OK well it’s probably no surprise to anyone but I’m a Dr Who fan. In my defence, I’m a card-carrying geek so it’s kind of an occupational hazard.
Unfortunately last week my geek cred was shattered by the revelation that my PVR didn’t properly record the show on Sunday night. Argh – and this is one of those shows where you really need to see all stories to understand the story arc that’s going on. It’s not CSI where the same show is replayed each week. On Dr Who – the writers have to be able to write!
Anyway – I had the pleasure of trying out the ABC’s iView. They store the show as a downloadable broadcast for up to 11 days later than the original broadcast, so I was able to watch it through the notebook. Better yet, I hooked the notebook up to the TV through the svideo cable, turned off the screensaver and cranked up the power options and it was – almost – as good as the real thing. If I had hooked the sound cables up I could probably have had it go through my surround sound. But, as it was I think I noted one item of pixelation, and no download pause while watching a 50-minute show.
That in my books is both impressive and fantastic. It’s still a beta service, but it worked out of the box for me and saved me some geek cred anyway.