ABC decided to change their schedule this year so that Alias is opposite The West Wing. That’s unfortunate because we watch them both. What’s one to do?

One week we TiVo’d one while watching the other live. We found that we’ve become quite unaccustomed to live TV though. We found the commercials very annoying and the fact that it actually took an hour to watch a show felt very strange. I suppose I could figure out how to use the VCR again, but I just can’t do that on principle. VCRs are sooooo 1980s.

I found another option: BitTorrent. I found a site with links to pretty much every popular TV show. They’re high-quality files too, HTDV recordings, digital sound, with the commercials edited out. They take quite a while to download, but several hours is not a problem if I won’t watch it for a couple days anyway. I only needed to download DivX and the AC3 codec (both free) and the video files played flawlessly.

We watched one episode directly on the laptop which was OK, but not loud enough and obviously the screen is kinda small. I was thinking about how I might get the video onto my TiVo, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to do that. Then Anne suggested that I just hook up the laptop to the TV. Why didn’t I think of that? I don’t think she even knew how that would work, but it turns out the S-Video out on my laptop and the headphone jack worked perfectly. I could even plug them into the front inputs on my receiver.

Watching Alias with this setup was a whole different experience. The HDTV quality was far better than what I get with my regular analog cable and lossy TiVo recording, even if I don’t have an HDTV. The sound was notably better as well. It actually felt like I was watching a movie, not a TV show. I think this actually affected the emotional impact of the show as well. Anne ran away a few times more than usual during the suspenseful parts. 🙂

Next time I just need to turn off Yahoo! Messenger before I start playing. I kept getting little notifications on the TV when people signed off and on. Funny at first, then just annoying.

This kind of usage really does point to the next generation of TV. What if my TiVo could run BitTorrent? Then again, why should I bother to set up a device to record something or even spend time downloading files? I should just be able to watch anything I want on-demand. Of course I’ve been watching on-demand video for nearly a decade on the web. But it’s an entirely different experience when it’s high-quality content playing back on a big TV with good sound.

This is definitely the future, but it’s unclear to me how long it will take to get through all the issues from the content creators, advertisers, TV networks and cable companies. Advertisers should just give in, forget the 30-second ad, and fold their advertising into the content. Maybe not as blatently as something like The Price is Right, but something along those lines.

The MPAA is currently on a manhunt for these BitTorrent sites though. One of them was shut down a few days after I discovered it and I’m surprised the others are still up.

There’s no reason that I shouldn’t be able to legally watch anything on-demand in the future. Broadband penetration is finally above 50% in the US. Telephone service is getting folded into broadband with VOIP. Video is definitely next.

Coindentally, Yahoo! just put video search up on the home page today. (BitTorrent files aren’t listed.)

Now if Google did the same thing, then every media outlet would be declaring the video revolution has begun. Maybe it’s just an undeclared revolution. It’s working for me!