My name is
Suzanne. This is my new blog for my video analyses class. Be
sure to visit my
personal
blog! I try to write in it every day, and I post it once a week.
I apologize in advance for the length of this post...I tend to write a lot
when it's about something I have a great deal of interest in or knowledge
about.
TELEVISION
I watch a lot of television because of my job running
The TV MegaSite. Among other
things, I
review
all of the new shows (I'm a little behind on that right now because of
the holidays), so I have to watch at least the first episode of each new
fiction show (well, I try....there are way too many new shows). I've
been a TV fanatic for a long time, so I also have quite a few shows I
watch regularly. You can see the
list
here. My favorite show is "
Legion"
on FX. It's mind-blowing.
Sometimes those shows that I have to review are on
Netflix,
Hulu,
Amazon,
Crackle, or some
other website/service, so then I will watch it on there (I have
subscriptions to them all; none of them cost much, but they sure do add
up). I have a
ROKU connected to my
TV, so I will usually watch these streaming sites through that. That
way I can see them on my TV set screen. I would rather not watch on my
laptop because I usually like to work on the laptop while I'm watching
(can't do both at once), and because the TV has a larger screen.
I also get some of the TV shows ahead of time from the networks to
review. They used to send me DVD's for that (called "
screeners"),
but now most of them are online. I get screeners from
NBC,
Syfy,
PBS,
Freeform,
Netflix,
A&E, History, Lifetime,
TNT, TBS, and some other
cable channels. I also do receive some DVD sets to review from
PBS,
CBS,
Warner Brothers,
Lionsgate,
et al. In short, I have way too much to watch! I always have a stack of
DVD's, an almost-full DVR, and a long list of shows to watch. Forget
about streaming... I need to have shows
beamed directly into my brain, preferably without commercials and in
double-time fast motion.
INTERNET
On social media, I do see occasional videos on
Facebook,
Twitter,
Instagram or
YouTube.
I don't watch most of the videos people post (there are just too many!),
and I have my laptop and phone sound turned off most of the time,
anyway. There are lots of great old music and TV videos on YouTube, and
I wish I had time to watch more of them. If I'm learning a song, though,
then I do usually go to YouTube to find the song, and I listen to it
over and over.
If I miss an episode of a broadcast or cable TV show for some reason,
then I will either watch it On Demand on my TV, or I'll try to find it
online. I've been online since 1994, and I used to work for a
search
engine, so I'm very good at finding things.
I get most of my TV through
DISH
Network, which I love. We used to get Comcast cable, back in
the earlier part of the century, and it was terrible. There were
intermittent reception problems that they couldn't ever fix, and a lot
of outages, and they kept raising our bill. Worse, when I called up to
find out why they were raising it, I could never get a straight answer.
That's when we switched to DISH and never looked back. They're cheaper
than DirecTV, too. We rarely have any problems with DISH, and they don't
raise our rates. We use
Suddenlink for our internet and
Verizon
for our cell phones.
Anyway, DISH now has Netflix as well. However, for whatever reason, it
doesn't work terrible well when I try to watch it via DISH. I'm not sure
why, but it freezes up, and I can't get it to unfreeze. It usually works
pretty well on the ROKU, or on my laptop. It might have something to
do with our internet. I know that
Arkansas
has some of the slowest internet speeds in the country. It
can't be just that, though, or else it wouldn't work well on my
laptop, either. Maybe DISH still hasn't gotten the bugs worked out on
it yet.
I know that people love to binge-watch, but I'm not really a big fan of
that. I'd rather record shows on
my DVR
and then get around to watching them, one episode at a time, at my
convenience. It's just too much. I feel like the shows are pressuring me
to watch them if they're all available right now. I'm sure that part of
that feeling comes from being old. They didn't have binge-watching when
I was growing up. They didn't even have the internet!
BACK TO TV, VIDEOTAPES AND DVD's
When I was growing up in
San Diego in the 1960's, we just had a black-and-white TV that got a
few local channels, including the local affiliates for ABC, CBS and NBC
(there was no FOX or CW back then). We had two or three other channels.
If you lived in
North County, you could also get some of the Los Angeles stations.
We were very poor, so we had a black-and-white TV for a lot longer than
most people. Eventually, we did get color. I didn't watch a lot of TV
back then, though, because my mom wouldn't let us. She would tell us to
go play or read a book. She used to listen to music on the radio all
the time when we were home (probably because she was a singer,
like me). I remember
that my dad, who wasn't home that much, loved the westerns, like "
Bonanza"
and "
Gunsmoke." I
really don't remember what we all watched together, aside from "
Batman"
and "
Star Trek."
I have three older brothers that are all comic book and sci-fi
geeks like me, and my mom was
into that stuff, too.
My mom died when I was 10, so then I watched a lot of TV, all the time.
My dad was out a lot, and my brothers had moved out, so the TV was my
new companion. We didn't have videos, DVD's, DVR's or internet back
then. (I did read a lot, as well) After I went into a foster home in the
70's, we were only allowed to watch TV occasionally. I think "
The
Waltons" and "
Dallas"
were the only shows we really watched. I had my own, small TV in my room
for a while, but then someone broke into our house and stole it. I also
used to listen to "
Knots Landing"
on the radio (
You
can listen to certain TV stations on the radio).
After I moved out on my own, I usually either had a TV or access to one.
Back then you couldn't record one show and watch another, so you could
only watch what was on the major networks, unless you had cable. There
weren't nearly as many cable stations available then, either. In the
late 80's, after my husband graduated from grad school, we finally did
get cable. In the meantime, I got hooked on the soaps in the mid-80's
while I was in college. They had a TV in the student union that was
always tuned to the
ABC soaps.
I bought a
VCR in the late 80's, so I could record soaps and some other shows.
I have a large collection of videotapes in the garage, but I rarely
watch them. I was an early adopter of DVRs when they first became
available, as well as
DVD
recorders. I love DVR's and don't know how we ever lived without
them. It's great to be able to record shows with the press of a button,
as well as fast-forward through commercials, and pause/rewind a live
show. With videotapes, you had to have a tape handy and pop it in
there, and make sure you have enough room left on the tape (I still have
nightmares about running out of room on my videotape to record a
soap!). DVD recorders are only slightly better. Really, the only
problem with DVRs is that they have more limited space. Also, they do
break down eventually, since they're just computers. You can't really
back anything up, so once your DVR dies, you lose all of your shows.
I've had that happen quite a few times, so let me tell you that it's
absolutely heartbreaking (especially if you lose hundreds of hours of
shows).
The DISH DVRs do allow you to
move your shows to an external hard drive, but you can't actually
copy them, only move them. Also, it's very slow, and if your internet
or electricity goes out in the middle of moving them, you lose them.
The same thing happens if you try to move too many shows at once. Mine
holds about 2,000 shows, so good luck ever watching them, anyway.
Somehow, no matter how many hours my DVR has, I manage to fill it up.
Even though I have many DVDs in my collection, they, too, are going out
of fashion.
Not nearly as many people buy them as used to. I'm sure by 2050,
they will be gone and fully replaced by streaming/digital, just as VHS
and other media before them were replaced.
MOVIES
Getting back to my viewing habits... although I do love TV, I also
love
movies. I prefer to see
them in the theater, but we don't have a movie theater here in town,
and I have no one to go with regularly. Sometimes I can convince my
husband to go with me (he's not a big fan of movies), or I can go
with a friend when we visit somewhere else. This past year, I only
saw 4 movies in the theater. Any others I saw were on HBO or on DVD.
My favorites, just like TV, are the superhero movies. This year I
saw "
Wonder Woman"
and "
Spider-Man:
Homecoming" in the theaters, but I missed "
Justice
League" and "
Thor:
Ragnarok," so I'll have to wait and see them on DVD, which isn't
nearly as good. I do collect all of the superhero movies and TV
shows on DVD, at least as much as I can. I'm not saying I have a
complete collection, by any means.
I have a really good smart phone, the
Samsung
Galaxy 8, but I hate watching TV or movies on such a small
screen (even though it's big for a phone, it's still way too small).
We have a tablet, so once in a while I will use that, if I have to.
Again, it's not nearly as big as our TV (and we don't even that big
of a TV).
VIDEO GAMES
I'm not a regular video game player. In the early 80's, we did
have the early video game
Pong for a
while, as was mentioned in class. I used to play pinball a lot
when I was a kid (mostly at the corner store down the street),
but I never really got into video games. I've played a few
(mostly back in the 80's), but to me, they're just too
difficult, and a waste of time and money. You have to play them
an awful lot before you get good at them. I don't have the
patience for that. The only game I really liked was this one
arcade game years ago, called
Crystal Castles, which had cute little bears and was very
easy to play.
I have many friends and family members who are into them now,
though, and some of them play online, on their PCs or phones,
constantly. I admit that video games are fun, but one can only
have so many hobbies that take up time, and I already have
too many of those. I was
recently interested in the new
Star Wars virtual reality game (just because it seemed
really cool and a lot of fun), but it's $200. Also, I read that
it works off your cell phone, but it won't work yet with mine.
Also, it got some mixed reviews on Amazon for how well it works.
I think I'll wait until they get the bugs out of that one, the
price comes down and it will work for my cell. Virtual reality
definitely sounds fun, especially if it ever gets as real as the
Star Trek holodeck.
