Throng

I love the concept of on demand television: watch what you want, when you want it.  Almost the only TV I watch “live” is sport.  Everything else gets recorded (I have a PVR, not MySkyHDi) and watched later.  Sometimes hours, sometimes days, or sometimes weeks later.  So a website that I can go to where I can catch up on shows I missed or forgot about is something that holds great appeal for me.

Americans have Hulu, a site that almost all the US networks (not ABC which shows Lost and Desperate Housewives) put their shows on.  People can then go to the site and select recent episodes of the show they want and it will play immediately, at high resolution, and with only a couple of ads.  Unfortunately, people outside of the US cannot view the video content.  This is for two main reasons, it would obviously annoy the networks other countries, and most importantly, the US networks want to be able to charge obscene sums of money to sell the shows to the overseas networks.  As if often the way with the internet though, there are ways to get around the website’s area check, and once you’re in, the range and quality of the video content is outstanding.

In New Zealand we have TVNZ ondemand and TV on Demand for TV3.  My first experience with the website was a couple of weeks ago when I watched the first episode of Diplomatic Immunity after I missed it the night it aired.  My first impression was: wow, small picture.  You can blow it up to full screen but you lose quite a bit of image quality when you do it.  I was impressed with the streaming though, and I don’t think there was any stopping to rebuffer.  The TV3 site defaults to a larger size image on the screen, so obviously a lower quality picture.

In what could be a big step forward if implemented correctly, TiVo is coming to New Zealand.  TVNZ is trying to combine a PVR set-top box for recording, with access to its ondemand content by attaching the box to your broadband modem.  But it won’t be the same as Freeview.  While it will (in theory at this point) have access to the ondemand content, which is a huge plus over Freeview, they will have to ask TV3 very nicely if they can include access to their channels (both TV3 and C4) in the TiVo box.  And TV3, or more specifically their owners, Mediaworks, will be wanting something pretty significant in return to sweeten the deal.
I really hope they can strike some sort of arrangement though, because the result would be a fantastic product that I’d be first in line to try.  And if they could also get Prime in there too I’d really appreciate it...  Are you listening, Sky?  I know you don’t want to put it on Freeview, so give this a go instead.

On demand television is certainly the way of the future, I know I’ll never return to watching my favourite shows at the whim of some programmer who doesn’t think a certain show rated quite well enough in the four weeks it was on to deserve the 8:30PM primetime spot, or thinks Monday at 12:20AM is a great place to put “The Wire,” because that’s where it will find an audience.  The best person to program what I watch and when I watch it is me, and that’s what on demand television gives you the power to be: your own TV programmer.