Why do TV stations bother with a tv guide?

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Originally Posted by rrussell1962

We have Foxtel Col, hundreds of channels of crap!

You need more eclectic tastes then!

We have every channel but we don't watch all of them. We're very picky about what we watch and there is usually something on somewhere that we like. We also look for and record most every program we like in advance (sometimes weeks) so we can fast forward through the ads. Being able to record a whole series of weekly programs is a boon too. Yes, Foxtel repeat their programs (sometimes a good thing) but we usually find something new. Over the Christmas / New Year period though they can be slow with new content.

Have I mentioned how much I HATE free-to-air TV? Watching it is a form of torture. It's like having a severe case of tunnel vision while you are being forced to watch someone else's dull / vacuous / anti-intellectual / mundane notions of what constitutes "sen...sAtional" entertainment.

[tlgerdes (Trevor)]

One of Microsoft's best products, that was way before its time, Windows MediaCenter. It is by far the best PVR you can "buy". Add 4+ TV tuners to a PC and a 500GB HDD and you will never miss a thing on FTA TV. Yes you still have to pad the TV shows by 15mins, but who cares, I can record 4 (or more) shows at once.

Is the easiest thing to navigate to record/view TV, most intuitive interface that they have ever built. Have been using it for 7 years, been through 3 "upgrades" still humming along great.

Not cheap though, will set you back over a $1k for a decent system.

[MortonH]

Originally Posted by ianB

I have also noticed that they even cut out parts of a programme, especially in shows like Midsomer Murder.

I basically watch ABC and SBS along with some shows on 7l

Yes. Older shows are the wrong length for today's cycle so bits get cut out. I've seen episodes of MASH and Friends (not even all that old) edited really badly so that a character says something that is nonsensical in relation to what was said before, but it's because part of the conversation has been removed purely to accommodate modern timing. Butchering shows to allow more time for crapality adverts is my biggest peeve.

[Renato1 (Renato)]

I'll be going to Italy later this year where I luxuriate in 320 channels of Free-to-Air TV that include three history channels, a crime channel, a science fiction and fantasy channel, a classic rock channel, seven sports channels, a poker channel and seven or eight movies are on at any time - with hardly any ads compared to over here. And on some of those channels, I can just click the Audio button and listen to it in English.

And they love Australian programs - Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries and Top Gear `Australia to name a few are all dubbed in. And Border Control Australia, seems to be the biggest hit over there.

Our Free-To-Air TV is utterly pathetic compared to what I get over there. Even our Foxtel is pretty poor compared to Italian Free-To-Air.

I blame Malcolm Fraser for all this. He was the one who dropped the regulation of ads on TV stations, saying that the market would sort it out. How could the market ever sort it out when three operators had oligopoly rights?
Cheers,
Renato

[The_bluester (Paul)]

I gave up on FTA TV a long time ago. And on foxtel not long after.

We do watch Grand Prix racing, for which we have a PVR setup on out NAS, so we don't even need a formal PVR to record TV. Grand Prix is one of the few things I forgive running over time as sometimes the weather see to that.

Aside form that, we have quite a DVD collection (All ripped to the NAS so we can watch anything we want without futzing around with actual physical media) and recently took the dive in to get Netflix via geo unblocking services. That has pretty well weaned my wife off channel BT almost completely.


Now to see if the geoblock tech might get us access to a UK Grand Prix stream so we can ditch the inane local commentary and "We just have to go to an ad break" right in the middle of something, cause ads for "Adult" type services are obviously important.

[pluto (Hugh)]

Originally Posted by The_bluester

Now to see if the geoblock tech might get us access to a UK Grand Prix stream so we can ditch the inane local commentary and "We just have to go to an ad break" right in the middle of something, cause ads for "Adult" type services are obviously important.

Yeah the Aussie GP broadcast is terrible, do you still have to put up with Rusty and his mindless drivel?

I use Hola unblocker and watch Netflix etc through a browser on the TV box rather than a vpn and I have access to the BBC iPlayer (wish they'd let me pay for that actually...), I haven't tried watching the F1 on it but I don't see why it wouldn't work. Is the F1 broadcast still on BBC this year?

[jenchris (Jennifer)]

I'm convinced TV is not going to last much longer in its present form.
Wallee is round the corner if it continues along its path.
There was a movie a while back about a guy who wakes up in a world dying because the population have been brainwashed into using Gatorade or something to fertilise the soil....
Idiotsville or some similar title. The premise seems to be so close to the truth it made me sweat a bit.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

We are using Getflix so we can set ourselves to "Be" in the UK as well as we can the states for Netflix. I will have to look in to iplayer, I believe there is an XBMC plugin which would be even better. And yes, we get to listen to Rusty and AJ still. The biggest side effect to that is the increased risk of me putting a remote control through the TV out of irritation with the inanity that they spout. They seem to be broadcasting to the "Beer and stubbies and blue singlet" watcher.

Netflix etc we use with the Apple TV 3. For all the time since they launched I have though the ATV was one of the most useless devices under the sun due to the limited format support and STUPID use restrictions that Apple put on them, which was a dumb move on the par of Apple as they had the potential to really shape the market when they released them. Suddenly with Netflix, we have three of them!

Jenchris, I agree, TV in it's current evolution I doubt will survive much longer, and good riddance. It is hard to turn on the box without seeing crap "reality" TV and spoon fed advertising and advertorials. We have a couple of TVs in the house, only one of which actually has an antenna connected to it.

I am quite happy to pay up to about $20 per month (Which looks likely between Stan streaming and Netflix when it launches) to watch what I want to watch, when I want to watch it and without stinking advertising every two minutes.