The cost of television
A month or two ago I finally broke down and got myself television. This was perhaps mostly because I wanted to watch the Oscars, which, even though they probably are "Hollywood masturbation," as Lael calls them, they're a definite weakness of mine, and I seem to become very sad when I miss them. But of course there are other things on TV as well, a few of them even worth watching. Anyway, I decided to get myself a TV tuner card for my computer, which would be cheaper and take up less space in my apartment than an actual TV. The one I decided to get was the Miglia Tech AlchemyTV DVR.
My experience with it has been, shall we say, less than ideal. Most of these nonidealities seem to have to do with the software it came with. Here are some of the more interesting features:
In pondering why exactly this lack of software bothers me so much, I realized there is a way that I seem to regard software sometimes that I hadn't quite realized. When I have the hardware to do something but I can't because the software isn't there, I'm frustrated. Because, you know, my computer plus the TV tuner card really should be able to act like a Tivo, but it can't.
I think this may be the source of a lot of dislike that exists out there for computers. When a program crashes, say, it's very easy to imagine a version of that program that doesn't crash. There's no fundamental reason why it can't be written without ever crashing, it's just that it hasn't been done yet. You probably can't fix it yourself, so all you can do is wait for other people to get around to it. That's annoying.
Similarly, when I can imagine a piece of software that only doesn't exist because no one's gotten around to it, that's annoying. The rate that new things for a computer to do can be imagined is so much higher than the rate that software can be written. It's like a computer's versatility is it's own weakness.
Of course, I realize that software can be difficult to write, and just having an idea for a piece of software is very different from writing it, and it's totally unfair for me to criticize programmers for not putting time into something just because I want it, not to mention the whole how-does-anybody-make-money-writing-software issue. But still, when the hardware's there, and I know it's possible, because Tivos exist, and MythTV exists, so it's not like I'm asking for some algorithm that no one's figured out how to write yet, or even an idea that no one's had, it's really irks me that I can't have it.
I'm really not sure if this is an unreasonable opinion to have. Am I regarding software as more trivial than it really is? Am I undervaluing the efforts that programmers go through to create quality product?
Or am I just asking too many stupid questions?
My experience with it has been, shall we say, less than ideal. Most of these nonidealities seem to have to do with the software it came with. Here are some of the more interesting features:
- There are two ways to record something. The first is just to hit the "record" button, which causes you to become unable to control the volume or the image size, which means you can't watch it full screen. The second is to set the timer to record something in advance, which doesn't allow you to watch it at all while it's happening. It's not terribly easy to switch from one to the other, and in neither of them can I watch something while I record it in the same way that I can watch something when I'm not recording it.
- With timed recordings, occasionally it will inexplicably decide not to record at all.
- The sound easily gets a little bit off from the picture, and requires changing the image size a couple times to fix.
- Sometimes the sound goes away entirely, and the only way to get it back seems to be to reboot the entire computer.
- Recently it's taken to making these little 300K files whenever it records something. Not too annoying, just very very strange.
In pondering why exactly this lack of software bothers me so much, I realized there is a way that I seem to regard software sometimes that I hadn't quite realized. When I have the hardware to do something but I can't because the software isn't there, I'm frustrated. Because, you know, my computer plus the TV tuner card really should be able to act like a Tivo, but it can't.
I think this may be the source of a lot of dislike that exists out there for computers. When a program crashes, say, it's very easy to imagine a version of that program that doesn't crash. There's no fundamental reason why it can't be written without ever crashing, it's just that it hasn't been done yet. You probably can't fix it yourself, so all you can do is wait for other people to get around to it. That's annoying.
Similarly, when I can imagine a piece of software that only doesn't exist because no one's gotten around to it, that's annoying. The rate that new things for a computer to do can be imagined is so much higher than the rate that software can be written. It's like a computer's versatility is it's own weakness.
Of course, I realize that software can be difficult to write, and just having an idea for a piece of software is very different from writing it, and it's totally unfair for me to criticize programmers for not putting time into something just because I want it, not to mention the whole how-does-anybody-make-money-writing-software issue. But still, when the hardware's there, and I know it's possible, because Tivos exist, and MythTV exists, so it's not like I'm asking for some algorithm that no one's figured out how to write yet, or even an idea that no one's had, it's really irks me that I can't have it.
I'm really not sure if this is an unreasonable opinion to have. Am I regarding software as more trivial than it really is? Am I undervaluing the efforts that programmers go through to create quality product?
Or am I just asking too many stupid questions?