Online Television

I was nearly fed up with CBS because, for the last few weeks when I've tried to catch up on How I Met Your Mother on the website, it would crap out on me right before the video. Fortunately for me and all other online tv viewers, CBS and others have revamped their site to include some very important new features.

Important New Feature #1 - Pause during commercials. Don't tell the sites, but this is the best feature they could have come up with. Oh, you still have to watch the commercial, but gone are the days when running to get a glass of water and coming back to catch your show on time was dangerous (hint: them bitches are 30 seconds long at most). Now, you can pause commercials, get your water (or gin and tonic), and come back safely. Viva la pause button.

Important New Feature #2 - Browser window pause. You know how when it takes too long for a video to load, you go check Gmail or Facebook and can miss the first part of the show while you look through all your tabs for the last location? Well no longer! If you move to another window, you can chat to your heart's content knowing that when you go back to your favourite tv website, it will start for you. Note: Browsers do not pause after that section of the show has started. 

Important New Feature #3 - Synchronicity. Previously, each site was different and hoped to become the leader in online tv viewing. But that just made things difficult as you tried to figure out if actually clicking on the name of  the show would take you somewhere or if you had to find the words "full episodes" before you could watch your favourite show online (and not the frakkin' clips). Now, each site has a hover menu clearly delineating which shows have full episodes and which you can ignore. The viewing windows are roughly the same size and most network sites have full episodes of nearly all of their primetime shows online.

Important New Feature #4 - HD viewing. While this is not technically a new feature, this is a benefit if you want to go full screen. 

All in all, watching tv online is getting so much better. There are, however, a few sites that are making this whole online viewing thing a pain in my ass. More on that tomorrow.