TV - Nothing but entertainment

Everything shown on TV is done for its entertainment value. If it's not entertaining you, then you most likely won't watch. Even documentaries are broadcasted firstly because they might entertain you. It might be the filmers idea to teach you something, but the broadcasting company airs it because its entertainment value might attract viewers.

Because everything is done for entertainment, it should come as no surprise that what is shown is spiced up to increase its entertainment value. That's why Formula 1 races need a mixture of fast and slow cars. Drivers overtaking each other is more entertaining. And that's why you need car crashes every now and then. And it might be the same reason that professional cyclists are forced to take drugs to increase their performance. Its more entertaining to watch someone go up a mountain very fast than it is when a group of cyclist are taking it easy.

Since the entertainment factor required of TV shows is such a big issue it is very strange to me that people fall over confessions like these, where the BBC has a short list of things they've edited for entertainment purposes.

Please take the blue pill and relax. Let the TV entertain you and be informed via other means.

Zaaf

36 channels and nothing to watch

(Or why there is nothing on TV anymore.)

For quite a few years now, the amount of television programs we watch at home as dwindled to the point that we now only watch the evening news. And even that gets skipped now and then. It is the same with almost everyone I talk to about it. My colleagues don't watch television and neither do most of my friends.

So if you don't watch TV, then why buy a new set you ask? Good question. Our kids use it to watch movies and play GameCube, we use it to play Wii.

Currently we have 36 different channels on our cable to choose from and that is where the main problem lies. In our small country, with less than 17 million inhabitants there are about 10 different channels vying for the advertising euros. The way they do this is by targeting that audience that is most likely to spend their money on advertised goods. And the way to do this is of course by having programs that appeal to this audience. So if one channel has a hit on its hand, the others copy it and try to innovate on it to the point that all channels run the same program on the same day on the same time. And if you happen not to like that program, there is no other channel to go to, because they are broadcasting the same thing. It's all Dancing With The Stars and Ice Dancing With The Stars and I Want To Be A Celebrity Pop Star. And it's all with people famous for being famous.

So because we have more to choose from, we have less to choose. This might be the reason that YouTube is so popular. It is not that it is worth watching, but it is something completely different from what is offered on TV that makes it worth it.

Zaaf

To HD or not, is that a question?

Since a few weeks I'm the proud owner of a 720p HD television. And I have to say, the images look marvelous compared to my old CRT. Especially when watching HD content. The big question however would be whether or not it enhances the viewing experience. Does it get you into the story of the movie quicker? Are all those extra details adding to the movie, are they just distracting or won't you notice them after a while when you're entranced with the story.
For me it's the latter. And as a test, I put an old movie into my VCR to watch it. The first thing I noticed is that I really hated the picture quality. It looked so incredibly bad when compared to a good DVD that it almost made me cringe. But after watching it for a few minutes, the story took over and I was forgetting that I was watching an old VHS cassette tape. I really enjoyed the movie.

So if watching a less than Standard Definition movie is enjoyable in spite of the picture quality, a High Definition movie should be equally enjoyable even though the picture quality is much higher.

To HD or not, for me there is no question.

Zaaf

Lost Game (not over)

I'm the proud owner of the iPod game LOST, which I bought because my wife and I are watching the series. We've currently finished watching season 1 and The Hatch has just been blown of. The game starts on the beach and pretty much follows the plot of the series, meaning that the tasks you get set to perform in the game are those that Jack has to do in the television series. This also means that you can get ahead of the game story by advancing in the game.
Up till now, the game has been pretty straightforward because I've seen the episodes. Now, however, I'm getting to the point where the game play is getting ahead of the TV play and it's decision time. Do I play the game ahead of the TV or not? I guess it all boils down to what holds more entertainment value:

1. Play the game to get ahead on the TV or,
2. Watch the TV and play the game until you've advanced to the TV story.

To me, watching LOST on the TV holds more value than playing the game on my iPod. This is mainly because I don't like the excellent storytelling of the TV series be spoiled by knowing things in advance. So, for now I'm going for option 2.

Zaaf

New TV

Last Friday morning, I bought ourselves a new TV. It's a Panasonic LCD-TV of 66 cm viewing diagonal (26"). It's only HD-ready and it did cost more than the € 700,- I specified in my requirements

However, it does have enough inputs to capture the whole range of input devices we have on our media side. And I just noticed that we tend to buy what looks best at the time. We're not partial to any specific vendor. Here's a list of things we have:

• Sony VCR, 12 years old
  
• JVC DVD player which also doubles as a CD player, 4 years old
  
• Yamaha Receiver, 6 years old
  
• Panasonic TV, 3 days old
  
• Apple iPod, 8 months old
  
• Pioneer Cassette player, 16 years old
  

This is quite a mixed landscape and it makes for a wide variety of remote controls, or zappers as we like to call them.

Zaaf

Contrasting food for thought

Yesterday I spent an informative 15 minutes in the TV-store looking for a new set. I had all my requirements with me (see here). I noticed that all LCD-TV's had two extra properties that sounded interesting: brightness and contrast-ratio.
The brightness varied from 400 Cd/m² to 650 Cd/m². The contrast ratio varied from 500:1 to 6000:1. The lady from the store informed me that the contrast ratio is the amount of colour differences you're able to see. And the higher the better. It turned out that the philips screen I'd been eying has a contrast ratio of 1200:1 whereas a similar looking (design-wise) Samsung set has a 4000:1 with the newer model having a 5000:1 ratio. These are big differences which has its impact on the price. The Philips costs €449,- where the Samsungs cost € 649,- and € 749,- respectively.

Food for thougth,
Zaaf

iPod Lost

I just noticed on the iTunes Store that there is a Lost game available for my iPod. I've made a mental note to self: Self by that game.

It's odd that I can buy the game, but can't buy the series from iTunes. The series is available with subtitles in my language, because they were broadcasted here. And even if they weren't available, I'm perfectly capable of understanding the series in English. I know, because I've seen the first 23 episodes of season one in English without the subtitles.

Zaaf

Requirements for a new TV

Our 10 year old Standard Definition 4:3 CRT Magnavox television set is aging fast now. And with age come those small nuisances that make life a bit harder. In the case of our tv-set, it's things like the tv-text not working at the moment you need the traffic jams report, sound quiting suddenly, or the picture freezing with the sound continuing, or the picture getting distorted. We even had the tv snowing. The cure to this is a quick re-boot. Just push the on / off button twice and everything is OK. The only problem with this is that the cap of the on / off button has fallen into the TV-set and now you need a screwdriver to push the actual button in order to it off and on again. And no, I cannot open the TV set, because the screws have some strange outlandish format (USA most likely) and they are un-turnable.

So we set out to find a new TV. And before we get it, we need a set of requirements that it has to fulfill:

1. Scart input for the VCR
2. Scart input for the DVD player
3. rgb / scart input for the movies we play of the iPod
4. rgb / scart / hdmi input for the Wii, which is soon replacing our GameCube.
5. hdmi / component in for the Apple TV, which will be replacing the iPod on the TV.
6. Black, so it fits with the rest of our set.
7. Widescreen
8. 82 cm / 32 inch diagonal at most
9. 720p. 1080i would be a bonus.
10. €700,- tops.
    

I've seen a few possible candidates in the local store-leaflets, but most likely they are just teasers to get you into the store where they will sell you something more profitable. The Philips 26PF5321 is looking nice, but we'll see what we end up with.

Zaaf

Odd Lost

Finally, after what must be at least three years, We've started watching the TV-series Lost. I borrowed the DVD-set and everytime my wife and I are both in the livingroom and have time to watch TV, we pick the next episode. We've been doing this since early March 2007 and we've just covered episode 20. Only four or five to go before we're done with it.

It's a nice way to spend 42 minutes together, where my wife and I both comment on things that seem a bit improbable. For instance on last nights episode, Jack wanted to do a blood transfusion, but he couldn't find a needle. However he did have the tubes to transport the blood through. Odd.
And the way peoples hair is always orderly and they way their clothes are much neater than ours would be after two months in the jungle without much change of clothes. That's odd too.

But I'm sure that these are all old criticisms.

In related news there was a note in the local TV Guide that the ending of Lost is now known and that it will take at least three more seasons before the end. This means that after we've finished watching season 1, we have to sit through seasons two to six before we're done. I don't think that we can hold out that long. To put it a bit stronger, I hereby predict that we will not watch season two or later as our feeling is that it will get weirder and weirder. In a way it's a bit like Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks was a nineties TV show where everyone had some dark secret. Season one was interestingly entertaining, but season two became just weird. This is our main reference point as it is the previous series my wife and I watched together. The big difference is that we watched Twin Peaks when it aired, and we have time-shifted Lost.