questions about internet tv, on demand, apple tv, bbc iplayer, google tv, etc...

questions about internet tv, on demand, apple tv, bbc iplayer, google tv, etc...

  • Total voters
    10
A

Amr Rahmy

Carbonite Member
thanks in advance,

i would like to know more about narrative TV shows (1 hour drama/action or 1/2 hour comedy),

network TV shows
cable TV shows
bbc TV shows
TIVO set top features other than dvr

internet TV offerings(set top boxes and web applications or websites),
quality
user interface - browsing, summary/info page, search, pause/play/fastforward/rewind, remote, keyboard, rating, ...etc.
format - what the channels are offering
DVR features
archive availability
prices
general thoughts, public reception, popularity

differences between,
apple tv, itunes
hulu / hulu plus
bbc iplayer
google tv
ubuntu tv
....etc.

about bbc shows,
how many soap opera like Eastenders and Coronation Street, do these two have the same budget, the production quality seems different.(how many slots on the schedule, are these daytime or prime-time shows)

do most shows run for 1 season 6 episodes on purpose. i think there was a survivor/apocalypse show that ran more like a us tv show format with more episodes, is that common on bbc?

are 2 1 hour back to back tv shows (usually crime/mystery) common? what's the normal ratio of these shows on bbc. <- things like luther, sherlock, agatha cristie's poirot, ..etc. <- do these adaptations of english writers have higher budgets.
 
The question asks how would I LIKE to watch TV shows. Not how I watch TV now which the check boxes suggest. You must be an engineer.
 
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Amr Rahmy said:
thanks in advance,

i would like to know more about narrative TV shows (1 hour drama/action or 1/2 hour comedy),

network TV shows
cable TV shows
bbc TV shows
TIVO set top features other than dvr
Click to expand...

Your poll didn't have questions that match up with either my current viewing method, or desired viewing method.

First I don't typically watch 'TV shows' at all. I have bought DVD/BD's of some cable shows, and got suckered into buying a ABC TV Show, "Once Upon a Time". I also bought the ABC Family series first season "Switched at Birth", mainly because the Wife and I are taking an ASL class.

I don't put cable shows like the ones that Starz and HBO produced in the same 'class' as the ABC, and other broadcaster's shows.

And even then, the shows from the two cable production companies have been pretty limited. For Starz it was "Spartacus", and HBO "Boardwalk Empire", "Mildred Pierce", and "Game of Thrones".

Of those only "Game of Thrones" has my enduring interest, since I've read the book series.

The only time I watch broadcast or 'real time' cable is when I'm in a hotel room and want total mindless diversion, and the internet connection is so poor even porn is not interesting...
 
Imagine Ed trying to explain to the guidance counsellor that he wants to be in show business but all he wants to do is introduce acts and that will be his career.
 
i would split US narrative TV shows to,

daytime drama:
soap opera

low budget bad productions:
syfy like sci-fi shows with bad cg and writing and acting, i liked faceoff and hot set.
unfortunately i would add some of the CSI shows to this group. they may have a much higher production, but the end show does not represent the budget.

medium quality productions:
sitcoms, filmed in studio, multicam setup with the least amount of effort in camera work and lighting

high production prime-time tv shows:

drama:
hospital, police procedural, courtroom, prime-time soap.

action:
contemporary:
dexter, burn notice
adventure/fantasy:
scifi and sword and sorcery/sword and sandals

are there any other type of shows or budget classes?
 
The question asks how would I LIKE to watch TV shows. Not how I watch TV now which the check boxes suggest. You must be an engineer.
Click to expand...

yes, it's not just about the present state, but also includes the near future. do you think the current way is inadequate, would you like to see something different than current offerings.
 
Amr Rahmy said:
yes, it's not just about the present state, but also includes the near future. do you think the current way is inadequate, would you like to see something different than current offerings.
Click to expand...

In terms of 'near future'... given that I have purchased DVD/BDs of the HBO and Starz shows, I would probably go for a minimal subscription for say, "HBO GO"... maybe even a pay-as-you-go iTunes style per episode download.

However, it seems that HBO and others like Starz, which had a deal I recall with Netflix, seem to be limiting that sort of 'streaming' option, to boost their sales power with the Cable 'transport' companies, or up the streaming license fees, waiting for Google to flood in some cash.

This sort of thing of course leads to massive pirating, which of course the content producer companies whine to high heaven, and lobby for draconian legislation to be enacted, rather than just coming up with a solution that covers 99% of the viewing market, and only go after piraters in that 1% category.

As it is, I don't think I'd 'hunt' for content from most of the over-the-air broadcasters, and only a few of the cable content providers. In casual conversations, or on these sorts of fora, I 'hear' about a show, get a bit interested, and then may look at a few episodes. But to date nothing has inspired me to sign up for a cable connection and attendant 'premium' packages for a zillion channels.
 
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As it is, I don't think I'd 'hunt' for content from most of the over-the-air broadcasters, and only a few of the cable content providers.
Click to expand...

But to date nothing has inspired me to sign up for a cable connection and attendant 'premium' packages for a zillion channels.
Click to expand...

if you could give examples of tv channels and shows of what is over the air broadcasters and what is cable providers and premium packages in terms of narrative tv shows

where would,

boardwalk empire, breaking bad, the walking dead, dexter, glee, burn notice, greys anatomy, switched at birth, HBO, syfy, LIFETIME, ABC, CBS, ...etc. fall under. and average prices. and can't you watch that for free on their websites or imdb.com or hulu or tv.com, the week it airs. do you have to pay subscription for lets say google tv to watch any of these shows?

and,
NCIS, the vampire diaries, tru blood, arrow, american horror story, revenge, Grimm, Stargate, warehouse 13, once upon a time, eureka, falls into which category?
 
did not notice that tv.com tells you the channel in the show browse section. most of the second category are syfy and a few NBC and FOX. the syfy part is understandable more than the NBC and FOX shows, do AMC and ABC shows have higher production value and budgets in general?
 
i don't think you get it.
People watch tV, they do not really care how it is happening, they just want the picture on the screen.
Usually they had no choice, they choose what it is available (sat, cable TNT) or affordable to them.
and they do not choose what they watch, house wife look at TV in the morning or the afternon, so they got all that crap you will never see because your are at work. And if they are not pleased with what they get, the only thing they can do is to zap or get a DVD.

any other behaviour is related to somebody having a goal, choosing specifc thing for a purpose. it is less than 1% of people watching TV.
 
i don't think so, a lot of people buy set top boxes like apple tv and replace their TVs with TVs that include google tv and a ton of people have netflix and hulu plus subscription and a ton of people subscribe to premium packages, some of which do so for prime-time drama shows. and all these numbers are in millions.

but even at the same evening or daytime period wher they want to watch a show, there would be more than one show at the same time, right? they choose show x or show y, and a lot of people TiVo show y while watching show x.

just from sales and rating numbers, 25-33% of viewers choose the shows they want to watch, the rest might be half-zombies, but that's a huge percentage compared to any other hobby or electronic device. for example, more than 90% of people with drivers license or cars don't really know how to drive or what makes a car better than any other.

just the dedicated fans of tv shows are in millions, and then there is another layer of tens of millions casual regular tv show viewers.
 
from my point of view, getting tons of channels from cable , adding more with sat, adding even more with internet, is just stacking sources.
when you end up with zillions of channels showing almost all the same thing at the same time (news for example) , or "desperate house wifes" or "NCIS season x again"
you do not have a real choice. The same for VOD, where the offer is often limited to recent blockbusters.
And finally your are just looking at always the same ones.
Youtube is a good example, where 99,99% of it is just crap or something you do not care about. You do not go to youtube like you go on TV.
You go on youtube because you are looking for something, and eventually you end up looking to some crap because it was there on the side of your screen.
7 people out of 10 i know, just switch TV on because it is time to , some will even never switch it off, the remaining exception will just look for content but it is still an "opt out" than "opt in", you can only filter , not decide.
All the content you could eventually decide for, is usually not for free (VOD, theater, DVD) and we can consider it is another story because since there are pay per view, you cannot make it you streamline source of image.

So you have to decide if your approcah is Service against Product. Service is just filling a time slot (like most soap are, they do not care about content),
Product is like making a real movie that will be sold as is.
Interstingly, since few years, Services often end up as Product (you can buy today most of the TV series as Pack of DVD) and most of Movies have a 2nd life as Service, ending on TV set at high audience hours and carefully sliced with advertising.
 
Amr Rahmy said:
i don't think so, a lot of people buy set top boxes like apple tv and replace their TVs with TVs that include google tv and a ton of people have netflix and hulu plus subscription and a ton of people subscribe to premium packages, some of which do so for prime-time drama shows. and all these numbers are in millions.
Click to expand...

It is different outside of the US, in that many countries have a TV use Tax/License, and that in part subsidizes a national TV network. For the US viewers, the example would be the BBC. State funded, commercial free, etc. and often in the US for those viewers who view BBC shows, they 'like them'.

However, in the US the basis of TV shows has always been 'to sell advertising minutes'. The Show has been referred to in disparaging terms as The Wrapper for such advertizing.

One can tell a 'broadcast' directed show, because of the miniclimax points which would indicate an ad insert. And of course an 'hour' show is really about 45 minutes, indicating that about 15 minutes of advertizing was anticipated during that 1 hour broadcast.

I personally find that 'petit mal' type program to be distracting in itself. To be sure films have their own rise and fall of action, and of course there is the 3-act structure which is discussed ad infinitum, but there is a certain 'smoothness' in theatrical films that makes, as far as I'm concerned', the TV shows feel 'choppy'.

I don't know that 'subscriptions' have the same buying power that Ad time seems to have now for the traditional broadcasters. I think their content really needs to improve, including moving away from FCC type censorship guidelines, for them to really compete with the subscription based content producers.

Since I don't have cable or over-the-air-broadcast reception I can only list the few examples in each category. For over-the-air-broadcast networks which either produce or buy content, and then distribute it via OtaB means along with cable rebroadcasts, that would be ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX.

For examples of cable content production companies, that would be HBO, as a major, with such producers as AMC, Starz, coming up.

There are also some European content producers which are gaining on the US. Canal+ a french 'premium subscription' company is one such. Tandem a german content production company, put out the "Pillars of the Earth" miniseries in 2010, is another example of growth of 'external to the US' content production.

It is my belief that the 'future' will require content providers to move out of the 'vertical' style market they have been 'enjoying' and like the Paramount Decision, leave content selection more up to the viewer on a case by case basis. In the case of the Paramount Decision, it really wasn't 'viewers' who made the decision but theater owners. However, the point was a production company could not control all the pathway to the viewer.

In the modern age, it seems fitting that the viewer now can select content directly from the producer, or their 'distribution' arm, independent any further 'distributor' in the pathway.

I would like to see 'cable companies' develop more into just 'wiring companies', and eliminate most of the packaging that is done at the 'cable company' level.
 
I do not watch T.V with a few exceptions, mostly news. Otherwise I'd rather watch on the internet. The only reason I watch a bit of T.V now is because it came supplied free with my room.
 
most of what is shown on TV is crap, i did not say everything on tv is gold.

yes NCIS and desperate housewives is crap, and there are tons of show on that level and there are a lot shows that are much worse, but that's not all that TV shows have to offer. by comparison, twilight is at the top of box office today, i can think of a few shows that i would rather watch than watching a twilight movie or any of the current top 10 box office features today. flight, argo and skyfall included.

but some shows have better production quality and writing than current movie offerings. some shows actually discuss social topics and have a story structure, and different points of view on subjects. some shows even have better lighting and camera work than most movie offerings today. i blame remakes and IPs, but more to the point, i don't think the picture is as oblique as you make it appear to be especially if your choosing what you want to watch at the time you want to watch it with some of the internet services.

and you can discuss any DVD/bluray of any TV shows that you found interesting.
 
The Walking Dead is at the very pinnacle of T.V series viewing I will admit.

edit: I've only seen Falling Skys once or twice but it's around the same ballpark.

Now THOSE are the kind of shows that could bring T.V viewers back.
Enough of these "watch me work and make me a star" reality shows.

//edit:// The Halo game web series on http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAE1F854F00D8E6AC&feature=plcp was pretty good too (There are 6 parts to it buried in the somewhere). They could have kept it going if they wanted. imo. Pretty good for a web series/promo to the new game.
 
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Amr Rahmy said:
i blame remakes and IPs, but more to the point, i don't think the picture is as oblique as you make it appear to be especially if your choosing what you want to watch at the time you want to watch it with some of the internet services.

and you can discuss any DVD/bluray of any TV shows that you found interesting.
Click to expand...

The Wife is always wont to chastise me on my 'movie choice'. I frequently chose 'junk' movies just to pass the time. If I want drama she's always up for it... But for some reason, I'd rather watch Ed Wood's entire Opus than most of what is on TV especially if it is advertisement laden TV.

If the Internet distribution develops as 'i would like it', Hulu and Netflix styles of 'select and watch' would be far superior to having to pay something like $200 bux startup (some times heavily discounted to get new customers...) and then $70 bux monthly just to watch a few select shows, even if others think they are the crapiest shows on earth... (Of the few NCIS shows I've seen, I think I'll reserve watching that on a TV in a motel where the owner has paid for the most minimal of service... and Internet is either broken or not available at all...), but I'm sure my viewing selection would probably not be 'haute cuisine' by some standards...

For example, the Daughter was lauding Netflix... Excited by the thought of a big film library the first thing I searched was "Glen and Randa"(1971)... not found... a few more searches on some other titles and same response...

But recently I did watch the "Conan the Barbarian" (2011) remake... part of the Daughter's argument for the service was being able to watch 'throwaway' films at little cost... so it has to be a recent vintage throwaway film...
 
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