I hate TV. There, I said it.
While I love watching TV series and movies, I just hate how limiting it is.
For example, for the past weeks I’ve been revisiting the amazing Breaking Bad. Waiting for the Blu-ray price to go down, I resorted to finding the episodes online, and adding them to iTunes. Whenever I had the time, I just grabbed the remote of the Apple TV of where-ever I was, and it automatically showed me the episode I either was watching, or the latest episode that was waiting for me. When I traveled, I loaded up the episodes on my MacBook Pro or iPad, and when I came home, everything is also waiting for me.
Today I saw a decent deal on a complete Breaking Bad blu-ray set, which of course I bought. You see, I love supporting the artists that create my entertainment. My DVD collection had about 600 disks, before I sold all for a Blu-ray upgrade. My software, which powers my computer is all purchased from the Mac App Store, and I love to pay the 10 euro a month to power my music addiction with Spotify. Whenever Netflix drops this week, you can be sure I will be plunking down my cash for that experience.
Yet still, Disks. I love walking around in stores and shops, finding a new disk and putting it on my shelf. My 70 disk Disney collection is a pride, and I can’t wait for the day that I can complete it.
What I do hate, is taking out one of those disks, popping it in the player, waiting for the commercials and piracy warnings to clear. Some of those you can’t even skip. I once bought this DVD of Charlie Wilson’s War that had this UNICEF video in front of it. It was around 6 minutes, and you couldn’t fast forward or skip. While the movie was great, the experience ruined it for me.
If I look at the Breaking Bad set, it’s a gorgeous box, with a lot of extra’s. And yet, I had to look on my iPad what the last episode was, and how far in I was. Then I had to locate it which disk it was on, and then the menu. I forwarded a few chapters and then had to rewind through a bit I was looking forward to experience again.
If I want to look at the next episode in the bedroom, I have a problem, since we only have one player. Same when I travel, my disks are useless, as my Macs don’t even have optical drives anymore.
Another problem lays with the blessed memory I have. It might be skilled in remembering quotes and trivia from the most idiotic things, but don’t ask me to remember something important like picking up the milk, or what episode I watched last.
As Tim Cook said on the Charlie Rose show: “The moment you put on the TV you immediately get transported back in the 70’s.”
For the majority of live TV, we use Stievie, which is an iOS app that can stream every TV moment from the past week from the 10 most popular channels. It works on device, or with the magic of AirPlay on our AppleTV’s. For everything else, Netflix.
I could make the complete switch to digital, and buy everything on iTunes. Except the iTunes store doesn’t offer TV shows in Belgium.
But even if they would, I would lose the experience of actually owning something. I love having things digital, but there is a line that must be drawn. I don’t want to live in an empty house with just an aluminium cube with a LaCie logo on it.
