Sometimes I am a late adopter of technology, often when I can appreciate the cleverness of something but just don’t see the need for it myself.  Mobile phones are a case in point.  I like to know what they are capable of, and I am endlessly impressed by what they can do, but I am happy with a quite old and basic one.  On-demand TV through the computer was another but tonight I got converted.

Tonight I saw that Charlie was watching My Name Is Earl.  I just assumed it was my box set of season one but gradually realised that it I didn’t recognise anything and it was actually on TV.  I went to look in the paper and saw that season three was being shown, starting today, and I had missed it.

I checked the ‘catch up on demand’ bit of Virgin and it wasn’t available on there, so I tried the Channel4 website.  It had a page about MNIE and listed the transmission dates but nothing about it being repeated.  I am so used to all these +1 channels and spin-offs like E4 , More4 and BBC Three, and having shows immediately repeated on a sister channel and everything else I assumed I could find a repeat somewhere.

Eventually I got tempted into installing 4oD, Channel4’s on-demand programme and was able to watch the programme on the computer.  The picture was OK, even full-screen with no jumping or stalling and I’m now a convert to the concept.  I may even get round to installing the BBC’s new on-demand thing.

When even my mum is now regularly listening to Internet radio I should be making a bit of an effort to try out these things.