Why I love on demand TV technology
It is not long ago that in order to watch a television show you had to be sat there in front of the TV at the specific time the show was on or set a video to record it. Due to limited space on the videos and the inability to change between analogue and sky/cable, your options were pretty limited!
If you wanted to follow a specific show you would have to make sure that you kept up to date, or have a lot of video tapes lying around. You would also have to watch adverts as you’d most likely be watching live.
The invention of Sky+ a few years ago revolutionised television viewing. You could record loads of shows, and as long as you kept an eye on the space (many video tapes worth!) you could leave things on there for ages while waiting to find time to watch them. The best feature of this however is “Series Link”, which allows you to tell the box to record a show every time it is on, meaning you won’t miss an episode of your favourite series because you forgot to set it to record. You can also fast forward through the adverts. Sometimes I even start the show 10 minutes later, meaning you can go through the ads.
Another great recent development is the TV show on DVD. Back when we were on VHS, it’d cost near to £100 to buy a season of a TV show on DVD, but now you are looking at about £20-30 for a box set, meaning it is so easy to catch up on shows that you didn’t see or ones that you missed first time around years ago.
Online streaming has been a great new invention, with BBC iPlayer and 4OnDemand leading the way. For a week after a show has been on you can watch them online, and there are some older shows that you can permanently watch. This is another step towards completely on demand TV. To be honest I don’t watch TV live much anymore at all, as the only time I get chance is when the Saturday night reality stuff or the soaps are on, and I’d rather be watching an episode of 24!