Vision for the Future of TV

[Mike]

Live streamed TV from the internet to your main TV ON DEMAND.

This is digital TV with all your normal channels of programmed entertainment but with a difference. You pay a subscription to have on demand programs to suit your tastes. For example if you like Scrubs then you would start on the series 1 episode 1 and then each time you want to watch Scrubs it takes the next episode.

This would stop the usual disjointed watching of TV series because you are busy one day or have to skip a couple of episodes etc for your normal and more exciting social life. :D

[Fez]

presumably this is for people stumped by the workings of a video recorder?

[Mike]

Nope this is for the people who want to watch a vast number of films etc without the hastle of having to buy loads of films on formats which regularly go out of style. VHS is going out now, the DVD will be toasted in about 10 years or so and they will be trying to convince us to buy Scarface on HD or Blueray.

Its like renting films and programs without having to leave your house or wait for the post. We have to think of something to do with the ever increasing bandwidth of the internet.

[BarcelonAl]

I like the idea of on-demand tv, especially as it could be programmed to 'learn' the types of programme you like or hate and give you more choices to things you might not even have considered before (kinda like Amazons' recommendations page).

[mr_e]

It's a great idea, as long as they don't over-price it as per iTunes (whatever anyone says, 99p per track is utterly ridiculous).

If they had a recommendations system, that would be most interesting. Depending on how much information you chose to give them, they could do it based on what other people who like the same stuff watch, or get more sophisticated and match it with similar age groups, etc (or even have something bizarre like the Mii thingies for your friends).

[BarcelonAl]

It could be expanded to be like a social network type of thing...

[Mike]

It's a great idea, as long as they don't over-price it as per iTunes (whatever anyone says, 99p per track is utterly ridiculous).

iTunes is also overpriced as you are getting a lower bit rate for the price of buying the tracks on CD. Personally I don't bother to buy from iTunes ever.

I think that the main problem is the pricing structure. It would have to be a subscription service. But I would quite happilly pay £20-£30 per month for the service if it was to replace the Sky TV we have at the moment.

[Mike]

BBC and ITV have joined forces to give us FreeSat that is similar to freeview but you have a satellite dish and receiver (not sky branded though). So far you can get 80 free channels that is expected to increase to 200 by the end of the year. Not only that but pay on demand services such as the movie channel box offices etc should be coming soon. It is supposed to be a direct challenge to Sky which, lets be honest, is the market monopoly!