Tivo, YouTube ..and TV as a social event?

I just finished watching the Martti Ahtisaari interview on CNN. He is the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, obviously and a globally respected statesman and true peace-maker. The interview was very good and made me feel so proud as a Finn, of our former President.

But the interview was yesterday, and I just watched it now, a little while ago, on my PVR (ie TiVo or Sky+ etc style Personal (digital) Video Recorder, or "Hard Disk Drive Recorder"). As I posted a Twitter notification of what I'd just done (do I really need to be doing this for the rest of my life, ha-ha) and a Facebook update - but yeah, it was worth it, the interview was insightful and emotional and funny - I started to think of live TV.

I have been a "vidiot" ever since I was a kid. Always the television and video recording were parts of my life. Well, video recording not quite from a small child, but since a young teenager, as I was 13 when the first VCR hit the market and I was so lucky as we had the very first model sold in Finland (yeah, techie-geeky clearly runs in the family).

I've selected rental apartments based on the availability of cable TV (as the first criterion) and have owned a dozen video cassette recorders, several recoding DVD players and am on my third digital video recorder (PVR/TiVo etc).

And this Ahtisaari interview made me think, that actually, my viewing habits have changed pretty much totally. VCRs and DVDs did not do it. But TiVo has now changed my viewing habits entirely.

I have it continuously recording the CNN (or BBC or CNBC) channel, which I don't pay any attention to. Then occasionally - like just right now - there is a story that catches my attention - like now they are interviewing the new Formula One champ, Lewis Hamilton (he's got some Don't Drink and Drive campaign in London - oh, and Mika Hakkinen is there too ha-ha..) Yeah - I ignore whats on, and only pay attention if a key word is mentioned, like say Nokia or Apple or Facebook or Obama (or Formula One or James Bond ha-ha)... But when the story comes on, I rewind the past 30 seconds and catch the full news story. If relevant, I store it (record it). But I don't pay attention to really any live TV.

That is my live TV. I also do a couple of times per day, a "TV news update" when I just watch the latest 30 minute world news update, skip the ads, skip the weather news and most of the sports news, and get my update of whats happening in the news, in about 15 minutes. Then I return to normal live, and have CNN again on my background noise.

So what of shows? I am a big fan of David Letterman and his nightly TV show. I watch him religiously every day - but nowadays, I never watch him live. I TiVo him every weeknight, and watch him in the next 24 hours at some point. I have stopped having a "chronological obsession" with TV. It seems like I don't watch any television live - not even now, this live news story about Lewis Hamilton on CNN. I observed it, noted it in my mind, will ignore it until I'm done with this blog posting, and will rewind and watch it in ten minutes - but I will watch it in its entirity, and give it full focus, rather than paying partial attention to it while blogging.

Strange. So, other stuff. I love the Daily Show (and like the Colber' Repor'). It was another of my appointment-TV shows. No more. Because it doesn't show daily here in Hong Kong (we only get the Global Edition is the weekly version) - I watch the Daily Show (and most episodes of Colbert) on the internet. Again, I've moved beyond a television schedule. I have not abandoned my fave shows, I just don't watch them in anything like real time.

So, back to my revellation today, after Ahtisaari. As I was thinking - perhaps I should blog about this - and I was thinking to myself, that clearly I don't do any live TV at all - then it hit me - ha-ha, communities dominate even Tomi's television viewing. I do watch some television live. There is an exception.

Formula One racing !

Its not that I couldn't watch F1 on my TiVo (and sometimes due to travel or something, I have done). But almost all F1 races and most qualfiying, for many years already, I have made a point of being there, when it is live. And the reason - it is my viewing community. Currently I live alone in Hong Kong - but I have friends around the world who join in with me and send comments during races. So - I "have to be" there live, else the messages would be pretty pointless (and could ruin the enjoyment of the live race even).

Funny - while technology like TiVo and YouTube and IPTV are helping us away from the TV schedule, and live TV - at the same time a rival technology - the mobile phone - is bringing us to watch TV simultaneously and thus live.. I'm sure there are those who for example watch Big Brother or American Idol etc when it is live, for this very reason - because you know your friends are also watching it, and you want to share comments. I have also had this effect with the World Championship of Ice Hockey (being a Finn, thats our team sport) and again, watched games live, with friends commenting live on the performance of the Finnish team, via SMS..  Yeah, communities dominate even over time-shifting of television. (Hey, this communities dominate thing could be a powerful concept, could even be a book...)

I have to think about this some more.. But I find it interesting..

Comments

[Steven Hoober]

Oh my! You said /P/vr. Everyone now seems to call them DVRs. With a D. For Digital. I think that's silly.

Sure, sure. They only work due to our understanding of digital technology. But their key attribute is they are /personal/.

Anyway, which one do you have? We sorta hate TiVo, and cannot abide most CableCo giveaways, but love our Dish Network one. I have no idea what's available in HK, though.

[Dan Thornton]

I have exactly the same experience - watching television via my laptop using tools like iPlayer to watch when I have time.

The only things I make an appointment to watch at the allotted times are those which are event based - football, motorsport, etc, which I tend to talk about via Twitter.

The main reason is that football, and in my case, motorcycle racing, is a tribal passion, and unless you're at the event or a venue showing it, you lose a lot of the atmosphere - but social networks can make up for this to some extent.

It's also about being able to connect to people who share you interests, even if the real world around you doesn't - for instance, sharing my disappointment that the BBC remade Swedish show Wallander in English, but with Swedish locations, props and captions. Outside of my Swedish fiancee, the only other Swedes who might share that interest are all on Facebook or Twitter, so that's where I went to see if anyone shared my thoughts.

And online viewing means I can indulge interests in more obscure sports which aren't generally shown on UK television, like classic 1980s rallycross for example!

[graeme wood]

I used to record live football on Sky+ to watch later, but now that would mean avoiding using Twitter until I watch the recorded game as too many of my Twitter community will be watching live and I'll find out the score - now struggling to be without Twitter for that long

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Steven, Dan and graeme

Thank you for the comments. Will respond to each individually

Steven - PVR, ha-ha, yes perhaps i should use the more common DVR. I guess its one of those vocabulary things, I first learned of it as "TiVo" and then that it was a PVR, but the DVR seems to be the most used today..

As to what I use (now), here in Hong Kong we don't have the fully integrated dual-digital-tuner DVR's as I had in the UK, so I have a simpler hard disk drive equipped DVD recorder, made by TeleDevice. Its only for analog broadcasts here in Hong Kong and the programming for recordings is obviously then takes much more effort (channel, start-time, end-time etc). But far better than nothing ha-ha..

Dan - yeah, totally. Its that social experience while watching TV. And yeah, Twitter would work well too.

graeme - ha-ha, yeah I hear you. I had that happen once with a Formula One race that I had recorded (this was a few years ago) and was at the airport when a friend sent an SMS message from which it was obvious who had won, and it of course then pretty much ruined the excitement of the race. Since then, I have a strong rule never to travel during the races, and even if I travel on a qualifying session, in that case (as I've recorded it), I will not turn on the phones on my journey home from the airport, and thus can't get messages until I've watched the recording.. We live and learn :-)

Thanks for the comments, clearly we're all having somewhat similar experiences, and its kind of nice to notice you're not alone..

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[chi flat irons]

Hey, your posts have inspired me! - I love the way you directly get to the point, and then work outwards. I’ve been trying to do figure out what I want to say about ,that would allow me to do exactly the same thing.