shows that are not French produced to Spanish, Dutch, German, Portuguese and Italian i.e. all of the original Euro Zone languages except English.

I think they are trying to punish UK vistors/expats for sticking with the pound instead of the Euro.

[innerbrat]

I do not miss my TV in the slightest. Even when I did, mind, I used it to watch On Demand rather than broadcast. (and some recorded)

But I want to be honest - the UK doesn't have a service comparable to Hulu. And until it does, as long as you have to go to individual services (iPlayer, 4OD &c), I suspect Brits will hold on to their TVs for longer.

(Which is a good thing, until the BBC works out a new way of funding)

[fearmeforiampink]

I have a TV. Its sitting in my cupboard, and has been for a fair while.

I noticed that the vast majority of what I was watching was either on Channel 4, or on the BBC, and I could just watch those online. So, I put my TV in my cupboard, and switched to streaming.

[pete stevens (from livejournal.com)]

I've not had access to a TV since I moved out of my parents house in 1996 as a student, and it's never occurred to me to buy one since.

[kmusser]

I have a TV, I use it to watch streaming video via Netflix :-)

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

I can't help but feel that people don't always like having all the choice. Personally I can have a lot of trouble deciding what to watch when there's only 20 channels to choose from. Should I ask "what's on tv?" and someone replies "everything", I can imagine I would become somewhat frozen by the magnitude of the task of merely choosing what I would like to see.

Though allowing us to watch everything all the time would not be constricted enough to make people do things like buy the media we could perma-stream. So I imagine that you'll never be able to watch "anything". I guess you might end up having channels which are "what's on" in the same way as we have now, but with no denotion of when it's on. Although with new media, when it's on becomes "when it's released", as I can still see a lot of people wanting to gather around the box (which becomes increasingly misnomered given my current screen has a width to depth ratio of 40:1 and that will get even more ridiculous with OLED and, eventually, QLED) to watch the latest new thing as soon as it comes out.

[andrewducker]

Oh, absolutely. You'll always have event TV, and people will flock to that as it appears. It would make sense to use broadcast-ish standards to get stuff like that out to a large chunk of the audience cheaply.

But, even with "everything" to watch, people are self-limiting. Me and Julie are 1/3 of the way through season three of Chuck, and in the middle of season four of How I Met Your Mother, and we're happily following those. Once we've finished them we'll find something else to watch instead.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

It is possible that video content will diversify into stuff which really takes its meaning from being broadcast fresh to a mass audience - 24 hour news, Doctor Who Christmas special, World Cup Final - and that which is more like a novel which lots of people read in the same year.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I'm very even now between streaming and shiny disks, thanks to V+. Downloading is well behind because I tend not to download if the thing is readily available on shiny disks (nothing I want is ever available to download legally for money at a price I'm happy to pay -- I do sort of hope this changes soon, but I do not understand why they think I'll pay the same price as the Blu-Ray for something that is lower quality and *cannot be watched on my TV*), and I have quite forgotten that it's possible to record video.

I still watch less than one show a day on average though.

[andrewducker]

I agree about legal downloads. Stupidly overpriced. V+ (and the Virgin VoD) are a good start, although I'm seriously looking forward to the Tivo going on general release, because the interface is so much better.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

The timing of your poll changes my answer. Two months ago I'd have answered "shiny discs" as my major source of media... in the mean time I got Netflix for my Xbox, which has skewed my viewing patterns hugely. Who knows... in a couple of months I could be back to shiny discs after the new-service honeymoon is over, though I doubt it.

-- Steve thinks that the concept of channels will outlive its original meaning for at least another generation, perhaps two. Perhaps it'll finish dying after the last of those who remember when MTV actually broadcast music do.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Postscript: my "downloaded" isn't "torrented" these days; they're purchases or rentals from the Zune Marketplace. Dunno if that matters to anyone but me, but there it is.

-- Steve's a bit prudish on these sorts of things.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I think the concept of channels will disappear when someone has a better idea. Channels are already reorganising themselves by theme rather than just by broadcaster - so if you talk about something being on Dave or Sky Sports or CBeebies you're specifying genre quite narrowly already.

Radio has done this rather more for rather longer - I might listen all day to Radio 3 and never to Radio 1 because that's a reliable way to get a consistent type of content.

[andrewducker]

A better idea is "shows". I don't care what production studio produces Chuck, or which channel it was originally broadcast on. I just want to watch the show.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I watch a lot of broadcast TV as-broadcast; I like to knit in front of the TV in the evenings and some times prefer to watching new-things and sometimes I prefer to watch things-I-loved-and-bought-the-DVDs-of but I rarely have effort to download or buy-on-DVD shows that I do not already know and like (mostly I like to watch shows on TV to find out if they are good before paying for them).

I also watch a lot of broadcast news at the gym.

We watch a lot of films on DVD via lovefilm. Which is great. Would be better to have it streaming, but that might be tech faff...

As to channels disappearing I'm not sure. I think they'll change a whole lot; I don't think the whole notion of broadcast TV to watch at the moment it is broadcast will go away entirely, people like to discuss what they saw last night with others who also saw it, TV people like to have audience participation (phone-in shows, audience votes etc) that require the audience to all be watching at (roughly) the same time, news happens when it happens, weather reports are for now...

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

The main recent shift in my video-behaviour is from recording stuff to streaming it, mostly iPlayer.

Most of what I want to watch is available that way, and there's no video content I care enough about to go to the effort of recording it. (Partly because my recording system is (a) fiddly and (b) rubbish.) And making an effort to fit my life round the TV schedule seems almost outrageously silly and backwards now.

I keep wondering about getting a nice shiny PVR setup, but my broadcast TV is exclusively via Sky-Freesat-ripoff service, which doesn't play nicely with any PVR but Sky+, and I'm not planning to get in to a monthly-regular relationship with Mr Murdoch any time soon. My house is in a dell, and has poor analogue TV signal and totally rubbish digital. I might at some point switch over to actual-Freesat with a PVR thingummy at some point, but the motivation isn't quite strong enough. OTOH, the bandwidth you get on digital broadcasts is pretty staggering and not to be sniffed at, especially since I'm on a capped Internet connection.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

DVDs ripped to harddisk. I don't have a TV or watch live TV on the web.

[andrewducker]

I'll count that as shiny disks :->

[dpolicar]

The idea of channels will be around forever, though they will eventually stop being instantiated as separate broadcast frequencies of television transmissions. Even that will take a very long time to complete, though not too long before it's true of 95% of the people you know.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Channels will become less important, but long-established channels will continue to exist as brands defined by the aggregation of certain types of content.

That said, some channels have effectively assumed the mantle of others; BBC4 is what we used to call BBC2, etc.

[andrewducker]

I certainly agree that the brands will continue to exist - particularly the ones that are actually production studios/commissioners of content.

[erindubitably.livejournal.com]

My real answer to #1 is "Shortly after Rupert Murdoch dies".

[grapefruitzzz.livejournal.com]

Channels are needed to discover new or mildy interesting background things, same as with radio. It gets sort of stale and canned to use recorded tv all the time, and the choice gets... too rich.

Mind you, I'm part of the problem, because I record every single thing I want to watch and then watch half an hour later to cut out adverts.

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

I believe channels are here to stay for the same reason weekly sport is here to stay. Why weekly sport is here to stay I don't know, but channels provide it live for a price now and they're going to keep that market by hook or by crook. Seeing other stuff when first shown doesn't matter quite so much, but it's very important with sport.

We've also the example of radio, which despite being free has done fine over the years despite an increasing range of alternative entertainment. I don't see why broadcast TV can't survive too.

[andrewducker]

Radio exists because people listen to it in their cars. For everything else there's podcasts :->