TV is broken • Hacker News Board

Re: TV is broken

#251

Post by DanI-S » Sat, Feb 25, 2012, 6:20 PM UTC

cdh wrote: post #248

DanI-S wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm British, but I live in California, and I'm eagerly awaiting the day that I can pay monthly for BBC iPlayer (their streaming service). There are sketchy proxy services available, but it feels terrible to be paying a third party and effectively stealing the content.

On the other hand, they could easily provide paid service internationally but choose not to. It's disingenuous enough when the word 'stealing' is re-purposed in discussions about copyright infringement, since it is very doubtful that every copy of a shared file resulted in an actual loss. In this case, though, it seems easy enough to establish that the BBC has provided no way to compensate them for viewing their cont…

"On the other hand, they could easily provide paid service internationally but choose not to."

I doubt it's easy, but they've been working on it for a while now and it should be available fairly soon.

I agree that it may not be fair to characterise the content as 'stolen'; I chose to use that term out of laziness. However, it's definitely not fair to consume the content without paying, either. It increases the financial burden on the UK license payer. Many of the BBC's shows are available to a US audience - you just have to buy them on Amazon, or stream them on Netflix.

Re: TV is broken

#252

Post by DanI-S » Sat, Feb 25, 2012, 6:27 PM UTC

_b8r0 wrote: post #242

DanI-S wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some validation: In the UK, the BBC has a pretty fixed budget, a pretty fixed (low) number of channels and a pretty fixed audience. They have continued to produce a high quality output of world-class educational and entertainment TV for a good chunk of the last century. They also managed to build a free streaming service superior to Hulu, and a bunch of great websites. It costs $230 per year ($19 per month). And ther…

Actually the BBC had it's remit massively widened by the last government so that it had to fill sections of DAB, a large amount of Radio channels, Freeview, set up iPlayer and run a whole load of channels that aren't even targeted at the UK (such as BBC Persian), largely to meet the FCO's propaganda needs. Additionally, the dodgy dossier episode has emasculated and distorted large chunks of the BBC's programming lead…

You definitely make some fair points. The BBC is definitely not a perfect organisation, although most of its value comes from the fact that it is intended to strive to be one.

I'd certainly take commentary from the commercial UK press with a pinch of salt, though. They have a tremendous amount to gain from the BBC's demise.

Re: TV is broken

#253

Post by DanBC » Sat, Feb 25, 2012, 6:27 PM UTC

DanI-S wrote: post #251

cdh wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, they could easily provide paid service internationally but choose not to. It's disingenuous enough when the word 'stealing' is re-purposed in discussions about copyright infringement, since it is very doubtful that every copy of a shared file resulted in an actual loss. In this case, though, it seems easy enough to establish that the BBC has provided no way to compensate them for viewing their cont…

"On the other hand, they could easily provide paid service internationally but choose not to." I doubt it's easy, but they've been working on it for a while now and it should be available fairly soon. I agree that it may not be fair to characterise the content as 'stolen'; I chose to use that term out of laziness. However, it's definitely not fair to consume the content without paying, either. It increases the financ…

This highlights some oddities of the UK TV licensing system. I can listen to BBC radio all day every day; I can use the BBC websites all day every day; I can watch BBC TV programmes on their iPlayer service (so long as the programmes are "catch-up" and not streamed live) and I do not need a licence.

I only need a licence if I watch tv broadcast live. Everything is defined in law; the devices used to receive (which include smart phones and computers) and the signals (which weirdly include for example French telly received via satellite). A person could hate the BBC and all its output and never watch it but still need to pay the licence fee.

Personally, I welcome the BBC but the enforcement of the licence has been sub-optimal in the past.

Re: TV is broken

#254

Post by ericabiz » Sat, Feb 25, 2012, 6:44 PM UTC

SiVal wrote: post #113

droithomme wrote: post #57

There are many other things that are broken too. My fancy expensive name-brand digital TV takes a full minute to boot up from a cold start, longer than it took my tube based TV from the 1950s to warm up. Once on, it takes almost a full second to change channels while it rebuffers the stream of the channel being changed to. This prevents quickly flipping through channels to see what is on. As a result I just don't bot…

Here's a question for my fellow amateur economists: What happens to the quality of broadcast television when you increase the supply of broadcast channel-hours by a factor of 50 and you don't increase the supply of viewers at all? I used to watch TV, like most people. Then, in the 1990's, the number of channels started increasing. More options, great. Twice as many channels did allow for more specialization, so maybe…

You know TiVos are still around, right? I'm pretty happy with my Series 3 (lifetime subscription.) Just cloned and upgraded the hard drive in it so it should last many more years to come. Works fine with Comcast or any other cable provider--you just have to pay for them to provision cable cards. As a bonus, it also works fine with an antenna.

Re: TV is broken

#255

Post by epscylonb » Sat, Feb 25, 2012, 7:06 PM UTC

SiVal wrote: post #113

droithomme wrote: post #57

There are many other things that are broken too. My fancy expensive name-brand digital TV takes a full minute to boot up from a cold start, longer than it took my tube based TV from the 1950s to warm up. Once on, it takes almost a full second to change channels while it rebuffers the stream of the channel being changed to. This prevents quickly flipping through channels to see what is on. As a result I just don't bot…

Here's a question for my fellow amateur economists: What happens to the quality of broadcast television when you increase the supply of broadcast channel-hours by a factor of 50 and you don't increase the supply of viewers at all? I used to watch TV, like most people. Then, in the 1990's, the number of channels started increasing. More options, great. Twice as many channels did allow for more specialization, so maybe…

The cost of creating the content has come down too, people tend to talk about this more in the context of film but it applies equally to TV too.

Re: TV is broken

#256

Post by epscylonb » Sat, Feb 25, 2012, 7:08 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #253

DanI-S wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"On the other hand, they could easily provide paid service internationally but choose not to." I doubt it's easy, but they've been working on it for a while now and it should be available fairly soon. I agree that it may not be fair to characterise the content as 'stolen'; I chose to use that term out of laziness. However, it's definitely not fair to consume the content without paying, either. It increases the financ…

This highlights some oddities of the UK TV licensing system. I can listen to BBC radio all day every day; I can use the BBC websites all day every day; I can watch BBC TV programmes on their iPlayer service (so long as the programmes are "catch-up" and not streamed live) and I do not need a licence. I only need a licence if I watch tv broadcast live. Everything is defined in law; the devices used to receive (which in…

Anachronistic is the word you are looking for.

The licence fee made perfect sense when it was created, it arguably has been unfair to consumers since VHS became popular.

Re: TV is broken

#257

Post by someone_welsh » Sat, Feb 25, 2012, 8:38 PM UTC

_b8r0 wrote: post #242

DanI-S wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some validation: In the UK, the BBC has a pretty fixed budget, a pretty fixed (low) number of channels and a pretty fixed audience. They have continued to produce a high quality output of world-class educational and entertainment TV for a good chunk of the last century. They also managed to build a free streaming service superior to Hulu, and a bunch of great websites. It costs $230 per year ($19 per month). And ther…

Actually the BBC had it's remit massively widened by the last government so that it had to fill sections of DAB, a large amount of Radio channels, Freeview, set up iPlayer and run a whole load of channels that aren't even targeted at the UK (such as BBC Persian), largely to meet the FCO's propaganda needs. Additionally, the dodgy dossier episode has emasculated and distorted large chunks of the BBC's programming lead…

Good points. I generally agree.

But I don't think your second reference is really a fair criticism, and I think this was blown completely out of proportion in the UK. I certainly didn't feel that the series was "tarnished". After all, getting a camera inside an actual polar bear den in the arctic? I think that'd be somewhat invasive. Still a beautifully shot, enjoyable and educational series.

The BBC has also been responsible for all of Adam Curtis's documentaries, which are often excellent, and still get made (although the most recent one was perhaps not so good, but I digress).

Proper debate occasionally happens on Newsnight, although I think Jeremy Paxman's role has developed into some sort of entertainer of late.

They did spend a lot of time paying vast amounts to... Jonathan Ross.

Re: TV is broken

#258

Post by mjwalshe » Sat, Feb 25, 2012, 9:19 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #57

There are many other things that are broken too. My fancy expensive name-brand digital TV takes a full minute to boot up from a cold start, longer than it took my tube based TV from the 1950s to warm up. Once on, it takes almost a full second to change channels while it rebuffers the stream of the channel being changed to. This prevents quickly flipping through channels to see what is on. As a result I just don't bot…

realy my sony takes < 3 seconds

Re: TV is broken

#259

Post by evincarofautumn » Sat, Feb 25, 2012, 9:52 PM UTC

zerostar07 wrote: post #236

seanp2k2 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Torrents are typically the fastest things on the web because you're pulling from so many sources; in effect, a peer to peer CDN cluster :) Also, there are plenty of fly-by-night sites that have full episodes of most shows that people care about. I won't link to any here, but just Google "watch full episode" and you'll see what I mean. >"Also, what about the illegal factor?" As long as gullible sheep continue to finan…

To hell with imaginary property. Then i suppose you also give your work away and your house doesnt have windows or doors, and your life is not really yours alone (all property is imaginary, it's just a convention).

What else would ownership be but a convention? We’re just monkeys in shoes. Our arbitrary territorial and food rituals are certainly complex, but that makes them no less arbitrary. And a lock, as they say, only stops an honest man—one who plays by convention.

Re: TV is broken

#260

Post by evincarofautumn » Sat, Feb 25, 2012, 10:09 PM UTC

ilaksh wrote: post #127

TV is outdated, but so are a lot of more important things: cars/transportation, government, "economics", agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure, humans, natural language.

You’re a human, typing in a natural language, on a computer powered by the electrical infrastructure provided by his government. That computer only exists because of the manufacturing capabilities we gained during the industrial revolution 200 years ago, which, in addition to being the source of the modern economy, could not have happened if it weren’t for the rise of totalitarian agriculturalism 10,000 years ago. That 10,000 years is a pittance compared to the millions of years of human history spent focused more on hunting, gathering, and herding than on cultivating crops. The origin of language in humans is hazy, but we’ve only been around in our various forms for a few million out of the billions of years of Earth’s history.

How could all of these brand new things possibly be outdated? ;)