TechMag: TV or not TV?
April 17, 2009TV viewing habits are shifting. If we don’t work it out now, we’ll have nothing but snow on our screens. By Julia Gaw
TV is a simple staple of Australian households catering to all levels of consumer, from technophobes to the tech-obsessed. As with other areas of technology, simple options exist. You can neglect the world of mobile phones for a curly-corded landline handset. Ignore computer software updates and stay true to Windows ’98, or the green screens of old. And if forking out wads of green bills for a high-definition, widescreen, flat panel TV with Foxtel IQ or Apple TV subscriptions seems like a waste of massive proportions, the trusted fake wood panel no-remote analogue ’70s TV will suffice. But what happens when the rules change? When the trusted 30-year-old friend won’t cut it anymore; when the bent coat-hanger as emergency aerial won’t fix anything; when, suddenly, free-to-air viewing is changed forever?
Downloadable programs, pirated DVDs, YouTube and Apple TV have made free-to-air seem dispensable. How often do you have an in-depth conversation with someone about a program that isn’t listed in the local TV Guide? For me, it’s often.
Apple TV enables the download of TV shows, movies and video clips just like you’d download music to iTunes. Apple TV is television on demand. Dangerous for couch potatoes! On the other hand, Tivo – another current buzz word (see review, page 61) – allows recording of shows through your TV, but goes further to allow movie downloads, remote scheduling (you can set Tivo via the internet to record a program on your home set), automatic recording of a whole season, and recommendations based on your recording habits. You rule the TV schedule, not the other way around. This also provides a new challenge to advertisers: previously captive audiences can now simply fast forward through their content, so advertising will need to either jump out of our screen and onto our laps, or subliminally seep into our consciousness without us noticing. The game has fundamentally changed a gencies, clients and viewers.
Regardless of downloads and selective options, imagine if our regular choice of free-to-air channels was eroded. Surely we’d miss our regular weatherman, in our homes at the same time every night? The end of analogue TV in Australia is scheduled for late 2013. The switch to digital commences in Victoria’s Sunraysia district in 2010, and will continue around the country.
There are many unanswered questions about what will happen to libraries, schools, hospitals and other amenities without the means to fund a full switchover, resulting in no viewable television for them. But, focusing selfishly on ourselves momentarily, how will it affect the household? For the 42 per cent of households who already have at least one digital-ready TV (according to the Digital Switchover Taskforce), it means little. But for the remaining 58 per cent, it means getting a digital-ready TV, or a set-top box, or accepting life without TV.
Digital benefits are numerous, including better picture quality and multi-channelling. This is the biggest changeover challenge for a federal government since 1966’s move to decimal currency. So, with this in mind, where do the technophobes begin? If you decide now’s the time to invest in a new, digital-ready television, there are several terms you’d justifiably describe as ‘gobbledygook’. Here are some clues to deciphering the code.
TV Terminology
Contrast Ratio – The display colours (and the difference between the brightest white and deepest black). The higher the ratio, the more accurate the colours.
Digital Set-top Box – A device enabling your TV to receive
the digital television signal.
Dolby Digital – Audio technology delivering high-quality multi-channel audio.
HDTV – High definition TV, with picture quality superior to that of a standard model. More pixels per inch means images have more detail and clarity. You may see “1080i” promoted. This means the resolution consists of the maximum 1080 lines (as opposed to the minimum HD resolution of 576).
HDMI – High definition multimedia interface refers
to a digital connector cable carrying HD video and high quality audio.
Hz – Hertz is a measurement of frequency. In TV, it’s the amount of frames shown per second. 200Hz is the highest. Great for sport!
Multi-Channelling – More than one channel of programming broadcast at the same time through a digital signal (ABC and SBS currently do this).
Multi-View – Viewers with multi-view capabilities can choose different screen views for certain programs.
Catherine
Deveny on
The Box
If you listen closely to current mainstream television, you can hear the blokes in bomber jackets screaming, “Does anyone know what these morons want? Once upon a time they got what they were given, sucked it up, gobs open, gagging for more. Now they think they’re so good with their cable channels, Internet, streaming, Tivo and boxed sets. If we find the maggots who gave the morons options, alternatives and choice, we’ll burn down their houses, kill their kids and eat their dog.”
Those were the days. When men were men and women were barrel girls. Just so we’re clear, commercial television content
is just the wrapping paper. It’s shiny and sparkly and exists so you open the present (okay it’s more drab and recycled these
days but you get the drift). The content is the wrapping, the gift is the advertising. Commercial television only exists to shove
ads down our throats.
Viewers are jumping the
fence for quality content, convenience and variety so
the advertisers are going to
where the viewers are. Online
and elsewhere.
The future? More choice.
Less quality. And more insidious ways of advertising: “Welcome
to National Nine I Can’t Believe
It’s Not Butter News Presented
by Joe Blogs dressed by Target,
fed by Woolworths and transported by the new Ford Fiesta. Now to the new Gluten
Free Mars with 25% less fat headlines.”
Catherine Deveny is the author of It’s Not My Fault They Print Them and Say When. She is appearing in The Melbourne Comedy Festival during April.
