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Originally uploaded by jalvear
The quality of the concert footage is simply stunning. The lights and sounds and crisp images make it seem like you're live at the venue. Unfortunately, when I tried to watch music videos on Comcast's on-demand menu, they were all SD quality. There was no option for HD music videos. Where can I find them? Surely artists are filming their videos in HD, so why can't I find them?
Planet Earth. I can't stop watching the Discovery series Planet Earth, a mini-series documentary that took over five years to film. The filmmakers used HD cameras exclusively to capture the majesty of the Earth's planets, seas, and animals. It was simply made for HD. The other day I watched a slow-motion, high-speed video of a shark attacking a seal. And it was breathtaking to see the clarity, the detail of each split second. This kind of made for HD programming is what viewers want to see.
In sum, I want more HD content. What I have is simply not enough. And SD content seen on an HD set just looks crappy and fuzzy and out of focus. I can't wait until everything on TV is HD. Trust me. If I'm leaving TiVo, it's in trouble. This breaks my heart; TiVo has always been friendly, innovative, fun, and easy to use. It should be celebrated, not abandoned. It's a verb, for heaven's sake. But by turning into a luxury product, it's consigned itself to the quiet fringes of a bustling TV world.Okay since that was written, the Series 3 Tivo has gone down in price somewhat ($600 rather than $800) but it's still not enough. It's still a luxury item. And a luxury item that I can't afford to buy right now. Guess I'll be using my cable company's DVR for a while. Bonus: Take the poll on HD DVRs. [tags] HD, HDTV, Tivo, Comcast, satellite TV, digital video recorder, DVR, HD DVR [/tags]
In fact, 50% of older viewers said would "do nothing or wait for reruns" for shows they missed. Do nothing? Do they not care about the latest Lost or Heroes episodes?
And think about it. Reruns? How often do you keep track of reruns and when they might come back on the air? Nobody likes reruns, unless you happen to miss an episode? And unless you're some sort of fanatic (or a younger TV viewer) you'll probably be OK with missing a show.
In fact, reruns are dying. They're being replaced by DVRs, iTunes/iPods, Start Over on-demand features on cable and streaming via the Internet.
It's almost as if the TV networks don't really care about repeats, since they are putting recently aired shows on the Internet for free. Or by paid download via iTunes (or even NetFlix, which is where I go to catch up on Heroes).
Anyway, younger viewers are more hip to technology, have more time to waste hunting down their favorite shows and have grown up with online TV viewing.
The study also found that 50% went to ABC.com more than any other TV site when looking for catching up on shows. NBC.com and CBS.com were next.
Bonus: Nielsen's PDF of the Study Results.
Best Week Ever did one a few weeks ago. It was a commercial for--Uh, I don't even remember!--that featured some of the Best Week Ever performers/comedians and appeared right before the show went to the commercial break. It was effective to me because I love the show and the comedians and thought this was part of the show, not another lame commercials. But ultimately it was ineffective in getting me to remember what they were advertising.
Interestingly, viewers that saw the Guinness ad on Mythbusters remembered the Guinness brand 41% more often than a traditional Guinness ad. A research company called IAG did an evaluation of 1,000 hybrid ads and found that they generated a 30% higher brand recall than traditional ads for the same product.
In fact reality shows are one of the top places where you can find in-show product tie-ins. Shows like America's Next Top Model, Top Chef, Survivor frequently feature products during the show--like hair care products, new frozen food dishes and cars. These advertisers not only get plus during the show, but also have buys for 30-second spots.
In fact, IAG said the highest-scoring hybrid ad was during America's Next Top Model, which featured Herbal Essences hair product, with over 40% of people were able to recall the name of the brand compared to 28% viewing the regular ad.
Experts say ads of these types will grow especially as the usage of DVRs increase.
This makes things a bit easier to keep track of, since most people know the brand (Dish Network) rather than the company behind it (EchoStar).
Meanwhile, AT&T is supposedly still looking to acquire the DISH Network Corporation but no announcements have been made yet. This is one rumor that everyone expects, but that hasn't happened yet.