How to connect PC to TV to watch online videos, movies etc

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This is a basic introductory tutorial guide for non-technical beginners on how to connect your computer to your TV and watch shows from the internet on your TV - eg BBC iPlayer, 4od (4 on demand) and other TV programme episodes and films - whether you stream them in real time over the internet (which means you have to maintain your internet connection to watch it), or you download the file to your PC and later play back your downloaded video (which means you can watch the downloaded video while you're not connected to the internet). This is Windows only, sorry, I don't do Macs; some parts of this post may work for Macs though.

What kind of TV? These instructions should work perfectly well even with older non-digital TVs, as long as it has the right connectors (see below). You don't need to have a high definition HDTV, though the quality will probably be better if you do.

Why do all this? Well, watching internet video on demand, like movies or TV programmes, is much more comfy and sociable (and maybe better for the eyes?) if you watch them on your big screen TV, leaning back on your sofa, rather than huddling around a computer monitor screen. Better still if you have a high def TV.

What's there to watch? You're likely to want to do this more and more, now that we in the UK have BBC iPlayer, 4od (4 on demand), Demand Five, ITV Player, SkyPlayer and the like, so that you can catch up on missed TV episodes or even see new series online.

Services consolidating different TV channels include SeeSaw (on demand TV programmes from the BBC, Channel 4, Five and more, both free and paid). Outfits like LoveFilm, recently acquired by Amazon, are increasingly allowing online renting of downloaded movies (the lucky Americans have NetFlix). 4od also allow you to rent some films online.

YouTube can also be fun on a television, and there's also free internet TV like FreeTube and other online TV sites.

1. Basic outline

The basic steps are:

1. connect your PC to your TV - this depends on what connections you have on your PC and what you have on your TV. You need to get the right cable to hook 'em up; and you may need more than one cable
2. set up your PC to let you watch video from your computer on your TV set
3. switch your TV to the right inputs so it'll show stuff from your computer, and start the video playing on your computer
4. (optional but recommended) get something to control your PC remotely so you can pause, rewind etc from your couch!

Monitor vs TV. Your Windows computer (sorry, I'm not a Mac fan) can output video images to more than one screen at the same time. So you can leave your PC connected to both your regular monitor and your TV. You don't need to switch between them. (In fact, if your video card has several video output ports, you can use more than one monitor at the same time too.)

Sound. You probably want your TV both to show pics and play sounds from your online or downloaded video. What you need in order to do that depends on the connection between TV and PC. There's a veritable alphabet soup of possible connector types, from DVI and VGA to HDMI, component video, S-Video and for older TVs composite video.

Only HDMI to HDMI connections carry both video and audio signals in the same cable. Other types of connections (eg S-Video out to composite video in) will require you to get, and hook up, two sets of cables, one for the video, and a separate cable to carry the audio. (Unless of course you're happy for the sound to come out of your computer speakers only. But, you'll still need to get at least one cable for the video image signals.)

What you need. The PC you use for this has to be physically close enough to your TV that you can connect them with cables without causing you or others in your home to trip over them! In my home they're in the same room, but one of the cables I use is 5 m long, just to skirt the walls.

You also need the right cables, discussed below.

There are wireless options which let you watch video from your PC on your TV, but they're expensive. We're talking hundreds of pounds. I won't cover those here.

2. How to connect PC to TV

I was going to do a guide on how to hook up the output (video and audio) from your computer to the inputs on your TV, but others have already done it well, so links are included below.

Microsoft have a basic guide - expand the options for the full info. There's a more detailed guide with photos of the connectors too, for 2 monitors rather than a TV but the principles are the same.

Even better, Lovefilm UK have produced a nice tool to check the outputs on your PC and inputs on your TV, with pics of what the different types of connectors should look like.

Take a look at what's at the back of your computer and back of your TV (check out the side of the TV too, in the case of some older types of connectors). On the Lovefilm page, scroll down till you see their Step 1 and Step 2. Under their Step 1, first click on the diagram representing what the spare connector/port on your computer looks like (you may have more than one, eg both DVI and S-Video, in which case you could try each one separately), and then under Step 2 click on the pic which looks like the connector you have on your TV. Their guide will suggest (under Step 3) what type of cable(s) and adapter(s) and/or converters you need to buy. It even shows if you need to get separate cables for both audio and video. Here's an example where DVI was selected for the computer, and VGA for the TV.

Be warned though, their "Buy it now" buttons just do basic searches on Amazon, and you should doublecheck the search results for yourself just to make sure that eg it's an "A out" to "B in" cable, and not a "B out" to "A in" cable (where A is the connector on your PC, and B is the one on your TV). Directionality can matter.

If you don't have any of the connectors shown, eg because you have a very old TV, then, sorry, you're out of luck. See Alternatives, at the end of this post.

Audio splitter. If you need a separate audio cable to connect your computer's audio out (eg from your PC's speaker socket) to your TV, you may want to buy a splitter (like this 3.5mm speaker and headphone Splitter). You don't want to keep unplugging and swapping cables, believe me - wear and tear, inconvenience - and splitters aren't expensive.

With most computers, the kind of splitter you'll need is a splitter for a stereo mini-jack socket, so a headphone or speaker splitter will do. Splitter goes into your PC audio out, plug your speakers into one part of the splitter, your new audio cable into the other part, and then you can get sound to both your normal computer speakers and TV.

My guide to connecting set-top boxes or other AV kit to your TV may also be of general use to those unfamiliar with hooking up gear to TV sets.

3. How to set up your Windows computer to see online video

Once you've bought the right cables, hook everything up. Best do that after switching off both PC and TV, just in case.

Now, you have to set up your computer to handle both your normal monitor and your TV properly. So turn 'em both back on.

Display settings. Open up your display settings. Depending on your version of Windows, there are different ways to get to your display settings (see Microsoft's instructions for XP and for Windows 7 and Vista (or for the latter rightclick a blank area on your desktop, click Personalize and then Display Settings).

My display settings on Vista look like this:

What the two rectangles represent are your normal monitor and your TV. Probably your usual monitor will be labelled no. 1, and your TV no. 2. You can check which is which by clicking the "Identify monitors" button, which will display a big 1 on the screen that's represented as no. 1, and a big 2 on the other screen.

Positioning. You can click on either rectangle labelled 1 or 2, and drag it sideways to swap positions. I recommend that you position 1 and 2 to reflect the physical location of your monitor and TV in real life, otherwise things could get confusing. So, if in your room your monitor is on the left and your TV is to the right of the monitor (even if it's a long way off to the right), it's best have no. 1 (your PC monitor) on the left of the display settings view, and no. 2 on the right.

You next have to set things up on your PC so that it deals correctly with your TV, which is treated as an extra monitor as you can see.

Extend your desktop. In the display settings, click on the rectangle that represents your TV, ie no. 2. Make sure that "Extend the desktop onto this monitor" is ticked, then click OK.

After you've done this, you'll be able to use both monitor and TV at the same time. If you move your mouse over to the right (in my case - it may be left depending on your setup), you'll find that it disappears off your computer monitor and (provided you've switched your TV to display what's on your computer, covered below) reappears on your TV. Even if your TV is switched off or you've not set it to display your computer video, your mouse can disappear off the edge of your normal monitor. Just move it back. You have been warned!

Colours. If the colours look all weird on your TV, in your Display Settings click on the rectangle for your TV first, then try setting the Colors dropdown to Medium (16 bit) instead of Highest (32 bit). Or vice versa. Then OK it. And see if that improves things. Depending on your TV set, medium can actually be better than Highest.

Other tweaks. Having selected no. 2 for your TV, you can also:

• click Advanced Settings (bottom right), then the Monitor tab, then under Monitor Settings click the Screen refresh rate dropdown and see if a higher setting is available. The bigger the number for the refresh rate, the less the flicker, and the better for your eyes - so you want to pick the highest refresh rate your TV can provide. The example below isn't much!
  
  
  
• experiment with changing the Resolution slider to see if it makes a difference. On my TV, I got the best results from Low.

If you have problems, try the Microsoft suggestions for troubleshooting multiple monitors etc, for Vista and Windows 7 (audio/video issues, black screen).

4. How to watch video from your PC on your TV

Now that you've set everything up, you can play videos or movies on your computer, and watch and hear it on your TV.

The steps, in summary, are:

1. set your TV to display the right input (ie what's coming out from your PC, rather than from your set-top box or DVD player etc)
2. find the video you want to watch in your browser or Windows Media Player window
3. move that window to your TV
4. (recommended) put the player on Full Screen setting
5. click the Play button!

4.1 Input

To do this, switch your TV to the correct input (see further my post on connecting AV equipment to your TV) so that your TV will display what's on your computer. Basically, just keep pressing and releasing the AV button on your remote control until you can see your computer's desktop background on your TV - it's the button you might use to cycle between TV and DVD or VHS, etc. (To get your normal TV back, just keep pressing and releasing the AV button again till you get to what you want.)

4.2 Find your video

Now, either you'll stream video live over the internet, as with YouTube, or you'll download a movie or video (eg from BBC iPlayer) and then play it in (probably) BBC iPlayer or other media player software. (With iPlayer you have choice, you can either watch it online, or download it - which takes a while - and watch it later.)

With online streaming video, you'd normally use your web browser (eg Internet Explorer, Firefox) to go to the site you want, then find and click on the programme you want to play, and watch it in your browser.

With a previously downloaded show, as with iPlayer, you'd launch the iPlayer programme, or (as with some other video) you'd launch Windows Media Player or other video player, and watch the video in there; so go ahead and open the downloaded movie or video that you want to watch.

4.3 Move the window to your TV screen

You now need to drag the window in which the video is to play (whether it's Internet Explorer or Windows Media Player etc), sideways from your monitor to your TV. This surprised a non-technical friend, so I am spelling it out.

You literally move the window of your browser or Windows Media Player etc (click in the window's top blue title bar, hold down the mouse, and drag it) - sideways, until you can see the window on your TV. I drag it to the right in my case, because my no. 2 screen is set up to be on the right in my Display Settings; if your no. 2 is on the left, then drag it to the left.

You may not see the window on your monitor anymore, as it'll go off that screen, but at some point the window will appear on your TV.

What if your window won't move? Make sure that the window has not been maximised. The top right hand bit of the window should look like this, with a single square in the middle button:

If instead it shows two overlapping squares in the middle button, like this:

- then you need to click that button (with the overlapping squares) to "Restore" the window (so it shows the single square), and then you should be able to move the window. It'll probably shrink a bit too - just drag the bottom right corner to resize it.

Now, you'll find that what fits on your monitor screen may not fit on your TV screen, depending on what TV and monitor you have. So you need to resize the window to the size that fits best on your TV.

Once you've figured out and set the right size for (say) your browser window, if you click on the Restore button in future, it should automatically remember the size you set it to last time. I normally use my browser maximised for the web, and for playing iPlayer I hit the Restore button.

Tip: you don't need to resize the window so that it fits exactly on your TV screen, as long as you use full screen (covered below). You can actually make the window bigger (so you can see stuff within the window better), in fact you could even have the window partway across, so that part of the window is displayed on your monitor, and part of it on your TV screen. As long as more of the window is on the TV screen than on your monitor, you'll be OK.

4.5 Go full screen!

After you've got most of your browser or player window showing on your TV, I highly recommend that you to click the Full Screen button, usually at the far right of the controls underneath the video. Hover over that icon and it should popup with a "Full screen" label - see the BBC iPlayer example at the top of this post, and the 5 Demand example below. (If you can't see the controls, try moving your mouse over the video.)

You may have to scroll in the window down and sideways in order to be able to see that icon, as things which fit on your monitor may not fit as well on your TV, depending on what TV you have. But that doesn't matter - once you've clicked the Full Screen button the picture should automatically expand to fill the whole of your TV screen, even if only part of the window was visible on your TV before. (If your window isn't far over enough on your TV, it will fill the monitor screen rather than TV, which is why I said before that you need to have more of the window showing on the TV than the monitor.)

So, before you move your browser or player window sideways to your TV, the trick is to scroll the window down and sideways in advance, so that the full screen icon is visible on the left (in my case) of the browser window, before you move the window across. Obviously, you want it positioned so you can see it and click on it on the TV screen.

Can't see the full screen icon? With some channels, eg Demand 5, even the controls themselves aren't visible initially - you first need to click the big Play icon (large right arrow, at the bottom left of the video), and perhaps confirm you're over 16, before you can see the controls and click the full screen icon. You could do that before you start moving the window across to your TV, it's fine to have the video playing as you move the window. Even with the other channels, you could start the video playing before you move the window.

Nothing happens when you click the full screen icon? With other channels eg BBC iPlayer, you may find that the full screen icon is greyed out and nothing happens when you click on it. You have to start playing the video first, before the full screen button becomes clickable.

Bottom line, if you can't see the full screen icon, just start the video playing first by clicking on it (or at the bottom left of it, for Demand 5 - not a good idea in my view, for all the others you just click on the video picture itself). If you can't see the controls, waggle your mouse over the playing video.

4.6 Miscellaneous

Controls. As mentioned before, if you move your mouse over the picture, the controls will become visible so that you can click to pause, rewind etc. Personally, after starting the video playing, I then park the mouse pointer at the bottom right corner of the TV screen so I can find it again easily to pause etc.

Pop-out? Some channels offer a pop-out button which you can click to play the video in a separate window. This is not the same as full screen view, and in my experience isn't as good, but try it if you want - whatever works for your own setup.

Screensaver. If you have a screensaver on your PC or set it to turn off your monitor after X minutes, remember to disable it before you start watching, or else your TV screen may suddenly go blank or screensavery! Wiggling the mouse sorts that, of course, but still… And remember to enable your screensaver or power saver again after you've finished watching.

ITV Player issue - ITV is the only one of the main UK channels whose full screen view just doesn't work properly, on my TV at least. Whatever settings I try, part of the picture always gets cut off on the TV in "full screen" view. So, with ITV Player, I have to grit my teeth, tweak the browser window to make the video as big as possible while still fitting completely within my TV screen, and then watch it NOT in full screen view.

Lost your window? When you've finished, don't forget to drag the window back to your normal monitor before you turn off your TV.

If you forgot to do that, you can still get your browser or player window back onto your monitor. In your taskbar at the bottom of your monitor screen, there should still be an icon or rectangle representing that window (and other open programs). Just rightclick it that icon the taskbar, click Move, then hold down your left arrow key on your keyboard (in my case, it might be right in yours) to move the window back to your monitor! Hit the Esc key when it's back to where you want it.

Subtitles. The S button in the BBC iPlayer controls turns on subtitling. Not all programmes have subtitles though.

And most non-BBC channels don't provide subtitles yet. They should.

5. How to control videos on your PC remotely

You can use your computer keyboard and mouse to start, pause, rewind, etc an online or downloaded video or film, but it can be a pain getting up from your sofa just to do that.

I'll be posting reviews in future of relatively inexpensive kit you can get to control your video from the comfort of your couch - basically, wireless ways to control your computer.

The sound can be controlled using the volume controls on your TV remote in the usual way.

6. Bandwidth!

Downloading movies or watching them live eats up a lot of bandwith. If there's a monthly maximum cap on your broadband internet plan, you may find you hit it and it may get expensive for you to be charged for the extra. You may even want to change plans.

Just to give you an idea, before I started using iPlayer, Demand 5 etc in earnest, I used a total of maybe 7 GB max a month, and that's including both uploads and downloads. Now, I average about 50 or 60 GB a month in total! (I use the excellent free Netmeter to keep track of my broadband usage, by the way.)

7. Alternatives?

You can get dedicated set-top boxes to show videos or movies from the internet on your TV, whether streamed in real time over the internet to watch online, or downloaded and saved on the box for watching offline. These might just need a connection to your router (which could be over wi-fi) and of course to your TV.

Lots of companies are getting in on the act here, if they haven't already, eg the D-Link Boxee Box Digital Media Player, or Apple TV (including film rentals over the internet), with related things like Google TV…

There's also the Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center 1TB, which stores as well as plays music, video and other media - I'll be posting a review about it soon.

Or some might want to wait for the YouView Freeview box (formerly Project Canvas) which the BBC and others are working on, called "a new subscription-free internet-connected TV service for the UK", including old programmes, with the ability to record too. It's set for an early 2012 consumer launch, so the latest news goes.

Funny subtitles

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It must be tough for those people who have to subtitle TV programmes, especially at speed.

Here's a great example of a clear slip of the subtitling finger, which made me laugh. Or rather, titter.

Seesaw online TV: review - "TV on demand" will take off

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Seesaw from Arqiva is a new video on demand (or VOD) service which lets you watch previously-transmitted TV programmes from (currently) the BBC, Channel 4 (4od) and Five, streamed over the internet to your computer. You can't download anything, it's streaming-only.

Unlike BBC iPlayer and similar offerings from other channels, it isn't restricted to "catchup TV" for recent shows - it went live with over 3000 hours of content, mostly archive TV from the last decade, so there's a wide selection of programmes you can view on demand, from The Apprentice and Little Britain to White Teeth, even past series of Doctor Who from certain years:

No account or login is required. It's free, funded by ads (can't skip, can pause) - note there are ads even for the BBC programmes you watch via Seesaw because the commercial arm of the BBC, BBC Worldwide, did a deal with Seesaw.

If you click on the picture while an ad is playing, it'll pause the playback and open another tab to take you to the website of the advertiser, which is a nice touch. You can easily go back to the previous tab and resume playing.

Seesaw's service is still in beta currently so don't expect perfection, but it does pretty much what it says on the tin. It can be jerky of sound and pic though, depending on the time of day - when lots of people are on the Net, it's not very good, but it's the same with other VOD services like iPlayer.

You don't have to download any software or login, but it's designed only for Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari on Windows or Mac computers (but from my testing Chrome in Windows works fine, though Opera doesn't).

It's certainly convenient to be able to search several channels' programmes in one place, in case you can't remember which channel broadcast a particular programme you missed.

In terms of content, although Press Association releases say that Seesaw have deals with "independent production companies who produce content for ITV", there's no ITV channel listing. So I'm not sure about ITV content. If they could get all the main free-to-view UK channels or indeed other channels on board too, Seesaw will be one to watch, pardon the pun.

Other similar free online TV services have more channels, on the non-UK front anyway (see my FreeTube free online TV review).

Finding programmes to watch, and watching

As you'd expect you can view by Channel (e.g. just BBC programmes). Or you can view by Category (Comedy, Drama, Factual, Lifestyle, Entertainment, Sport - dunno why it's not alphabetical).

Within each view, certain shows are automatically Featured, but you can browse programme titles alphabetically:

Alternatively you can search, and it cleverly offers suggested titles in a dropdown as you search:

But it doesn't offer searching by name of actor, programme description etc. Hopefully that'll come?

It shows all episodes for the year for a given series and you just click the name of the episode you want to see, then click on the picture to start it playing.

It will "turn the lights down" to heighten the viewing experience. But you can always turn the lights back up:

The controls are as you'd expect to pause, fast forward/rewind with the slider (except during ads), turn subtitles on or off, mute, volume up or down, etc:

And there's a full screen option (Esc to exit):

For trivia buffs

Seesaw uses the technology produced by the ill-fated Project Kangaroo, started up between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 to set up a joint video on demand service.

Kangaroo was killed off when commercial broadcasters objected and the Competition Commission said No, so Seesaw's parent company Arqiva bought Kangaroo's assets for £8 million in 2009.

Any points to note?

I've mentioned above it works on common browsers on most computers.

It seems to slow down my computer a lot but that could be a coincidence.

Also, there's a bug in that in Internet Explorer 8 (but not Firefox). If you go to full screen view then back to normal size, the controls move downwards "below" the picture so you can't get at anything except the Pause icon; clicking to start the show playing again fixes it, but obviously then you have to watch it again from scratch:

Seesaw's terms say you can only use Seesaw if you're a UK "natural person (i.e. not a company or another business entity)" over 16. So non-UK people can't use Seesaw, though I don't know how they'd detect geospoofing which is pretty easy to do these days.

• Aside: I've never known a company that could watch TV or surf to a site, except through the medium of a human being, so I don't see the point of banning companies. Do they mean, you can't use it through a company internet connection, or at work or college? If so, why don't they say so? But then I'm weird like that, I actually like to look at Terms and Privacy policies.

Their use of "High, Medium, Low" in the controls (only visible when you first start playback) might confuse some. That's to do with the speed of your Net connection, if you've got a fast internet connection pick High, else pick Medium or Low. I think they should use "My internet connection is: High speed Broadband, Normal broadband, Dial-Up" instead. At least they will provide a warning if you ought to switch to a lower bandwidth option.

There's the usual "Not suitable for under 18" type of age verification which is easy to just click on:

But they do offer a form of parental control, again probably not too tough for kids these days to get round.

The future?

In future, Seesaw intend to offer premium content which must be paid for, e.g. high profile US dramas.

AP quotes Seesaw's controller John Keeling as saying:

"This way of watching television will be on TVs from this year. One of the fastest selling electronic goods is an HDMI cable which connects a laptop to the back of the TV and bingo, you're online and your TV has become an enormous monitor for your laptop."

I think he's right. As I said in my iPlayer review, if you can hook up your computer to your TV, obviously that'll be much more friendly on the eyes and family in terms of watching stuff. Some computers can be connected directly, some need converters. It's easier to do now than it was. If there's demand for a howto blog post on this, please let me know in a comment.

However broadband speeds, or perhaps Seesaw speeds, do need to be a lot faster, more reliable and less jerky if consumers are going to migrate to watching TV over the internet; otherwise, it can be too painful.

I like the semi-interactive feature where you can click on an ad that's showing, to go to the advertiser's webpage. Now that following a consultation last year the UK will be allowing product placement on most TV programmes (to help commercial broadcasters whose revenues are suffering in the downturn), there's scope for Seesaw to set it up so that a viewer can click on the image of the product to go to the webpage for that product!

I must admit I've gone to As Seen On TV before because I really liked a jacket or whatever that I'd seen on a TV show, but I've never been able to find the item I wanted. While on the one hand one doesn't want to condone blatant commercialisation of everything, there's still room to do this sort of "click to buy" thing and stay on the right side of the line.

I predict it'll be coming on YouTube, anyway. Convergence, here we come!

(First heard of via the IAB ).

TV ads: no more to deafen?

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Sick of having to turn the TV volume down when ads come on, and then back up when the programme proper starts again? From a viewer / consumer perspective, being virtually deafened by a sudden blast of too-loud sound when the ad break starts is very annoying, to say the least. Well, if you're in the UK, you're in luck.

Following a consultation by the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) last year, from 7 July 2008 UK television advertisements will have their sound levels regulated under a change in the Broadcasting TV Advertising Standards Code rule 6.9 so that effectively they can't be objectively or subjectively louder than the average volume of the programme they're in or indeed neighbouring ads in the same ad break. The new rule:

Advertisements must not be excessively noisy or strident. The maximum subjective loudness of advertisements must be consistent and in line with the maximum loudness of programmes and junction material.

Surely sensible advertisers won't have a problem with that. Irritating your target audience can't be good marketing / advertising practice: blaring ads may well grab the attention, but not exactly in a positive way.

Yay to the change, I say! Now if only they'd also stop compressing the background music during telly programmes too. Such as the bits of CSI when they're microscoping away in the lab and the like - the background music's often too loud there, I have to turn it down and then back up again to hear the dialogue properly. I don't treat CSI as a music video substitute, if I wanted to listen to a music video I wouldn't be watching CSI. /grumble.

Seriously, if there was a gizmo to similarly regulate the sound during TV programmes (especially many American ones, where misguided attempts at supplying realistic background noise often result in the actors' speech being drowned out), I'd gladly buy one. Maybe I'm just getting old...

Tags: broadcasting, television, sound, noise, consumer issues, viewer issues, Improbulus, A Consuming Experience

Email stress: want to be on the BBC?

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I notice BBC Two's Money Programme are asking people to email or phone in their email horror stories. So I guess the BBC must be planning a programme on all manner of email problems, as they're asking questions like:

• Been fired by email?
• Replied to all by mistake?
• Wish people would stop cc'ing you in?
• So fed up, you've declared email bankruptcy?

I guess if you email or phone them with your email stories you might even get featured on TV, for your obligatory few minutes of fame, if you're after that sort of thing.

In fact if you have funny email stories, I'd love to hear them too. I'm more than happy to feature the top submissions (which I pick, of course, hey I ought to get to be lady & mistress of m' own blog!) here on ACE - with of course a link back to the blogs of the top submitters. Let's see if this garners more entries than the guess the girl geek one did, or indeed the (only slightly tongue in cheek) mobileCamp one.

Of course, you may prefer to submit your stories to the BBC. Thass OK, I can live with that, being on the telly may be a somewhat greater attraction for most people! I just hope the programme doesn't turn out to be an over-general "email-bashing for the sake of it" type of thing.

And yes I confess, I've sent emails to the wrong people before, darn Outlook Address Book. Luckily there's been nothing too embarrassing. So far. I really ought to look at all the addresses very carefully before I hit Send...

Tags: e-mail, e mail, television, fame, The Money Programme, Money Programme, Improbulus, A Consuming Experience

iPlayer: BBC on Macs, DRM, bandwidth, non-UK access

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The BBC are clearly going into PR mode on their planned "iPlayer", which term in fact covers all sorts of things but is generally thought of as "7 day catchup TV" - i.e. downloading BBC programmes within 7 days after transmission (for more on iPlayer see my detailed iPlayer overview, so accurate that the Man from Auntie thought it was written by a BBC insider and banned my innocuous iPlayer videos from YouTube!).

Maybe it's just been put up, or maybe I missed it earlier, but I've just noticed that the main public iPlayer beta webpage has been updated with statements by the Beeb headed "Important issues regarding BBC iPlayer" on several controversial matters that have dogged iPlayer:

• Platform neutrality - the compatibility (or rather not) of initial versions of iPlayer with Mac, Linux and Windows Vista computers - including some timelines for other platforms. Lots of people have lobbied about this.
  
• DRM - the imposition of digital rights management (DRM) on downloaded video files, which tightly limits playing in terms of time, and also restricts copying - the BBC have even produced an interactive video about Digital Rights Management and Registration as part of their BBC Webwise Guide to Broadband, using a library loans analogy for downloaded videos - as in "borrowing" TV programs!
  
• Bandwidth and broadband costs - the use of peer to peer filesharing methods for distributing iPlayer downloads, which means your computer can be used to help deliver downloads to other users, thus eating into your bandwidth allowance with your ISP. ISPs have been making noise about the increased costs. The BBC have produced yet another video, about P2P!
  
• UK only - the restriction of access to iPlayer downloads only to computers which appear to originate in the UK i.e. have a UK IP address, via geo-IP technology. Not in fact hard to get round for non-UK users if you know how, but I say no more on that.
  

Whether you agree or disagree, whether you think the BBC's justifications are valid enough or not, is up to you - but I think it's interesting that there's clearly been enough fuss kicked up about all this that the BBC have felt it necessary to post up a "defence" of their position.

Platform neutrality (support for Mac, Linux etc) and digital rights management

I think platform support and DRM are related. Were there no "requirement" for DRM, it would be simple to offer downloadable files that could be played on any computer operating system, Mac, Linux, mobile phones and PDAs etc.

If - and that's the big if - it really really truly is impossible to offer BBC program downloads without DRM, then I have sympathy for "rollout on Windows first, then other platforms later", rather than wait till it's perfected on all platforms before making it available to anyone at all. Most software tends to be developed for one platform then extended to others gradually so to me the statistics make sense, most people are on Windows, as long as it's available on other platforms within a reasonable timescale I see no problem with providing a Windows version first. If DRM really is essential, as I said.

Is DRM essential? There's the rub. The owners of rights to many of the programmes shown on the BBC claim it is. Many, including me, would argue that the insistence on DRM is misguided. DRM is the worst of both worlds - it unnecessarily inconveniences ordinary consumers like you & me, without actually stopping organised crime from mass pirating all the films, movies and TV programmes that they like. It's really not that difficult for those with the resources and determination to pirate BBC programmes anyway. If we can video a programme with our VCR, keep and rewatch the video for as long as we like, and even lend the video to a friend, why can't we do the same with downloaded programmes?

There's another point here. The BBC don't own the rights to many of the programmes they show, but they do own the rights to many of the programmes they themselves make. They could have led the way here by offering non-DRM downloads of their own programmes. Also, they have huge bargaining power - why couldn't they have had the courage to use their clout to insist to the rights holders that iPlayer downloads must be without DRM? Their satellite feeds are unencrypted, for instance, so they were clearly able to get that through.

We shall see how this plays out, but I'm not optimistic. It's widely known that the BBC have had meetings with anti-DRM groups etc, but I fear it may be lip service, seeism and self-justification more than a genuine attempt to investigate the true merits and risks of non-DRM downloads.

Bandwidth and P2P

One issue here in terms of the ISPs is booking downloads in advance. This ability was present with the iPlayer's predecessor the BBC iMP (iMP key issues, tips and tricks, and initial views on iMP).

But it was taken away from iPlayer because the BBC Trust inexplicably agreed with the view of commercial broadcasters who, during the iPlayer consultation, claimed that, as the iPlayer request for approval from the BBC executive did not explicitly spell out advance booking of downloads, it should not be allowed as part of the approval. Well the formal request didn't spell out the provision of subtitles either, why didn't the Trust ban that too?

It's disingenuous and obviously self-serving for commercial broadcasters, who would probably like to scupper iPlayer and reduce competition for their own services, to try to kill a feature which would have enabled the ISPs to work out in advance where the peaks would be, and to balance out the load on their servers. And the ISPs, I speculate, would have been less likely to cause a stink about bandwidth and costs if there had been a bookings feature. I hope the Trust will reconsider and permit bookings ASAP. (I also disagree totally with their decision to ban non-DRM audio downloads of classical music and full book readings. But that's another matter.)

Tags: BBC, BBC Trust, iPlayer, BBC iPlayer, MyBBCPlayer, iMP, BBC iMP, BBC TV Test, VOD, video on demand, video-on-demand, IPTV, internet TV, internet television, catchup TV, catch up TV, catch-up TV, TV catchup, P2P, peer to peer filesharing, convergence, media, internet, consumer, Mac, Macs, Linux, DRM, digital rights management, P2P, peer to peer, peer-to-peer, ISPs, Improbulus, A Consuming Experience

One for All URC 7555 review, & how to choose a universal remote control

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One For All Universal 5 in 1 Stealth TV/DVD/SAT/AMP/VCR Remote Control
(pic above from the One for All website, for review purposes only)

This post is:

• a review of Universal Electronics' One for All universal remote control URC 7555 aka One For All Universal 5 in 1 Stealth TV/DVD/SAT/AMP/VCR Remote Control (or One for All 5), plus
• a basic howto buying guide with general tips on what to look for when choosing a multi-function remote control.

The quickie

If you're after a single multifunctional remote control to control all your audiovisual gear - TV, DVD, Freeview, satellite etc - One for All's range is a good bet, given that URCs are one of their core product lines and they clearly try to provide decent customer support. The 7555 (One For All Universal 5 in 1 Stealth TV/DVD/SAT/AMP/VCR Remote Control) at under £30 (including postage) is superb value for money if you're happy with a (relatively) basic infrared URC which still has learning and macro capabilities.

I didn't bother with Philips URCs because I didn't think much of their website (in terms of helping potential customers find the info they want to know) or their pre-sales customer email support. Logitech also have a good reputation for their URCs but their price point was a bit more than I was prepared to pay for what I felt I needed.

The long and slow

What's a universal remote control?

For those not familiar with URCs, a universal remote control is a single remote to replace all the several remote controls for your audio-visual (AV) devices like television, satellite or cable receiver, Freeview box, DVD, VCR, home cinema amplifier and other set top boxes (STBs). (For anyone interested: basics of how to connect up audiovisual gear). They're also known as multifunction remote controls, multi-function remote controls, multi-functional remote controls, you get the drift...

Their purpose is obvious - for not very much money (depending on which one you buy), you can save space and stop fumbling around swapping remote controls when watching television or home theatre. Plus, if members of your household tend to fight for the remote, well they can have one of their own!

The downside is, if you lose your single URC down the back of the sofa you'd better have your original remotes somewhere where you can still find them. Or buy another URC.

Criteria - what to consider when picking a universal remote control

Before buying new gear, generally you should of course first figure out what's important to you (though good decision making rules say you shouldn't spend too long pondering, if you want to make the best choice). To me, it doesn't matter how cheap or expensive the gadget is - I still try to work out what would be best for my situation.

Below is the list of criteria I used to choose my URC, which I hope will be of help to others considering how to buy a universal remote control. Your own mileage may vary, of course - I finally decided on the One for All 7555 (One For All Universal 5 in 1 Stealth TV/DVD/SAT/AMP/VCR Remote Control), which I got via Amazon UK, based on my own personal setup and requirements.

What range of equipment does it support?

My main requirement was that the URC had to work properly with my beloved Topfield 5800 PVR. You probably have other key equipment which you need to make sure any universal remote control you buy will work with, too.

Most URCs claim compatibility with all "common" or "standard" audio visual kit. If you've got any non-household name gear you consider essential, you might want to doublecheck, if possible, for the specific brand and model - e.g. with less common make or models like the Toppy.

How many devices can it control?

Also, I needed a remote that could control several AV devices - TV, Toppy, old Panasonic hard disk cum DVD-RAM recorder (largely superseded by the Topfield, but I use it to play DVDs), old VCR in case I need it - with a little room for expansion should I get more gear (I've been eyeing BT Vision for a while).

So I thought a URC which could handle 5 devices would be about right. Some may want one that controls just 2 or 3; others, with full-blown home theater systems, maybe a dozen!

How many buttons does it have and what are they?

If a remote you want to replace bristles with enough buttons for the twenty-fingered, a URC with just 10 keys won't do much except frustrate you - unless it's one of those fancy cost-the-earth ones with touch-sensitive screen where the same key or location can serve multiple functions, all nicely labelled with programmable LCDs which name the buttons differently depending on the selected device / mode.

Most URCs come with a basic set of standard buttons which do what you'd expect e.g. volume up and down, channel / programme up and down, numbered buttons, mute, play, stop, pause, fast forward / rewind, red, yellow, blue keys etc etc.

Some have extra buttons or keys on top of that, which can be programmed or assigned other functions (see learning, below) - the question is, how many of those extra keys do you need?

If you don't have many devices or many buttons on your existing remotes (or indeed even if you do, but you don't use most of those keys), a basic URC may be good enough. But if there are many buttons you regularly use, you'll probably need a URC with lots more extra buttons (maybe on a shifted basis, see below) or programmable keys to which you can assign the special functions that you use the most.

The Toppy remote has quite a few buttons so I had to be sure to get a URC with enough keys for my needs. But forking out for a top of the line touchscreen remote just wasn't worth doing, for me.

Is it programmable, how easily, can you get a key or button to "learn" a function from your existing remote?

I chose the 7555 not just because it supports the Toppy, but because of its "learning" feature (IR code learning).

You can basically get any key on the 7555 (except a few reserved ones) to work the same as any key on the original remote control - it "learns" to do the same thing - just by pointing them at each other, doing a few keypresses on the 7555 and then pressing the original key whose function you want to copy, in order to beam the correct infrared signal over from the original remote for the URC to "memorise". Very clever.

Plus, the same key can be made to learn different functions in different modes (such as TV, or DVD). E.g. in TV mode you might assign screen aspect change to button X, but in VCR mode you could use button X to get slow motion playback.

The 7555 also has "shifted" learning. This simply means that the same button can be made to learn two different commands, one triggered when you just press the button, the other triggered when you press a special key first (called the Magic button by One for All) and then press the button. So, you can have twice the number of separate commands as you have available keys.

The manual says the 7555 can learn 25-40 commands; I've not needed that many so far!

How easy is it to keep track of what button does what? Can you be bothered to keep track yourself?

This is related to the number and complexity of your devices, and how many extra functions you assign to the "spare" buttons on the URC.

If you get keys on the URC to "learn" functions operated by one or other button of your original remote's keypad, you need of course to remember which key on the URC equates to which key on the original. As the same key can perform different functions in different modes too, you may have to remember (or note down) different key assignments for different modes, too.

If you don't want to have to do that, you might prefer to invest in an expensive URC where you can program labels on the URC that change to describe what each key does for each mode you're in (TV, satellite etc).

Do you want programmable macros?

This wasn't a major factor for me but has turned out to be helpful. You can easily set up the 7555 so that e.g. pressing just one particular key switches on your TV, satellite receiver and DVR all in a row (or in my case, just TV and Toppy). Similarly you can use one key press to power everything off (or rather put them on standby) in one go. Heck, if I wanted I could get one button to turn everything on, put the volume on high, tune it to channel X in widescreen mode and record it, then make the tea. Well maybe not the tea, but who knows what's on One for All's roadmap.

In short, any series of button presses on the URC 7555 (up to 15 keystrokes max) can be programmed as a "macro" to be triggered by a single key stroke. Useful. And again, as with codes learning, you can have shifted macros too.

One point to watch for though is that if you assign a learned function to a key in one mode, and then you try to assign a macro (sequence of key presses) to the same key, the macro just won't work. The key will only operate the learned function.

Do you need to control stuff that's out of sight?

Is your gear tucked away neatly in rows of closed cabinets, controlled by radio frequency (RF) remotes? If so, a humble cheaper infrared URC won't do, you'll need a URC that transmits radiofrequency signals. To work, infra red remotes need a clear uninterrupted line of sight to the infrared receptor on the appropriate box. I barely have room for my existing stuff never mind cabinets, so infrared was all I needed.

Do you want easy PC setup and control?

The higher end URCs can be connected to your computer and configured and controlled etc on screen via the PC. This hopefully makes life easier and simpler for the user, of course, especially novices. But the extra user-friendliness certainly comes at a price. I didn't feel I needed something like that myself, I'm quite happy to putter around inputting codes into the URC direct myself rather than have a computer automate that.

What's your budget?

Last, but not least, I only have a few AV gizmos. Home cinema afficionados with 10 pieces of kit might want an all singing all dancing URC that costs £200 or more, and if they can afford so many bits of AV gear they can probably afford (and might find most convenient) a top of the rangeURC too.

But me, I just want it to do what I need - I ain't gonna spend £300 when less than £30 will do. I go for value for money and fitness for purpose rather than buying the most expensive unit I can afford.

Why not Philips?

Philips supposedly has a good line in URCs, and I have an excellent widescreen Philips TV - but their pre-sales support was hopeless. Many of their online "manuals" (brochures, more like, usually) weren't detailed enough; and their site search function was equally useless (sorry but I don't have time to individually download each of their many URC PDF manuals just to see if (a) it lists the supported gear in the first place - many don't - and (b) the Topfield is in the list).

That's just me and my "boycott the consumer-unfriendly" principles talking, though. I'm sure others are happy with Philips, and as mentioned I do like my Philips TV. But then I don't need any support from them for that, I can even turn it on and off all by myself, wheee, fancy that (or if I can't, well my 7555 can now do that for me!).

Logitech are also known for their URCs e.g. the Harmony range, but their starting price was higher than I was prepared to pay for what I wanted, and after the nightmare of trying to find out which Philips URCs worked with the Topfield, I wasn't prepared to risk going through the same palaver again with Logitech.

So, I turned to the Toppy forums. (One reason I bought a Toppy rather than some other brand of hard disk recorder, apart from twin Freeview tuners, 250 GB hard disk and the availability of user-programmable mini-apps called TAPs to enhance it, was the supportive and helpful online community of knowledgeable enthusiasts e.g. at Toppy.org.uk).

I saw from their URC thread that someone had got an One for All 7555 and was happy with it, so I took a look at prices and checked out the One for All website - which was much more user-friendly, consumer-friendly and informative than Philips'. I went for the 7555 and it does exactly the job I need.

The One for All URC 7555 universal remote control

The One for All 7555 URC One For All Universal 5 in 1 Stealth TV/DVD/SAT/AMP/VCR Remote Control controls up to 5 devices, i.e. has 5 modes. The device buttons are labelled TV, Satellite (for satellite, cable or Freeview), VCR (for video recorder wouldja believe), DVD and Amp (for amp, tuner etc) - but you can change e.g. the VCR button to control a second TV or whatever, if you prefer.

So if you press the TV key, the channel changing buttons etc will work on the TV. Press the Sat key to make the same buttons change the channels on your satellite receiver. And so on.

Setup / installation

As is standard with URCs, the 7555 comes preprogrammed to work with many common units, but you need to do some initial setting up to tell it what equipment you've got, by entering the right codes.

There's a list of brands at the back of the manual, with corresponding codes (sometimes more than one set). To get the URC to control your equipment properly, you enter the code given for your make and model of gear, and then rinse and repeat in a different mode for each of your bits of kit (TV, Freeview etc).

You can also get the codes for your manufacturer and model from the One for All website, and if all else fails there's a search function to try to get to a working code. But the choice on offer is massive so hopefully not many people will have to do that.

If several code options are given, just try and see which one works best (Topfield is listed in the Satellite section).

Manual

The One for All URC 7555 manual that came in my box, in 7 European languages (downloadable manual in 13 languages), is concise and clear, taking you from setup to more advanced functions. And it's a proper booklet too, not like the CD many companies fob you off with when flogging you computer hardware or software, or a flimsy 1-sheet leaflet stitched together by someone writing in their four & a halfth language. There's a detailed page with support contacts (email, web, phone, fax) in different countries, and what info to give them when contacting support.

Yes, I feel a rant coming on about manuals, one of my consumer bugbears. If One for All can provide users with a properly written hard copy user guide for a gizmo that costs less than £30, why can't manufacturers of much more expensive gadgets e.g. mobile phones or camcorders do the same? They simply have no excuse not to, in my book.

Preliminary tip. It pays to spend a few minutes working out and noting down in advance which extra functions on which remote you want to assign to the extra keys on your URC via the learning feature. And similarly for the macros you want to program. Then you can do it all smoothly in one go.

TV

To control my TV, there are two functions I use a lot which on my Philips remote are tucked away, I even have to open a flap to access one of them.

Mapping them on to two obvious keys on the 7555 has made life a lot easier. (I've even sneakily got one key of the URC, in Sat mode, to emulate another key on my TV remote! Worked for me, anyway.)

TV tip: the power button turns the TV off but won't turn most TVs on, use a number button instead to do that.

Topfield 5800 PVR

The 7555 doesn't have as many buttons as my Toppy's remote. But it has just about enough for what I need, even without resorting to shifted learning commands. I don't in fact use all the buttons on my Toppy anyway - others might, and if so they might want a URC with more buttons, or more customisable buttons.

Learning

I've set out my Toppy button assignments below for anyone interested. Non-Topfield owners can of course skip the next section.

Topfield 5800 PVR key mappings

Code 1545 seemed to work best for me. But I had to make it learn volume up and down and channel up and down, to get those buttons to work properly.

Tip: to record, you have to press the Record key twice in a row, this is just a "feature" of the URC 7555.

In case this may help other Toppy owners, here are my key assignments on the 7555 (reflecting my reliance on MyStuff EPG and QuickJump), copied via the learning function:

• ? = Archive on the Toppy's remote
  
• Radio = White, for deleting recordings from the archive
• >>| = Text, for QuickJump's back 30 seconds
• Subt = PIP Swap, for QuickJump's back 1 minute
• |<< = |> (search), for setting a new ControlTimer
• Back = Exit. Seemed to make sense to me.
• -/-- = Opt (for powering off 10 mins after it finishes recording, if still recording when I want to go to bed).

(I found that keys in about the same position as on the original Toppy remote worked best for me, as I seem to use them more by memorised location / feel than label or look.)

Macros

I've mentioned what macros can do. The macros I use on the 7555 are:

• Fav key (bottom right) - turn on everything
• PPV (bottom left) - turn off everything
• Magic key then Power (a shifted macro) - turn off TV now, and turn off the Toppy 10 mins after it finishes recording (using the Opt 10 minutes trick).

Macro troubleshooting tip: at first I couldn't get a macro on a button to work in Sat mode, even though the same key would output the right sequence of keypresses in other modes like TV. I realised it was because I had also programmed the key to learn a command from the Toppy remote. Once I cleared that "learning", the button worked fine to operate the macro in Sat mode.

There are other macro gotchas e.g. you can't program a macro onto the Record key, best read the small print notes for them! My one quibble with the manual: warning notes on stuff like that should be more up front, in my view.

Other features

There's other clever stuff the 7555 can do which I won't bore you with. Like "Key Magic", where even if you don't know how, the One for All customer service team will help get you the codes to program a function from your original remote control to the 7555.

And how was it for me?

I find the URC 7555 One For All Universal 5 in 1 Stealth TV/DVD/SAT/AMP/VCR Remote Control very handy indeed, and very good from a "design for usability" viewpoint. It took me half an hour or less to get to grips with it and make it all learn the keys I needed to control my Toppy the way I like it, but if your AV boxes are more standard and your URC has enough buttons, you may not even need to get it to learn anything at all after you've entered the setup codes for your equipment.

I really can't think of any disadvantages. To get learning and macro features at this price is just excellent value for money, in my view. It's worked for me every time so far, without a hitch. I've not had cause to use the customer support yet but the website appears very well set up and consumer-friendly. There's even a "Find my remote" section in the One for All site's sidebar to help you decide which model of remote to choose, depending on what equipment you want to control ("Find my remote" is a bit of a misnomer I feel, as it's meant for pre-sales help rather than post-purchase support for "my" One for All remote - I think they should rename it "Remote picker", or "Which remote?").

One for All are a market leader in URCs and they offer a huge variety to suit almost every need and pocket, from the relatively cheap one I bought to ultra sophisticated ones like the well known Kameleon range. If I need to upgrade in future I'll probably get another One for All (but certainly not a Philips).

(And it shouldn't need to be said but I have no connection with One for All except as a satisfied customer!)

Tags: universal remote control, universal remote controls, multifunction remote controls, multifunctional remote controls, URC, URCs, One for All, Universal Electronics, TV, television, audiovisual, AV, Philips, howto, guide, usability, Improbulus, Consuming Experience, A Consuming Experience

My media consumption diet meme: and what's "media", anyway?

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I've come excruciatingly late to this meme. Jeremiah Owyang started it, and John Tropea tagged me way back in Feb. I was offline for some weeks when John tagged me, and have been trying to catch up on my blog since. In internet time this is probably a year or two too late, but better late than never. There's internet time, dog years and Improbulus months. No prizes for guessing which runs the slowest!

As many people now know, for this meme you're supposed to list your media consumption diet with the most used on top. This has also crossed over a bit into a "my fave gadgets/software" post too, but the two are very closely related for me.

What's "media" anyway?

Being a detailed deconstructionist by instinct (sad but true), my initial reaction was in fact to ponder the meaning of "media" in this context. Of course looking at Jeremiah's original post you get an idea of what he's after, but trust me to always want to break things down...

Text, pictures, sound, audiovisual - our senses

At the purest, most basic yet broadest level, I think of media as:

• text, absorbed visually - books, magazines, Webpages, emails
• static images, also visual - photos, paintings, graphics on webpages or in emails
• audio e.g. music, radio news, auditory naturally
• video, both visual and audio of course - TV, cinema, online videos

In other words, it's consumption through our key senses.

And more senses...

It might be going too far at this point to consider "media" to extend to what is consumed via our other senses, like touch/sensation. But maybe not.

True virtual reality seems to be not too far around the corner now. Witness the Nintendo Wii with its 3D motion sensing and feedback, and the development of other haptic devices (though not much seems to be happening in teledildonics, not that I follow that field closely, of course, nope... - but it's odd, I'd have thought there was great money making potential there). Then the increasing sophistication of 3D printing, even of living tissue. Recording and playing back smells and scents, or "attaching" smells to digital photos to help you sniff them out, and the development of electronic noses and even electronic tongues that taste, and electronically simulating taste and "mouthfeel".

I do think that convergence of media, generally thought of as the merging of Net, TV and phone, will eventually lead to convergence of some of these aspects too, that media consumption via the (currently) lesser used senses will be a huge, huge growth area for the future. Anyway, back on point..

Or media consumption devices?

You could also consider media consumption by the type of device or tool used to consume it:

• computer
• TV
• cinema
• mobile phone
• music players - MP3 or CD player
• video players and portable media players (PMPs)
• gaming device - XBox, Playstation, Wii
• radio
• etc.
  

(And by the way if you're talking convergence by device, I think it's not just the triple play of internet, TV and phone but also gaming consoles and of course music players, digital cameras, video cameras and indeed full computers too. Which is why I listed "gaming device" there).

Well I think most people who've written about their media consumption diet have effectively blended the two - type of media, type of device - so I'll do that too.

But first I'd say that at the most basic level I think my media consumption diet would be:
text >>> audiovisual >> audio > visual (non-text)

I'm impatient. Text is the quickest way to get an overview, literally take in the big picture depicted in a meaningful way, then absorb the bits I want. In terms of finding info rather than being passively entertained, linear audiovisual or audio is just too slow for me, and fast forward / rewind through audio/video just isn't as accurate as flipping pages or scrolling text.

As for trying to drag me to an art gallery or museum or on scenic walks, it's harder than trying to give a cat a bath, believe me. Though you can always try to bribe me with icecream. The operative word being "try".

And so, finally, on to my media consumption diet, set out in the more usual way. (No further digression hopefully, beyond saying that there's of course also increasing media production - what are blogs after all? - and increasing interplay and convergence between media consumption and production, the whole interactive TV, social Web 2.0 thang. OK, no more on that now!). Here goes.

My media consumption diet is (not surprisingly):
Internet >> paper / print ~= TV >>> music >>>> games >>>>> art (on the consumption versus production front, at least).

Internet

Web

I'm on the net constantly, both at home and at work (broadband ADSL at home). Always had an enquiring mind, and I love having (almost) instant answers literally at my fingertips to the eternal what, why, when, where, how. Web as giant reference library, woohooooo! I'm forever rushing off to PC to look things up.

PC not Mac, because it's PCs at work and I figured the learning curve would be shallower with Windows at home too.

Firefox is my fave browser for speed, flexibility and power, but I use Internet Explorer 7 too despite its speed issues (even with tweaks) and lack of features - and not just for internet banking (though kudos to First Direct for a Fox-compatible site!). Some sites or services still work better in IE and e.g. sometimes PDFs which crash Fox open OK in IE.

But mainly, it's a privacy thing. I set Fox up to open certain sites in tabs on launch e.g. Blogger, with cookies saved so I'm automatically logged in to my (since New Blogger) Google Account.

Though Google now say they will anonymize server logs of users' details (queries, IP addresses etc) after 18 to 24 months, I still don't like the idea of Google keeping track of the searches made when logged in to my Google Account "for personalisation".

So I'll use IE for searches I don't want Google to associate with Improbulus (no sniggering at back, it could be quite innocuous, it's just none of Google's business that I've been researching X for instance). And I'll use IE even for searches which I don't mind anyone knowing about, just on principle. (I don't maintain a personalised Google homepage, for the same reason.)

I'm happy to get ads in Net searches, as of course they'll often be related to what I'm looking for.

Communication - email, feeds etc

Email. Gmail rules, particularly with its effective spam blocking and alias function (I use Spamgourmet too). Though I'm generally paranoid about my privacy I don't mind software agents reading my mail and serving up ads, some of those ads are actually quite useful. I figure that any free Webmail provider could read their users' mail if they want to anyway; my main protection is keeping my different online identities separate e.g. this one and my real one. I mostly access my Gmail via POP on Outlook 2003 unless I'm out, in which case for checking mail or writing quick emails I use the Nokia 7710 smartphone or LG Shine. I do have some niggles about Gmail, but that's another post...

I'm not a huge Microsoft fan but I'm a keyboard person and I'm too used to the keyboard shortcuts in Outlook to switch to Thunderbird though I tried a couple times (I even use draft Outlook emails for my personal notes, having not yet found note-taking software that suits me exactly - ctrl-n for new blank email, type title and tags in the subject, full notes in the body including links, pasted screenshots and files, ctrl-s to save to my Drafts folder, and all fully searchable. If only Outlook categories were a bit easier to use).

Feeds and news. I rarely use feed readers. I just keep an eye on some key sites like the main Google blogs, though mostly via email alerts (I've set Outlook plus some other apps to all launch on startup. Email arriving gets my attention even if there are lots of them, it feels easier and quicker to me reading emails than looking through feeds - maybe emails feel more bite-sized? Anyway, somehow, to me scanning feeds seems more of a chore, requiring more active work on my part. But that's just me).

Key sites, to me, are mainly the generators or creators of news and new info, more than those who merely report it. Sorry, no offence to journalists. I prefer to hear it straight from the "horse's mouth", or from sites (like Out-law) which include a clear link to the original source - press release, corporate blog, government paper etc. That's one reason I think the BBC website is one of the most authoritative, reliable news sites - they usually link to the original source in the right sidebar.

Another aside: I think that as competition for our attention increases but our spare time decreases, people will more and more prefer to cut things down and get their news from one or two media sources which they feel they can trust, which aren't afraid to reveal their original sources (within reason e.g. protecting whistleblowers), whose reports they know they can verify for themselves.

(My views, I admit, may be slightly coloured by the fact that once I was "in the know" behind the scenes, though only very peripherally - you know, the 23rd handmaiden from the left in the 458th scene's basket carrier's left littlest toenail trimmer's nailclipper sharpener - on something that was for a time widely reported in the media almost every day. I would read "news" reports and think, OMG where did they get that info from, they're printing that as fact but it's totally wrong, what do they think they're doing, how can they say that, where could they have got that idea from, are they just making it up or what? Now I'm really digressing on the power of the press and how people seem to accept things as true so much more readily just because "it was on the news". But I feel very strongly that we the public should be able to rely on journalists having some integrity and sense of social responsibility, when all too often we can't. We can, at least, reliably rely on the instinct to sell, sell, sell more papers, ads, etc. Ah, well.)

Anyway, must get back on track again! That was still on media so maybe not too much of a digression...

As I've so little time (this blog is effectively my 3rd job) I limit the sites I check and even so I still never have enough time to read everything I'd like to. Yes, I'm currently behind on checking my email alerts too, though I try to keep up with personal email that I get.

(Phones, don't forget phones, if we're talking communication they shouldn't be left out. I don't text much or even use the phone much, to be honest. I'm mentioning this under Communication but in terms of volume of usage it should go below TV and reading. Though I don't know if it's stretching it to call phone usage "media consumption", unless you're talking email or mobile TV etc on a phone.)

My ultimate dream gadget: full internet (Web and email, feeds etc) everywhere via a Psion 5mx with a phone and full broadband-speed Net access (web, email, everything) on an "all you can eat" fixed monthly fee price plan. (A real keyboard, not onscreen, is best for quick data entry - two hands faster than one - and I'm not the only one who feels that nothing beats the 5mx keyboard for data entry on the move, if you're a touch typist - in the Tube, the little room, etc. Plus the Symbian EPOC32 OS is rock solid and lightning fast). Oh and with a colour screen, voice recorder, camera/video recorder, music player, and headphone socket while I'm at it, well I can dream. Krusell case too of course. Now I'm really digressing! But Santa, if you're listening..?

Paper

Reading from paper, well that's mostly non-fiction magazines and the like. New Scientist, Financial Times, Private Eye. Fortean Times and T3 for fun. The occasional Economist and Wired. I read a lot for work and for general interest e.g. for this blog.

Nowadays I don't read much fiction though I did when I was a mere slip of a lass. Finished all the Agatha Christies by age 11, Asimovs by 13. As with video my favourite genres are crime and detective fiction (the puzzles, mysteries, whodunnit theme again), and SF, fantasy and horror (the "literature of ideas" theme). Faves: Robert B Parker, Janet Evanovich, Sue Grafton, Dick Francis, Terry Pratchett, Guy Gavriel Kay, David Feintuch (not dissimilar to Parker in terms of the integrity and honour themes, I've noticed, though rather more angst-ridden), Lois McMaster Bujold. All time faves include Asimov, Ellison, Russ and Tolkien, not surprisingly.

My fiction reading these days goes in spurts. I'll go to the library, borrow a big wodge of books, read them all in quick succession. Then not read fiction again for a few months.

Yes, borrow. I now mostly only buy books which I've already read and consider worth re-reading, or referring to. Reason - I read too quickly, if I bought everything I read I'd be out of both room and cash fast. Plus I prefer to try before I buy. So libraries are my mainstay for fiction.

Trilogyitis, bah. A rant about trilogyitis. It's a disease, I say. I hate with a passion the fad, too longrunning in my view, for trilogies in SF and fantasy. I think it's put a lot of readers off unnecessarily. Call me impatient, but I can't stand waiting a year for volume 2, then another for volume 3. I'll have forgotten what happened in vol 1 by the time they're out anyway. So, I'll wait until all 3 volumes are out and available on the shelves at the same time, and then I'll read them all in a row. Not before. I utterly refuse to.

I don't mind self-contained books in a series set against the same backdrop, possibly with a longer-term story arc, e.g. Bujold's, but I think trilogies sell the reader short. I guess trilogies must be more profitable for the publishers or they wouldn't butcher perfectly good books by splitting them into 3 volumes, often incomprehensible individually, but I'd much rather they rolled the 3 into one fat book and charged me triple for it. Kudos to Mary Gentle for Ash, for instance - one of my faves, though I haven't taken to everything she's written. Why can't there be more slim single books like many that Pat Cadigan writes, I ask?

If I pick up an interesting looking book but it's clearly part of a trilogy and not self-contained (or even if it is, but the author's not someone I already like), I put it straight back unless all the volumes are there. Yes, all. Sure I could miss something good that way, but as at least a few good books are released not as trilogies (e.g. Naomi Novik's series) I'll go for those instead. It's one way to pick what to read, and life is too short to battle with trilogies when there are other alternatives. /rant.

I hardly read non-fiction books, these days.

Electronic books. I've not tried e-paper devices yet and I won't till they're more advanced. They'll have to be as clear and easy on the eye as paper (my eyesight isn't brilliant even with glasses) and as quick and easy to flip through as books and magazines, though a search facility, quick navigation (links from contents pages, "go to" page X etc) and zooming would be essential additional features for an electronic reading gadget. A5 size, lightweight, water-resistant, computer connectivity (ideally wireless). New pages would have to come up instantly, if I had to wait even a second for that I'd scream. So as you can guess, with resolution and navigation not being what I'd like, I don't even read e-books at the moment, not even on my beloved Psion.

TV

I watch at least an hour of TV a day, most days. It's a way to unwind after work and other stuff that I do (I'm out a lot), over a home-cooked dinner (I cook a few days' worth at a time then reheat). I have a widescreen Philips, no room on floor or wall for anything bigger or I'd have it.

I like crime/detective and SF/fantasy/horror, preferably with interesting plots leavened by a touch of wit and humour, and strong characterisation. I've probably seen or read too much as I usually guess whodunnnit very early on, or before the denouement anyway, so it matters that there are characters I can care about.

Or else I watch gripping action thrillers or light comedy fluff, both of which serve to take my mind off serious stuff and rest the brain. I rarely watch "heavy" angst-ridden worthy art films or foreign language subtitled etc fare these days and the word "experimental" has me running a googol miles, too much hard work, I watched more than my fair share of all that when I were a young 'un and now I just want to have a break and be entertained.

Fave series are listed in my profile but currently include The Closer, CSI, New Tricks, Without a Trace, Criminal Minds, The Inside, Numb8rs. Plus Lost, House, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, West Wing, Commander in Chief, Medium.

My favouritest mini-series of all time would include Maximum Bob, Buffy, Babylon 5.

PVRs. With my trusty Topfield 5800 personal video recorder (twin Freeview tuners, EPG, loads of great user-produced mini-applications), it's a constant battle to watch and delete stuff before I completely fill up its 250 GB hard drive. (I could archive to DVD but my DVD-RW drive that came with my Dell PC went bust and I've not got round to getting another yet). I very rarely watch live TV.

Yes, I often skip ads. But I do see the "sponsored by" bits before and after the ads, so I think sponsorship of programmes or channels is more effective these days. (And I watch some too if they're good - I love the comfy glove ads by Spontex for House (they should have had them for download from their website from the start, huge missed opportunity, though the ads are downloadable now, no doubt by popular demand), and the Cobra mini-movies. But I want to strangle them, throw something or worse when the annoying 118 men come on, and as for that pseudo American prat they have for CSI (I think it's CSI, I hate him so much I've blanked out what the show is and especially what product or service they're supposed to be advertising) grrrrr - they're positively counterproductive.)

DVD rentals? I barely have enough time to watch the programes and films I record from Freeview, as it is. So I rarely have time to go out and rent a DVD (and am too lazy to walk to the DVD rental shop, especially as the one nearest me has closed recently, victim of the growth in DVD rentals by post no doubt).

I've never taken to DVD rental by post. I know I can set the list of movies I'd like to see, but for me so much depends on my mood, and if the one they've sent me, though it's on my list, doesn't suit my current mood, it's no good for me and I won't watch it. I want to decide exactly what I feel like watching, as and when I have time to watch something.

I don't buy many DVDs, like with books I only buy if I want to re-watch for reasons of space and money. So it's just Lord of the Rings, Buffy, Babylon 5 pretty much. And I find I don't have the time to re-watch them anyway so I may just stop buying them.

Cable or satellite? For me it would be a waste of money subscribing for cable or satellite as I have trouble getting through my Freeview recordings as it is. Plus I considered cable before and the company's left hand clearly didn't know what their right was doing so I decided it wasn't worth it. Satellite would also be too troublesome as I live in a listed building and getting permission to have a dish would be nightmarish.

Mobile TV? Mobile TV on smartphones and PDAs etc, even laptops, don't really grab me (unless perhaps I'm desperate to keep up with something on the move, so I can see it would appeal to sports fans wanting the latest score etc. Which I'm not). I prefer video on a bigger screen, with remote control. Even TV on computer (e.g. Freetube) doesn't appeal very much to me unless I can watch it on my TV in decent size and quality.

VOD, downloadable internet TV, IPTV. I've been thinking of getting BT Vision video on demand - they provide a set top box so you can definitely watch downloaded films on your TV. If I do get BT Vision it would be mainly as a video or DVD rental substitute, so I can rent a movie I feel like watching without having to go outdoors and, eeeek, walk down the road. Especially in the winter, brrrrr... Which is probably why I rarely rent DVDs. I think I'd be much more likely to download something I can watch on a full TV screen in the comfort of my own home without having to move my butt more than a few feet.

I'm looking forward to the forthcoming BBC iPlayer for TV catchup over the Net, but will only use it seriously if I can pipe it from PC to widescreen TV (and of course if there's anything worth watching on the BBC channels!). I don't find watching video on my PC monitor much fun if it's more than a few minutes long (see my post on BBC iMP, the iPlayer's precursor, which I was involved in trialling; I'm also taking part in the BBC TV Test - I think this page is the only public one so far).

I expect I'll be watching more and more IPTV / video on demand.

Cinema

I do once in a while go to movie theatres, but I feel no compulsion to rush to see the latest thing (well except for Lord of the Rings, went to see that). I'm quite happy to wait for films to come out on DVD or even TV. It's only for stuff I really want to see and where a smaller TV screen wouldn't do it justice, that I'll make the effort to go to a movie theater to see it.

The main times I'll go to the cinema will be to see films that I'm not likely to be able to get to see otherwise - like the annual London Film Festival and other film festivals that the BFI puts on. So annually I probably see as many movies as most people do, I just tend to cram them in all at once over short festival periods.

Music

These days I produce more than consume. My time's very limited, and I'd rather spend it making music than listening to it (it's almost my second "job"). Plus, unlike many other people, I don't bother putting on background music. My focus is such that I wouldn't hear it if I was concentrating on something else, so there's no point. I listen to music as a primary activity when I can pay proper attention to what's being played - when I've time for it, that is.

The exceptions are:

• music while travelling when I can't do anything else - radio or background music in a car or to send me to sleep on the plane (but not Tube or train, as even there I'd rather read or write - unless I can't get a seat!); and
• MP3s I listen to while travelling to help me learn certain music.
  

So nowadays I really don't listen to CDs, radio or music on my PC much. But I'll listen to MP3s for learning, as mentioned, and occasionally go to live concerts and shows. I very rarely go to pure plays without any music.

My favourite music is vocal, whether pop, rock or classical. Orchestral or instrumental-only stuff sends me to sleep after a while, though I appreciate a good tune in whatever form. I guess I'm mainly a words person.

Gaming

I think of gaming as media consumption, though its "consumption" is generally more active / interactive than passive. For me, it's too much hard work to little real purpose. For entertainment, or rather just letting my mind unwind a bit, I will play Freecell or Tetris or Brickbreaker (and like reading fiction I have phases where I'll play say Freecell continuously for a while), but I've never really got into the hardcore stuff.

It's my pragmatic bent I guess. I'll spend hours trying to figure out how to get a widget to work but wouldn't feel like spending that same time on Second Life.

Art

My limit is cartoons of the Gary Larson or Private Eye variety - again, pics with words! Or pictures that say something.

Not much of a "pure image" person, me. Which may explain why I struggle so with visual stuff like CSS. Though oddly my friends say I compose photos quite well (I prefer portraits, expressions, people to scenery). I just don't have a particular interest in the consumption or production of visual art.

(As for what they call "art", installations and suchlike, puh-lease, don't get me started. It's sheer brass and cheek, not art. Anyone want to pay me zillions for my unmade bed, be my guest. How about my unwashed - well I was going to say something else but this is a family blog hah so I'll say T-shirt. Symbolic of life in all its crumpled reekiness, it is. There.)

Hmmm this post has turned out to be quite personal, in that I don't usually post so much about me, myself or even I. I figure people who read my blog are generally more interested in the tech and bloggy stuff and of course I want to cater to my readershop.

I did wonder about how much of a giveaway this would be, as I blog anonymously (this is why - and I now feel vindicated when even the venerable FT warns that what you say on your blog or social networking sites will influence potential employers). But to be honest only those who've really got to know me properly in real life would know these things about me. So the only ones who could identify me from what I've written would already know about this blog or would be good friends whom I could trust to keep this "secret". So I guess I'm OK there...

Thanks again to John for tagging me, I might never have thought to ramble on about all this otherwise!

And I now tag - well I don't know if there's some unwrtitten limit to how many you can tag but if so I'm just about to break it (and if you've already been tagged, then I've missed it haven't I, and sorry!):

From the Bloggers Brigade: Kirk, Liz, Aditya, Jasper, Satish, Amit, John, Efendi
From the Copyfighter Cohorts: Becky, Suw, Cory
From the Geekdinners Gang: Sarah, Ian

Tags: media consumption diet, memes, media, technology, convergence, web, email, news, trilogyitis, TV, VOD, Improbulus, Consuming Experience, A Consuming Experience