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IPTV & Video Podcasts vs TV

Posted by MrPowers under IPTV, Internet, Technology

More and more often I find myself watching video content delivered via the Internet over regular old television. There are two main reasons for this:

• A significant decline in quality of television programing
• Content via the Internet is more suited to my taste

I haven’t ever had cable TV during the entire time I lived in Scotland. The first few years of living here I was most disorientated and lost (for others reasons too) without my 60 channels. Instead (at first) I had to settle for 4 channels!! I couldn’t believe it!! Over the years I managed to adapt and learned to appreciate British TV for what it was. Then when I moved to Broughty Ferry in 2003 I had to do with no TV what so ever!!! There was no external antenna and internal ones just plain didn’t work.  How mad was I??!! Well more than words could explain. However a few months later I FINALLY got broadband in the house. This partially made up for it, and bought a lot more DVDs during that period. Suffice to say I was a big TV person in the past.

Then the Web 2.0 revolution happened. In time video podcasts, YouTube, and “less than legal sources of TV shows and movies” fast became a huge hobby of mine. I watch LOST, Family Guy, COPS, Battlestar Gallactica, and a few others but find myself scrambling to download video podcasts a lot quicker than “acquiring” regular television shows. I have found that while I still love a few TV shows, the content from the Internet definelty hits closer to home. Diggnation is probably one of the most well known video podcasts and I would have to say my favorite too! It basically a couple of guys sit on a couch and talk about the top stories from digg.com - simple right? In one sense there’s not too much to the show but it has certainly made for some great entertainment. So I suppose content that really hits home is now preferable to standard TV shows - but I still religiously watch both sets of content equally.

Perhaps in a couple of years time there will be more of a presence of this sort of media, leading to a mass migration to internet based video from “comtastic” video…. or perhaps I am just dreaming. Audio podcasts took off very well but I get the feeling many people (the general public that is, not the creators) haven’t quite adopted video podcasts or IPTV. Perhaps this could be due to the fact that many people have the iPod shuffle or similar device that doesn’t display video, or watching video on the move isn’t as convenient as audio is. Either way I will always be on the look out for new video content.

Lastly I leave you with one of my favorite Diggnation clips…