Archive for television
December 26, 2006 at · Filed under television
yesterday instead of reading i spent most of the day watching the entire first season of heroes… i have tom to blame for this latest addiction.
the series seems to be a cross of x-men and lost, which makes for a really engaging and fast moving (unlike lost) experience. also unlike lost i believe the writers of heroes know where they are going with the story, and are not worried about where to take the series once the climax of the current theme is reached.
the cast also looks a bit like it was put together in the mold of the lost characters.
two main foreigners: in lost it is a korean and an iraqi, in heroes it is a japanese and an indian.
good looking lead female: in lost it is kate, in heroes it is nikki/jessica
black guy + kid: in lost it is michael and his son, in heroes it is DL and Micah
and there are more similarities. it seems like lost really created a new genre.
July 8, 2006 at · Filed under internet, movies, television
veoh a video sharing site (ala YouTube) was sued by Io Group a company that produces adult video.
the lawsuit claims that veoh has allowed users to upload Io produced videos to its site, generating significant traffic and revenues out of content that was illegally uploaded to the site.
this could end up being a very important case for the video sharing industry, as it may set a precedent to the liability these sites have for the content that is being uploaded by the users. today most of the copyrighted content that is being uploaded are short clips from TV shows, movie trailers, sport highlights, etc. in these cases i believe the uploads while violate the copyright are actually serving as a great promotional tool.
in case of adult content the story is quite different. these companies have been hit hard by the file sharing phenomenon (much harder than the big movie studios), and are now losing audience to these video sharing sites. the average porn user does not need a full 1hr film to get-off, but can use a much shorter film easily uploaded to the likes of veoh or youtube.
so i guess the lawsuit has merit. the movie/tv studios are likely to follow very closely as this has implications on them too, sooner rather than later it will be easy to upload and consume full length tv shows and movies in this way, and this is a serious threat to the studios.
the major studios are likely to end up coming with deals with the leading video sharing sites, splitting ad revenues. the porn industry will have a harder time, since they work in a different model.
will be interesting to follow this lawsuit and see where it ends.
July 7, 2006 at · Filed under internet, movies, television
replayTV has announced a version of their DVR for Windows. users can download the software (30 days free trial) and use it on their PCs to watch and record TV shows. buying the software will cost $100 for a year and will include the EPG (electronic programming guide).
what i don't understand is why do they even bother. Microsoft Media Center PC is offering the same functionality for free, and if you want an even better experience you can download one of the open-source versions. i think MediaPortal is the best choice.
replay has lost its battle with TiVO, which lost its battle with the cable/sattelite companies (ala EchoStar and DirectTV). these companies need to re-invent themselves, but offering a PC DVR is probably too little, too late for these guys.
a better direction (which i believe TiVO is pursuing) is the internet, rather than try to bring the TV content to the PC, how about making it simpler to consume internet video on the TV? and i don't mean just bringing YouTube stuff, there are video blogs and there is also a lot of professionaly produced video content that just does not make it to the cable channels and/or video-on-demand catalog.
