Tag: cable TV

Hulu Plus

Random Thoughts

Yesterday, Hulu announced the details of their Hulu Plus plan.  Of course, being the Internet, it was immediately filled with people saying it was too expensive, not enough content, and that the inclusion of ads was a deal breaker.

You know, on the content end, they are probably right, but that it something that will get better over time.  But the price and ads…  Think about your cable service if you have it.  You pay XX for TV and XX for Internet access.  In my case, with Comcast, those prices would be about $50 and $45 respectively (it varies based on the package you get).  Personally, due to issues with Comcast not having a DVR capable of letting me record 6 shows at a time and their OnDemand service not having everything I already pay for for free, I kicked the TV part to the curb and just pay for Internet now.  At the moment, I torrent, but it means I watch shows a day or two late — minimum (someone has to upload it before I can download it).  But if Hulu were to give me access to even half of those shows on a completely OnDemand basis for $10 a month, even with commercials, I’ll take it.

And about those commercials… oddly enough, Ctrl+Alt+Del ran a related comic and rant.  Are commercials really that bad?  Yeah, sometimes they are annoying, but in general they are informative, about products or shows that might interest me, and then, if I want, I can go buy them.  Since switching to torrenting, where they always edit out the commercials, I’ve been missing my advertising.  New shows will pop up out of the woodwork and be a few episodes in before I’ve even heard of them (you know, because I don’t spend my time trolling TV Network and entertainment gossip websites).  I’ll go to the store and see a product on the shelf and say, “Hey! This is great!” and find out that it’s been available for months, only I’d never seen an ad for it so I didn’t know it existed.  And seriously, why is Hulu for $10 with commercials bad but cable TV for $50+ with commercials okay?

Personally, I’m excited.  This sort of OnDemand a la carte TV watching is exactly what I want.  Sure, torrenting is free, but I’d much rather support the shows I watch in some way AND not have to deal with the annoying limitations of cable TV providers.  I just wish the Xbox version wasn’t being delayed to 2011.

Cable TV & Me

Random Thoughts

If you frequent my blog, you may have read about my war with Comcast.  The end result of everything is that I built my father a PVR using digital tuners, and he’s able to record six programs at a time on the channels broadcast in the clear (essentially 2 thru 78 plus a handful of other random channels, plus the HD versions of all the local channels), while I, not able to afford to replace my PVR, canceled cable TV in favor of various streaming sources.  With Hulu, network websites, Netflix, and the occasional torrent, I can watch pretty much every show I care to watch.  Yeah, it is always a day late, but I was recording and watching most of them a day late anyway.

The main reason behind this decision wasn’t just to save the $60 a month that cable TV cost me, although that is nice, but mostly in that cable TV isn’t serving me properly as a consumer.  To me, the single most important thing is to be able to watch the shows on my schedule.  Since networks insist on putting good shows on opposite each other, and I don’t want to not watch good shows, recording shows has always been something I needed to do.  And while recording shows for later viewing meant I could fast forward through commercials, that was always a side effect and never the point.  Time shifting was the point.  Right now, if for that same $60 a month, Comcast were to offer me the ability to watch any program at any time, even if I was forced to watch the commercials and couldn’t skip them, I’d do it.

On Demand programming is where the future is, and networks need to catch up.  And charging me $3 or $5 per episode in addition to my cable bill just to watch it without commercials isn’t the answer.  Leave the commercials in and let me watch it for free, just like when it is broadcast, but on my own schedule.

I want to watch your shows.  I even want to watch your commercials (they help me discover more shows and sometimes even products to buy).  But I just can’t do it on your schedule.

Either the networks need to jump on On Demand, or the cable companies need to invent the 10 tuner DVR that works with ALL their channels  so people can create their own On Demand.