About a year ago I discovered the magic of a Digital Video Recorder (DVR).
The ability to record hours upon hours of TV saved countless battles over the remote. So long as I had the channel, I was able to record and watch what I wanted – when I wanted. It was a breath of fresh air. No longer did big broadcasters have us trapped in our living rooms. For a time it was an indispensable item in the household. But it didn’t last. I moved my viewing habits online, opting out of the rigid 30 and 60 minute TV servings and instead choosing to digest my television cravings over the internet.
Now it sounds almost cliché to say online video has arrived. It did years ago. YouTube recently commented that more than 10 billion online videos are now viewed monthly in North America alone. So what changed? Like a good wine – online video has improved with age. Networks, media producers and cable companies are finally beginning to figure out what to do with it.
There’s still work to do, but thanks to accessible easy-to-use technology, improving bandwidth and cheap storage, the internet is becoming a much more popular and unique way to experience your news and entertainment.
What’s still wrong? Well for one, copyright issues are still very prevalent. There’s more infringement going on than you can shake a remote at. Violations occur on such a scale that there is no clear solution.
Companies have also been struggling with how to make money off showing videos online. Many are experimenting with a combination of standard banner advertising and the familiar “commercial” in front of video clips. In a move to increase revenue YouTube recently began displaying Pay-Per-Click ads over videos. And finally there is no arguing there are literally thousands of sites which serve up video content. It’s hard enough to find something to watch on 50 channels let alone 10,000. Yes, it’s a real mess out there.
But amongst the sites which share college pranks and silly home videos you can find some real jewels.
Most larger television networks now display video in one way or another on their sites. This is a great place to start the search for your favourite shows. NBC, for example, puts many full length shows onto the News Corp owned website www.Hulu.com. But due to copyright issues, those above the 49th parallel are restricted from viewing any content on that site. For those of you who work Monday nights, you can still get your “Heroes” fix online at www.globaltv.com. Missed the Daily Show or Colbert Report? Surf over to watch.thecomedynetwork.ca and catch full episodes.
News is perfectly suited for the web. Short clips of video which can be easily categorized, searched and displayed. Luckily if you are a news junky like me, there are lots of options. I watched the US Vice Presidential debate live on the New York Times website – nytimes.com. CNN frequently streams live news on its site www.cnn.com/video. And you can catch celebrity, automotive and sports updates over at video.msn.com.
The unquestionable leader in online video is YouTube. While you probably won’t find your favourite shows here, you can dig up many clips. Missed that questionable moment a politician had? This is the spot to find it. 13 hours of content are uploaded to the site every minute. That’s a lot of video.
Now online video won’t every fully replace other mediums for video. While you can watch high quality movie trailers at apple.com/trailers, it just doesn’t beat sitting in front of a huge screen at the local cinema. But for a select few, you might want to consider canceling your satellite subscription and dropping the digital TV. There is a whole lot of entertainment to be found online and there is something for everyone.
