What's in the box?
Nov. 5th, 2007 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4My dad offered me his spare set-top box today; my parents have bought some kind of new all-in-one thing that does... whatever a set-top box does, and also records TV. So it's like a video-recorder, but more so...
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j4, I'm nearly 30 years old, and I don't know what a set-top box does. I think it's a thing that lets you get lots of channels, like a satellite dish but not as ugly. I thought you had to pay for the lots-of-channels, but apparently you don't any more...
No, enough. It isn't funny, it isn't big, and it isn't clever. I don't feel proud of not knowing; I just don't know, and (I may not be proud, but I'm not ashamed either) I haven't been interested enough to find out. I'm not the Onion's area man about this, you know; I just don't watch TV. I think the last time I deliberately watched TV (rather than being in and out of the room when somebody else was watching TV) was some time in 2004, maybe earlier. It's not that I "don't watch TV" in the way that some people "don't watch the commercial channel" or "don't listen to chart music"; it's more that I "don't watch TV" in the way that some people don't play golf, or don't knit. Nobody assumes any kind of implicit moral judgement on the part of people who don't play golf ... do they?
But I suppose saying "I don't watch TV" is more like saying "I don't read books" or "I don't listen to music": it's the medium rather than the message; a whole genus rather than a narrow genre. But the "don't" isn't a "won't": it's not that I dislike TV, it's just that it doesn't occur to me. I read books; I listen to music; I watch DVDs, occasionally; I watch all kinds of rubbish on YouTube; I use the web (and I do see that as -- at least sometimes -- a distinct medium, rather than a delivery mechanism for other media). But switching the TV on just ... doesn't happen.
It used to happen; I watched loads of TV as a teenager -- so-called 'alternative' comedy, sitcoms, the occasional documentary, and the sort of slushy black-and-white films that would be shown on wet weekend afternoons. Lots of musicals. I've seen The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle twice, which is probably two times more than most of you. Then I went to university, and didn't have a TV (there was one in the JCR, if you wanted to try to watch "University Challenge" or football while seemingly hundreds of rugby players and boaties shouted at the tiny screen), and just didn't miss it. It wandered out of my life and never quite wandered back in. I'd watch things occasionally while I was at home -- Countdown over dinner, TOTP2 at Christmas, the odd bit here and there -- but it just didn't seem to stick any more. Not a formal closedown, just a slow fade to a glowing dot in the middle of a screen in an empty room.
People talk about television as a passive medium; and I suppose in a way it is, though no more so than listening to a CD. But to me the process of finding programmes to watch seems incredibly active; it seems to require deliberate effort in a way that finding books, music, and (especially!) stuff on the web just doesn't seem to. I know it's partly to do with the muscles one's used to exercising -- cycling seems like minimum effort to me, because I do it every day, whereas I'd find running or swimming far more labour-intensive simply because they use different muscles -- but I just can't imagine going to the effort of reading through a TV guide, selecting the programmes I might want to watch, arranging my life around being in the house when those programmes are on (or finding a blank video, programming the video recorder to record those programmes, and then finding the time to watch them at a later date).
I suppose I must go through a similar process with books, somewhere along the line (though nearly all the books I've read recently have been prompted by trying to keep up with my boss's recommendations, on some obscure point of principle which has become more like a game, or perhaps a kind of quasi-cerebral arm-wrestling or antler-locking ... ah yes, the many reasons why people lend each other books, that's a post for another day). But I feel as though there are already so many books I am actively interested in reading that I am no longer convinced I have enough life left in which to read them, even if I stopped working tomorrow and did nothing but read, eat and sleep. It's not a question of choosing a book to read; it's more a question of wondering which of the many millions of books I want to read happens to fall into my path in some physical instantiation during the couple of minutes when I'm between books (and these days I'm usually in the middle of two or three books at once). Working at Oxfam helps, here; it's a rare week when I don't see a cheap copy of something I've been meaning to read, or heard mentioned, or read a review of. I do hear people recommending TV programmes, of course; but it just doesn't seem to impact on my mind in the same way. I don't know why.
Every argument I try to construct as an explanation can be counter-argued. Easier to read while doing other things? My mum watches TV while doing the ironing; my grandma has a TV in the kitchen which she watches while she's cooking. Requires blocking out a chunk of time? Video; pause button. Easier to take a book with you on a train? I could probably watch TV on my iPod if I wanted to. Easier to read in the bath? Okay, a TV in the bathroom might be tricky, but it's certainly not impossible...
But the question, I suppose, is whether I "should" seek out television programmes to watch. Whether I should embark on a process of cultural (re-)education. I don't feel culturally detached as a result of not watching TV (perhaps because there's so much TV that other people's attention is spread thinner: it's less frequent that there's a single programme that everybody watches) but in general I'm all for trying new things (or re-trying old things when I start to worry that I'm avoiding them for spurious reasons). I'm not sure when I'd fit it in, in between the other things that fill my time; but I could try, in the same way that I'm forever trying to slide other things into every scrap of interstitial time, trying to fit an hour into the gap between two minutes. I'm just not sure why I'd single out TV rather than something else. It's not a question of "why should I watch TV, given the nature of TV" but "why should I watch TV, when there are so many other things on my list of things to do/see/try/taste". I could say the same of, well, golf.
(I have tried playing golf, once, very briefly. It wasn't much fun, but then I have all the aptitude for ball-games that a dolphin has for cycling. At least TV-watching generally takes place indoors.)
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j4, I'm nearly 30 years old, and I don't know what a set-top box does. I think it's a thing that lets you get lots of channels, like a satellite dish but not as ugly. I thought you had to pay for the lots-of-channels, but apparently you don't any more...No, enough. It isn't funny, it isn't big, and it isn't clever. I don't feel proud of not knowing; I just don't know, and (I may not be proud, but I'm not ashamed either) I haven't been interested enough to find out. I'm not the Onion's area man about this, you know; I just don't watch TV. I think the last time I deliberately watched TV (rather than being in and out of the room when somebody else was watching TV) was some time in 2004, maybe earlier. It's not that I "don't watch TV" in the way that some people "don't watch the commercial channel" or "don't listen to chart music"; it's more that I "don't watch TV" in the way that some people don't play golf, or don't knit. Nobody assumes any kind of implicit moral judgement on the part of people who don't play golf ... do they?
But I suppose saying "I don't watch TV" is more like saying "I don't read books" or "I don't listen to music": it's the medium rather than the message; a whole genus rather than a narrow genre. But the "don't" isn't a "won't": it's not that I dislike TV, it's just that it doesn't occur to me. I read books; I listen to music; I watch DVDs, occasionally; I watch all kinds of rubbish on YouTube; I use the web (and I do see that as -- at least sometimes -- a distinct medium, rather than a delivery mechanism for other media). But switching the TV on just ... doesn't happen.
It used to happen; I watched loads of TV as a teenager -- so-called 'alternative' comedy, sitcoms, the occasional documentary, and the sort of slushy black-and-white films that would be shown on wet weekend afternoons. Lots of musicals. I've seen The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle twice, which is probably two times more than most of you. Then I went to university, and didn't have a TV (there was one in the JCR, if you wanted to try to watch "University Challenge" or football while seemingly hundreds of rugby players and boaties shouted at the tiny screen), and just didn't miss it. It wandered out of my life and never quite wandered back in. I'd watch things occasionally while I was at home -- Countdown over dinner, TOTP2 at Christmas, the odd bit here and there -- but it just didn't seem to stick any more. Not a formal closedown, just a slow fade to a glowing dot in the middle of a screen in an empty room.
People talk about television as a passive medium; and I suppose in a way it is, though no more so than listening to a CD. But to me the process of finding programmes to watch seems incredibly active; it seems to require deliberate effort in a way that finding books, music, and (especially!) stuff on the web just doesn't seem to. I know it's partly to do with the muscles one's used to exercising -- cycling seems like minimum effort to me, because I do it every day, whereas I'd find running or swimming far more labour-intensive simply because they use different muscles -- but I just can't imagine going to the effort of reading through a TV guide, selecting the programmes I might want to watch, arranging my life around being in the house when those programmes are on (or finding a blank video, programming the video recorder to record those programmes, and then finding the time to watch them at a later date).
I suppose I must go through a similar process with books, somewhere along the line (though nearly all the books I've read recently have been prompted by trying to keep up with my boss's recommendations, on some obscure point of principle which has become more like a game, or perhaps a kind of quasi-cerebral arm-wrestling or antler-locking ... ah yes, the many reasons why people lend each other books, that's a post for another day). But I feel as though there are already so many books I am actively interested in reading that I am no longer convinced I have enough life left in which to read them, even if I stopped working tomorrow and did nothing but read, eat and sleep. It's not a question of choosing a book to read; it's more a question of wondering which of the many millions of books I want to read happens to fall into my path in some physical instantiation during the couple of minutes when I'm between books (and these days I'm usually in the middle of two or three books at once). Working at Oxfam helps, here; it's a rare week when I don't see a cheap copy of something I've been meaning to read, or heard mentioned, or read a review of. I do hear people recommending TV programmes, of course; but it just doesn't seem to impact on my mind in the same way. I don't know why.
Every argument I try to construct as an explanation can be counter-argued. Easier to read while doing other things? My mum watches TV while doing the ironing; my grandma has a TV in the kitchen which she watches while she's cooking. Requires blocking out a chunk of time? Video; pause button. Easier to take a book with you on a train? I could probably watch TV on my iPod if I wanted to. Easier to read in the bath? Okay, a TV in the bathroom might be tricky, but it's certainly not impossible...
But the question, I suppose, is whether I "should" seek out television programmes to watch. Whether I should embark on a process of cultural (re-)education. I don't feel culturally detached as a result of not watching TV (perhaps because there's so much TV that other people's attention is spread thinner: it's less frequent that there's a single programme that everybody watches) but in general I'm all for trying new things (or re-trying old things when I start to worry that I'm avoiding them for spurious reasons). I'm not sure when I'd fit it in, in between the other things that fill my time; but I could try, in the same way that I'm forever trying to slide other things into every scrap of interstitial time, trying to fit an hour into the gap between two minutes. I'm just not sure why I'd single out TV rather than something else. It's not a question of "why should I watch TV, given the nature of TV" but "why should I watch TV, when there are so many other things on my list of things to do/see/try/taste". I could say the same of, well, golf.
(I have tried playing golf, once, very briefly. It wasn't much fun, but then I have all the aptitude for ball-games that a dolphin has for cycling. At least TV-watching generally takes place indoors.)
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 09:16 am (UTC)* New series being released, currently Doctor Who and Heroes (though TV is barely necessary for this, it still feels right)
* I've got an evening free, is anything on later? I generally scan for films, and shows I know.
* I'm bored and depressed right now, am I going to get lucky and find something nice on right now? I used to occasionally, but don't really any more.
But I'm still not plugged into whatever pop culture people pick up if they watch TV regularly. And many of my friends actually don't watch TV at all. Picking up interesting tid-bits, and documentaries, and surprisingly good shows I hadn't thought of, as many people described, is well worth it, but I haven't done.
I get the feeling if you wait a few years, you may find TV left behind. I bypassed videos almost entirely. And now think more about downloads and dvds. But, though someone else has probably covered it by now, a brief update of how I understand the current status of TV provision:
* Analogue. Channels 1-4, broadcast by big towers.
* Digital. Planned as a replacement for analogue, also broadcast by big towers, not-new TVs need a cheapish box to decode it. Has the terrestrial channels, and all the extra free channels, bbc3 and bbc3, itv2 and itv3, E4, More4.
* Set-top box. Refers to the previously mentioned boxes (in theory could refer to any extra decoding, but in uk will mean for digital).
* Terrestrial. Literally means not-satellite, but probably used to mean analogue, or analogue and digital.
* Satellite. I think mainly/only from company Sky. Variety of extra paid channels available.
* Cable. Like satellite, but come along cables.
* NTL on demand. One of several combined services appearing -- here I'm definitely behind. But the idea is you have a cable connection, and they have a database of programs, and you can download many when you want them, for free or a small charge, like from the internet, but all the faff is handled by the provided equipment.
So if you have a TV, it's worth having digital, there's a wider variety of stuff, a greater chance of catching what you want.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 09:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 09:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 10:00 am (UTC)You can sometimes convince your satellite decoder to look at other satellites near the Sky one, or stuff on the same satellite that isn't run by Sky.
A few people point their dish at other satellites. Starts getting geeky.
Worth remembering that the FreeSatfromSky(1) has a different channel mix to FreeView
(1) One-off payment to Sky for the dish, box, and installation. You get a good range of free channels. An alternative is to get the dish, box, etc from Lidl (or similar), get somebody to put it up, and buy a 10quid card from the BBC or ITV or... to get the available free channels
no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 01:01 pm (UTC)So if you have a TV, it's worth having digital, there's a wider variety of stuff, a greater chance of catching what you want.
I am deeply suspicious of the idea that I need to get more stuff that I don't watch fed into my (metaphorical) inbox in order to maximise the chances of catching "what I want"... I already have a superfluity of interesting things coming my way, and I think the fear of "missing stuff" is partly responsible for the information overload that a lot of people feel.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 03:45 pm (UTC)Oh, good, thank you! I hoped I wasn't being redundant, superfluous or (god forbid) patronising :)
I am deeply suspicious of the idea that I need to get more stuff that I don't watch fed into my (metaphorical) inbox
Well, as you pointed out, you have everything you need now, you don't have to watch television at all.
Certainly, I expect it can be a problem. But for what it's worth, in my experience as a don't-watch-television-much person, I've found it nice. Though I didn't explain that. Thinking about it:
* Some things are on digital only. Recently a friend persuaded me to watch Life on Mars (policeman trapped in coma is, or thinks he is, transported back in time to the seventies). I probably wouldn't have watched it otherwise, but it was just being shown on BBC3, and I watched most of the second series. For a while, Film4 showed interesting films almost every night, though it seems to have fallen off in quality since.
* If you do want to watch something now, there's a greater choice.
* A few channels are duplicated -- E4+1 shows E4 an hour later, and often BBC1 or 2 shows are repeated or shown earlier on BBC3 or 4, so if there's something you follow, you have a choice when to see it.
* There are some specialised channels -- children's, shopping, etc. I don't watch any, but some people apparently enjoy.
I don't know if tv channels have degraded in program quality. If you could just watch BBC1 and that was decent quality that might be be plenty. People often lament the amount of awful shows on -- but whenever I hear someone older reminiscing, it turns out they always were like that. So I hanker for the golden years when all of BBC1 was worth watching for everyone, but I don't think they ever existed :)
So that's why I think, given that the digital channels exist, it's worth having them available if you want to watch television at all. I don't know whether or not watching television or not is still worth it -- I've wanted to even less since I've started postal-renting DVDs and borrowing box sets. And I don't know to what extent legal or illegal or questionable[1] downloads from the internet can substitute for live tv -- that's a subject everyone else knows about I'd find a guide as basic as the one I gave you about tv useful about :)
[1] If you pay your TV license, I can't remember if it's legal to rip BBC programs, etc.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 05:13 pm (UTC)I didn't mean that it was a problem in and of itself having access to more channels; just that I feel it's solving a problem which I don't have (the problem of "missing stuff" which I might want) and suggesting that I need to watch (or know about) everything to make sure that I don't "miss anything". I don't feel I'm missing anything now. I mean, gazillions of television programmes (and books!) exist without my knowledge; I don't feel I have some kind of duty to find out what they all are. If you see what I mean.
So that's why I think, given that the digital channels exist, it's worth having them available if you want to watch television at all.
I think what I'm finding bizarre is the idea that I might want to "watch television at all" independently of the content. I can imagine wanting to watch $program (not that I ever do for any value of $program) but not just wanting "to watch TV" and having to hope that there's enough TV available to me that some of it will be good.
If you pay your TV license, I can't remember if it's legal to rip BBC programs, etc.
AFAIK, no, it isn't.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-12 01:53 pm (UTC)Oh, I see.
I think what I'm finding bizarre is the idea that I might want to "watch television at all" independently of the content.
Oh, actually, that was just my phrasing. I talked about the idea you might want to do that now, but that wasn't what I meant there -- I just meant, if you did ever want to watch things on TV (probably something specific) then the reasons listed were why I thought it might be worth also having a digibox, but I didn't see anything wrong with never wanting to watch TV at all, in which case you don't want a digibox either.