 |
February 16, 2007
Video killed the Television star? Hardly!
 When The Gilmore Girls take over your TV, all hope is not lost. [The WB]  Jay, a.k.a. “The Cubicle Superhero”, is a self-professed tech junkie with a passion for music and culture  Email Jay
If you've been reading Tech Mates on a regular basis you know that for the past few articles I've kept things pretty educational. Today is different. Today I have a story to tell you.
It's about a very important member of my family. My television. Don't laugh, because let's face it; most of us have a personal relationship with the tube.
Recently I discovered the Television Listings module on my personalized Rogers Yahoo! Home. These listings have helped my relationship with my TV flourish, providing me with quick scheduling info on all my favorite shows allowing me to optimize my quality TV time. Prime-time bliss. TV Stevie would be proud.
These TV listings are so easy to use that I came home after fighting traffic in the snow for two hours to find that my girlfriend had discovered a Gilmore Girls Marathon (and she was only in hour two!). Not exactly my kind of show and although my Rogers PVR was recording the shows I was missing, I needed a TV fix fast.
Retreating from Lorelai's nattering, I immediately thought of my old friend the computer. DVDs look fantastic on my LCD computer screen, so why couldn't I watch TV on it too?
Faster the better
With video graphics and computer processor speeds advancing by leaps and bounds every year, Internet speeds have pretty much been playing catch up over the last few years. The technical truth is video is still an overfed kitty trying to squeeze through a mouse hole. Moving pictures and Hi-fi audio requires a huge amount of bandwidth to deliver the same experience you see on a TV screen. There are some very clever ways of compressing that data down to optimize the process. But the honest truth is if you're running a slower connection you may need to let that Transformers trailer (OK, OK, Dreamgirls trailer) buffer a bit before you watch it.
A Series of Tubes
I see video on the Internet as falling into a few basic genres: 1) High production value music videos, movie trailers and TV clips; 2) User-generated (or community) video; and 3) Recording or broadcast for self consumption, so-called "place shifting".
In the interest of clarity, I'll cover each from a high level. Email me [Include MailTo link] if you'd like to see a more in depth follow-up piece on Tech Mates.
 I can't wait to watch the trailer for Transformers [DreamWorks SKG]
In the early days of the Internet watching and downloading film trailers was a frustrating experience, long wait times often only yielded postage stamp sized video. This has, for the most part, been improved by introducing integrated video players. Jerky start and stops still do occur on occasion, but pausing the video to allow the next bit of the clip to download generally smooths these issues out.
A great place to start for movie trailers is Rogers Yahoo! Movies and for news and entertainment clips, click the Video link under the "More" button on your home page. The CBC and PBS have been at the forefront of the web video movement, they're worth a visit as well. The BBC also recently announced that they will be slowly releasing their video and audio archives to the net.
Virals cause YouTube fever
Although we're free and clear of SARS, you can't escape the growing popularity of "viral" video on the Internet. The term refers to the quick spreading popularity of clips by email, Instant Messaging or via blog posts. Most of these videos are hosted on community based video sites like YouTube or Yahoo! Video, where users can post short video clips for others to search, read and share. You can track the number of views each video gets, so when something takes off you'll know instantly!
 The Dancing Baby was one of the original viral videos! [Burning Pixel.com]
The most exciting addition to the consumer television marketplace in recent years is the concept of place shifting. Place shifting loosely defined is the ability to call up your home cable signal on your laptop or Portable Internet connection using devices or hardware to capture the video. First out of the gate with this is the expensive, yet elegant, Sony Location Free TV. The device allows you to control and change channels on a small touch screen LCD TV you can take with you on the road. Their newest offering now includes a software component, similar to Sling Media's SlingPlayer. For about $100 it allows you to view your Slingbox stream on a laptop. Sling Media has also released player versions for portable devices like Pocket PCs. Orb Networks has an interesting piece of software that allows you to stream the media you have already have on a base computer, out to your mobile devices.
So, the next time you face the dreaded occupied TV set, fret not my friends, there are oodles of choices waiting for you on the web. Until next time, this is the Cubicle Superhero saying, "Don't sit so close, or you'll go blind!"
|
|
Printable View 
Send to a friend
