I’m a web video guy, so I’m all for the Death of Media as We Know It. But even I have been shocked at the sign of the digital apocalypse that has recently risen over Austin, Texas. Our local cable provider, Time Warner, in a dispute with the local NBC affiliate KXAN, has dropped the network from their lineup.
“Don’t worry, dear customers,” they have been reassuring us, “all your favorite NBC shows are available online at NBC.com.” When the cable company starts telling you to watch shows on the computer, something is afoot. (Time Warner sells me my interweb, so they aren’t really shooting themselves in the foot.)
I could give a crap about NBC shows overall. I dabbled in Heroes for a while, but never on the broadcast channel. As with all my TV, I get it on DVD or on iTunes — usually one show at a time, all episodes in order, beginning to end. All I really want from my cable is to keep the kids amused from time to time, and to be available for live sports events. Uh, oh. Isn’t Sunday Night Football on NBC?
Because Bubba has been turned to the dark side by his New England relatives, I took Time Warner’s advice and tuned in the live webcast of Pats v Bolts on NBC.com. Overall, pretty disappointing. The audio stream was very clear — good to hear Madden stumbling around — but the video was extremely choppy. In the end the game played like a radio broadcast with an accompanying slide show. I watch web vid all the time, so I’m pretty sure that problem was not on my end.
The gimmick they are promoting on the SNF webcast is five simultaneous feeds from different camera angles, so you can play director in the truck and mash up your own sportscast. I’m not sure if this contributes to the video problems, but I would much prefer one clean stream to clicking between five choppy ones trying to get a decent look at the game. Too bad for the Pats, btw. Made the Cowboy’s ridiculous loss a little easier to take.
But my new media fan weekend doesn’t end there. Roll the tape back to Saturday. Biggest game of the year for the ‘Horns, so of course I’m planted in front of a hi-def, right? Wrong. Taking Baba to the airport, then scrambling to get Ri-ri to her soccer game. Catch most of the first half on the FM in the car, then on the sidelines, trying got be furtive about catching the live updates on the iPhone. Only got busted by daughter looking to sidelines for affirmation once.
Found out the ‘Horns were #1 from Twitter.
So, in order to balance my fandom and fatherhood over the weekend, I used FM radio, cable TV, webcast on computer, live web on mobile device, and Twitter. Whew.
Do you find technical solutions help you juggle enthusiasms and obligations? Which ones actually help?
