Online Television, Part Deux

I want to convince everyone to watch tv online. Yes, I know you have a DVR. I know you can watch television anytime you want. But can you watch your DVR when  you're having a slow day at work and want to pass the time? Can you watch your DVR in the Doctor's office - especially if the thought of watching Dr. Phil with these ladies makes you want to vomit? 

The answer to that is a resounding no. 

Oh, I'm not advocating throw away your tv. As an avid sports fan, I'm all about big HD tvs that show you every hit, every bead of sweat, every signal in a crisp clarity that only going to a game can provide. I love the television set. 

But I love the convenience of watching television online even more. If I want to know what's going on with those girls at the Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious house, all I have to do is skip over to http://cwtv.com and check it out. If I want to know what Barney is doing on How I Met Your Mother, I type in http://cbs.com (actually, I just do cbs.com - these sites know my ip address by heart now). Want to catch up on Pushing Daisies? abc.go.com. It's not hard people. All it takes is a set of headphones, a fast internet connection, and a love of television that means you can take it where you go instead of waiting until you get home.

So which sites help you enjoy watching television on the computer and which site makes you want to throw your internet connection out the window? I have a little more research to do before I can let you in on my television on the computer knowledge.

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.

Aye, Aye, Aye

I love the smell of premieres in the evening!

Believe it or not, writing about television isn't my normal job. In the course of traveling, dealing with hotels with internet access that doesn't work or cost more to access a day than what I pay in a month, I am pitifully less punctual with posting my premiere previews.

Do you know what I'm doing right now? Watching my DVR, that's what I'm doing. I have 4 days to move out of my apartment and I'm curled up on my couch with an afghan, boxes and sundry strewn around me, catching up on all the shows I missed.

It's hard when you regularly watch television with someone. You have to save certain shows to watch with them. And if they read your blog (they do) and they find out what happens and realize that even though you said you only watched it with them, you weren't watching it for the first time. (Women! We're such liars!) Of course, the shows you regularly watch with others are the good ones, like The Office or Lost or Battlestar Galactica (yes, big fat tv nerd right here) so you're left with the shows that have been on for so long, even if they are good, they no longer warrant comment or procedurals that, even if you watch a different one on a different night and enjoy them, they're all really the same thing. This, however, is not my biggest problem.

My biggest problem is trying to figure out a way to watch every show I want to watch. If I add up the hours, watching television is a full time job. Too bad no one pays me to do so. It would be so gratifying if watching television and writing about it was my life, but, as I've already been told in comments, there are other much more qualified people writing about the same thing. Oh, my little television parlour tricks work on The Honey, who is a newbie television watcher, but they don't fool "others", who shall remain nameless... oh, wait... But I digress.

It gets very hard when you can't afford the million dollar Tivo that records every show in the world and makes you an espresso every morning, so you have to stick with the Cox (GLOOOOORIOUS) HD DVR which will get you two HD shows recording at the same time. But what happens when you have more than 2 shows that you want to watch in the same hour, like that hour when Reaper, House, and The Unit (or something like that) are all on... or Private Practice, Bionic Woman, and something else on the CW (Gossip Girl?) and you have to choose and you pick Bionic Woman because of Katee Sackhoff even though you've been an Addison Montgomery Shepherd fan from the beginning?

These are just scenarios (I haven't even checked to see if they actually are on at the same time) that happen to all of us tv addicts. We have to get creative because the DVR/Tivo will hold only so much. Fortunately for us, we can watch certain shows online, buy them on iTunes, and still have space for recording purposes. Not only are most of our favourite shows online, which would minimize the cost of buying from iTunes, but it also helps us stay honest when it comes to downloading shows. Of course, I'm not sure of the legality of downloading shows from torrent sites since they're on tv for free, but the increase in last season dvds for sell before or right at the current season makes it a grey area.

Next, we'll talk about exactly which shows should go where...