Digital cable TV.. Ugh..

I've never been able to stick it out with any kind of "series" show. It's a deliberate decision of not wanting to be tied to following an endless series...like it's an obligation to make sure you catch every episode so you can then be in the know the next day at work with al the other series addicts. :D
Which of course requires you be at your TV at a given time on a given night...or at best, recording it and watching a bit later on...but still needing to keep up with each episode and all that.

Never watched any of those with any regularity (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Sopranos, Walking Dead, etc...etc.)...but I've occasionally caught one or two episodes of some of them.

I'm a movie guy. I want a good 2-3 hour movie...and if they can't deliver the fucking story in that time frame...then it's not worth following for 80 more episodes. ;) :p
 
I've never been able to stick it out with any kind of "series" show. It's a deliberate decision of not wanting to be tied to following an endless series...like it's an obligation to make sure you catch every episode so you can then be in the know the next day at work with al the other series addicts. :D
Which of course requires you be at your TV at a given time on a given night...or at best, recording it and watching a bit later on...but still needing to keep up with each episode and all that.

Never watched any of those with any regularity (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Sopranos, Walking Dead, etc...etc.)...but I've occasionally caught one or two episodes of some of them.

I'm a movie guy. I want a good 2-3 hour movie...and if they can't deliver the fucking story in that time frame...then it's not worth following for 80 more episodes. ;) :p
Well if you stream a series you can finish it in a day and not have to stretch it out over 4 months.
 
And the thing a lot of great movie makers are doing now is instead of making one 9 hour movie, they make a limited series so it doesn't limit the storytelling to two hours.

But you do you, miro. lol.
 
Oh...I guess I'm supposed to agree with you so I can feel part of your collective. Yeah...I forgot how it is. LOL!

Watch your series...I'm not stopping you.
I just said I don't care for them, nor do I wish to record and binge watch 3 seasons in a day or two.

There's only the rare occasion that a "trilogy" type movie is worth it. I find most of that stuff or the endless episode series stuff that they pretty much give you the meat-n-potatoes up front to hook you...then for the next two seasons it's just endless rehash and stretching out the same old story to keep people tuning in.
You watch for an hour so they can reveal in the last 5 minutes what they really wanted to say.

Good writers can give you the whole story in a 2-3 hour movie....otherwise, you might as well go read a book....IMO, YMMV, etc...etc...
 
And the thing a lot of great movie makers are doing now is instead of making one 9 hour movie, they make a limited series so it doesn't limit the storytelling to two hours.

But you do you, miro. lol.
Exactly. True Detective. Fargo. The Night Of.

Let it play out over ten episodes. No rush to fit things into a 2 hour window.

I rarely watch anything on a week-to-week basis. Record it and binge it. Or in the case of tge streaming services, just binge it. The exception being Game of Thrones, since you’re likely to run into spoilers online or in the news (or your daughter will call and tell you everything that happened :) )
 
My old mum binge-watches series shows...she'll go through 10 episodes on a good day.
She finds these older series on the net...that way she doesn't have to wait for tomorrow or next week to find out what happens next.
She will kill off one entire series in a month or so, depending on how long it ran...then she finds another one.

When she's with me during the summer...it's like that most days.
If I walk by a couple of times during the day, she gives me a 5 minute synopsis of where things are at up to that point.
That's about as close as I get to watching episode series. :D
 
Kind of getting into the binge watching thing though in multiple days not all at once...Damn 24 took a whole day! :eek:

Goliath was pretty cool

Hand of God...weird but cool

we're binging right now with "Chance" was pretty good at first ....now the second season is getting a little weird...but we're hangin through it...maybe...

Dachay2tnr
may be onto something about the competition upping the game as far as what we are being served that along with how much easier it is to produce a movie now than even 10 years ago...yet alone 50..
 
... I find most of that stuff or the endless episode series stuff that they pretty much give you the meat-n-potatoes up front to hook you...then for the next two seasons it's just endless rehash and stretching out the same old story to keep people tuning in. You watch for an hour so they can reveal in the last 5 minutes what they really wanted to say.

Good writers can give you the whole story in a 2-3 hour movie....otherwise, you might as well go read a book....IMO, YMMV, etc...etc...

I feel that way about most shows these days. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Vegas) is a favorite, but when William Petersen's character
left the show the writing began to slide and in the latter seasons they had at least one 3-part episode which really turned me off - just
because it was so thinned out. Bad move. I dislike 2-part episodes, and the 3-parter just went too far, IMO.

I'd rather get a 2-3 hour special episode than go through that. At least streaming is good for binging them.

Re: Walking Dead.. I watched the beginning of episode one just to fix the presentation in my mind, and I haven't been back since. When the
last episode comes I'll try to watch that for closure.
_____________________

p.s. After the customer support woman walked me through setting up my digital box she said something like.."..and that's it. All done.
You can put away your TV remote because you won't need it..". HA! I use my TV's sleep timer every night and the cable box doesn't
have one, so I have to keep my TV's remote next to the box remote and things are looking cluttered.
 
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I feel that way about most shows these days. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Vegas) is a favorite, but when William Petersen's character
left the show the writing began to slide and in the latter seasons they had at least one 3-part episode which really turned me off - just
because it was so thinned out. Bad move. I dislike 2-part episodes, and the 3-parter just went too far, IMO.

I'd rather get a 2-3 hour special episode than go through that. At least streaming is good for binging them.

Re: Walking Dead.. I watched the beginning of episode one just to fix the presentation in my mind, and I haven't been back since. When the
last episode comes I'll try to watch that for closure.
_____________________

p.s. After the customer support woman walked me through setting up my digital box she said something like.."..and that's it. All done.
You can put away your TV remote because you won't need it..". HA! I use my TV's sleep timer every night and the cable box doesn't
have one, so I have to keep my TV's remote next to the box remote and things are looking cluttered.

There might be a sleep timer in the cable box. But it’s possible you have to access it through the settings rather than through a sleep button on the remote.

Of course, that will still leave your TV turned on. :D

However, if you’re lucky, your cable box will have a switched outlet plug in it. That way you can plug the TV into that, and when the cable box goes off, it will cut power to the TV.

I haven’t had any cable boxes in a couple of years, so things may have changed.

BTW, I agree with you on Walking Dead. I watched a couple of early episodes, but you can only really watch so many zombies’ heads explode before it grows a bit old.
 
Oh...I guess I'm supposed to agree with you so I can feel part of your collective. Yeah...I forgot how it is. LOL!.

Huh? Sometimes we are unaware of technological advances out there that make entertainment more attractive to us. I was just informing you of some things I wasn't sure you were aware of. Not sure how you could possibly get defensive over that but again, you do you, miro.
 
I managed to catch about 3 episodes of an early season Breaking Bad series in succession. Then I missed a weekly episode and said f-it. Then I managed to watch the final season all the way through(I think it was the final season). I was hooked. I went back to the beginning, first season, streamed the whole damn thing. Episode, after episode....just one more episode and i'll go to bed....and one more episode. One episode (or 2) before leaving for work, and back to it at night. Man, I was hooked bad, a Breaking Bad junkie. That was some damned good TV, there. Awesome.

I'll never do it again. No series watching for me.

I think, though.....a series may get long and sloooow at times, deep into the minutia. But, it allows for nuance, a deeper understanding of each character, motive, what makes them tick. You build more of a connection with the character, or possibly dislike them more, It's kind of like watching a movie that was based on a book. A lot was left out. More often than not..the book was better.

Still ain't gonna. Gomer Pyle at 9, sometimes.
 
There might be a sleep timer in the cable box. But it’s possible you have to access it through the settings rather than through a sleep button on the remote... Of course, that will still leave your TV turned on. :D... However, if you’re lucky, your cable box will have a switched outlet plug in it. That way you can plug the TV into that, and when the cable box goes off, it will cut power to the TV.

No extra plugs on the box, gotta plug each unit into the wall outlet. The only timers are in Settings and they're just Reminder timers. Only other thing the box has is a setting for auto shutdown after so many hours - I think 4 is the default.
 
Huh? Sometimes we are unaware of technological advances out there that make entertainment more attractive to us. I was just informing you of some things I wasn't sure you were aware of. Not sure how you could possibly get defensive over that but again, you do you, miro.

But you do you, miro. lol.

I'm fully aware of TV options :facepalm: :D
You just put it in away that implies I'm not willing to accept the collective perspective, like I'm missing out on something great. :)

Watch your shows, I'll watch my movies...everyone's happy.
 
Cut the cable and phone cord many years ago...

OTT gives us a ton of stuff which we manage and record with TIVO (Lifetime service) WE have a Vizio HD TV with Chromecast built in so I can "cast" anything I find on the internet via my browser...pretty cool... there in really nothing out there in the world that we can't watch if we want..we share a Hulu and Netflix account and have Amazon prime..Can't stomach paying for HBO , Showtime or the likes...

Antennae on the roof...Tivo (which is not only a DVR but a interface for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YOutube and several other "apps" and lastly Chromecast ...The Tivo is a one time payment but I've found myself upgrading to the latest greatest TIVO @ every 5 or 6 years @ $600 that includes "lifetime Tivo service" that then averages out to @ $100 a year...With the HULU and Netflix shared account @ $100 a year and Amazon account is $120 annually so for @ $320 a year / $27 a month we have a pretty broad A/V all you can manage to watch buffet...

OH YEAH PHONE! Yeah I know landlines are so yesterdays news...shit we have fios 50/50 why not? We were able to port our 30 year old home phone number that was costing me @ $35 a month with Vonage to this and it's FRICKING FREE! YEAH BUDDY>>>


OBIWANKANOBI! OBIHAI OBi200 for @ $50 google voice FREE landline for all U.S. calls ( small fee for international ) with amazing call forwarding, voicemail, call filtering..we have ours set so that anyone we don't know must state their name before it will ring and we have the option ( if they say their name) to take the call or send it to voicemail...AWESOME 99% of telemarketers hang up...the other asshats get sent to voicemail...and it's all FREE after the obi 200 $50 buy in...



View attachment 103158

Not sure how old your OBI is, but I have one I purchased several years ago and now have to replace it because Google is changing their application and older versions won't work. Just FYI.
 
Now, here is something interesting I discovered recently Amazon.com: Intel Compute Stick CS125 Computer with Intel Atom x5 Processor and Windows 10 (BOXSTK1AW32SC): Computers & Accessories I needed this for a trade show I will be at for use on one of our interfaces.

This thing has Windows10, full version from what I can tell and coupled with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse is a pretty dang nice computer for the TV. I don't care for the smart TVs for the same reason I never purchased an all-in-one stereo.
 
Not sure how old your OBI is, but I have one I purchased several years ago and now have to replace it because Google is changing their application and older versions won't work. Just FYI.

Yep that was the 100 if I remember right I actually replaced it about a year or so ago with the new one that I posted the picture and link to....
 
I had to take a break from recording 'cause I slit my finger open on a cardboard box. Lot of that going around lately, so..

I'm using my remaining fingers to plow through all the options provided by the 63 buttons on the remote which came with my cable digital box.
What a PITA! Several buttons do double and triple duty because several menus and features are single and double nested.

I was able to find where I can load up my favorite channels into a separate channel guide for quick surfing. I set up a couple other "guides",
one is for ALL channels (about 1400), and one is for the channels I have subscribed to (no pays.. just freebies included in my tier). But jeez..
to switch between these channel guides for selective surfing, I need to dig down two levels in the menu to pick one - then switch it back later
when I want more or less to work with. All this on a remote that's nearly as big as my foot :p
 
i usually slit my finger on sheet metal....
yeah the Favorites List is becoming used more and more here too. Im up to about 4 or 5 on my list.

theres a lot of channels but either in different languages and some are just advertisement channels which I cant delete and the others are commercials with TV shows mixed in.... out of 900 channels I watch 5 and pay $100?
 
Here in UK I pay £20 a month for my BBC license (STONKING VALUE!!) and NOW box basic TV (but I hardly ever use it. Bloody terrible remote.)

My wife and I DO watch a fair bit of telly but I have a pretty good recording setup for broadcast digital TV. I have 3 Freeview HDD/DVD recorders (one is taken up for 10 hrs a day/night recording wildlife in my garden) so I can grab most of what I want and timeshift. I can even record the NOW box if I can be a'ed using a Portta HDMI to video+L&R decoder.

My biggest problem is co-channel interference that wipes out digital TV for a lot of the summer but then stuff is always being repeated and there is BBC iPlayer!

Dave.
 
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