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Buffing up

April 19th, 2009 · Posted by Skuds in Life/Technology · No Comments · Life, Technology

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That circular graphic will be a familiar sight to anybody who has had the misfortune to use ITV’s miserable ITV Player as I did this evening to watch Primeval.   Tonight was the 4th episode and the 3rd that I have had to watch this way, having forgotten it was on.

I’m not sure which is more disappointing: the programme or the delivery method.  I am starting to lose patience with both.I have watched a few TV programmes via the various catch-up services, most recently I saw two of the three episodes of Red Riding on Channel 4’s service.  That was fine.  No delays for buffering, the picture looked fine in full screen mode, and no adverts.  In some ways it was better than on TV because I didn’t have all those furniture shop idents that everyone else was moaning about.  I have also used the BBC’s iPlayer with no trouble, but ITV’s version is a real pain, and today was even worse than normal.  The picture froze every few minutes.  Sometimes there would only be a few seconds before the dreaded clock appeared.

Chrystal thought I was making a lot of fuss over nothing and said I just had to ‘wait for it to buff up’.    Must the phrase young peopel use for buffering.  I wonder if she actually knows what a buffer is. Must ask.   Maybe I am being unreasonable, but if I want to watch a 60-minute TV show on deman I actually want it on demand – I don’t want to start it and then put it on pause for at least half an hour to buffer.  I’m not even sure that would work, the way ITV insist on inserting advert breaks in their on demand shows.

As for the programme itself. the introduction of the other sinister government department is starting to be a leap too far when it comes to the willing suspension of disbelief required for any sort of science fiction.  It was already bad enough trying to not think about:

  • Why the government would enlist a biologist to head a team looking into a physics problem in the first place.
  • Why anomalies only seem to occur in mainland Britain – and within easy driving distance of the Ark
  • Why anomalies only link to periods of time so far in the past or so far in the future.
  • Why a government would want to keep them secret and how it would even think it could succeed.
  • The one-dimensional stereotypes of shadowy civil servants, journalists and everybody else.
  • The way Connor keeps coming up with new gadgets to cope with an unknown science at a rate than even E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith would find unfeasible.

Most of all, with Prof Cutter now dead, the situation is that there is a zookeeper, an Egyptologist and a computer nerd forming a team that is now headed by a civil service PR-type when the logical thing would have been to rope in Stephen Hawkin from day one.

I think ratings are going to drop unless they go back to basics and look at what made it work in the first place – Abby running around in her underwear all the time.

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