television

Image courtesy of Fanhattan.com

First it was big screen projection technology that dramatically changed the way we watch movies in our own abodes. And now we’re cozying up with small-screen tablets for in-home watching like never before. It’s predicted that by next year, “there will be more mobile devices than people” on our lovely planet Earth (source: IBM ad).

My tablet has become a good little friend, like a pet, actually. I can hunker down to watch whatever, wherever, and whenever I want, and the magic is that I don’t even need to find the remote to use it.

Best yet is that if I want to transform my tablet image into something big and cinematic, there are new projectors, like the less-than-three-pound Optoma ML500, which can connect to my tablet and transform the small-screen image into a big one — and for less than $600 too.

All of this innovation is thriving with a little help from the streaming content boom. It seems that every day there is an announcement about expanded content availability on one platform or another. But now, instead of separately searching Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Amazon Prime, or other video content provider to find what we want to watch, Fanhattan lets us search across all of these platforms in one simple app.

And the opportunities to nab huge quantities of streaming content continue to come at us at an extraordinary pace. In addition to its aggregating capability, Fanhattan recently announced a new WatchList feature, which allows users to add a show to a personal watch list and eagerly await a Fanhattan email when the show is available for streaming.

I’ve been stumped sometimes, standing in a drug store or grocery aisle, just staring at the array of toothpaste, olive oil, soup, and organic cereal. Regardless of all the algorithm recommendations that appear on our screens, I can’t help but wonder how all of these content choices will impact our ability to make the final decision on what to watch. But I’m not complaining. Choice is good. A little overwhelming, to be sure, but good.

With big screens, small screens, streaming, and who knows what’s next, in a very short time indeed, everyone in the world will be a Home Projectionist. And in that, you’ll actually have no choice in the matter.

One of the problems with having a projection system is that if the video isn’t in high definition it can look pretty dingy. However, sometimes visual quality doesn’t matter. I use a Roku to stream my video to my projector. I love the wide array of channels, many for free. The best of the lot is a channel called Pub-D-Hub.

Pub-D-Hub specializes in all things Public Domain. From movies to radio and television shows, and even industrial/school films such as ‘How to Date’… A lot of these films are available on YouTube and Archive.com, but Pub-D-Hub categorizes them and makes them easy to scroll through.

This Saturday I ventured into their Television section. Along with old episodes of The Andy Griffith Show and Beverly Hillbillies were a bunch of shows that I’d never heard of… some for good reason. I had a few people over, so I decided to play ‘let’s watch a random television show’. First Dan saw a show he hadn’t watched since he was a child in the 1960’s. “Sky King“.

This show goes by the premise that you can make a cowboy show, except instead of a horse our hero flies a plane. “Songbird”. The one we watched moved quickly and was about a couple of vicious but inept highway robbers. High jinx ensues with our Sky King having to fly Songbird through a valley of mountains with no gas. “Look out for that mountain…’ Sky King’s sidekick warns. Video quality: C-minus; Crowd pleasing scale: B-minus. Although it is entertaining, its still a routine cowboy show.

We then watched Ding Dong School.

Ding Dong School was the ‘nursery school of the air’. One of the first children shows of its kind that tried to teach as well as entertain. The school’s head teacher Miss Francis shows how to blow bubbles, make rabbits out of handkerchiefs, and most of all tells us that we need to tell our Mommies to buy us Kix cereal for breakfast. Fellow viewer Dean was not a good student and thought it was horrifying. I but I was transfixed by the complete calmness of Miss Francis who really seemed to want to teach children how to blow bubbles.

Video Quality: B+. Crowd Pleasing Scale: C-minus. Historically interesting, but at 30 full minutes you can only hear about how good Kix is for so long. The commercials were at least one-third of the show.

We then watched Stump the Stars. One of the most frustrating game shows I’ve ever seen.

In this show, Jeanne Crain and Ed Begley were the guest stars with regulars, Beverly Garland, Hans Conried, Ross Martin, Ruta Lee, Sebastian Cabot. Viewers write in a charade phrase that the stars have to guess in 120 seconds. This is Olympic style charades. The have to figure out not just the name of a book or play, but riddles, puns, parodies, and even a viewers address. The game moves so fast that I found it unbelievable that anyone could have gotten anything right. But how many chances to get to see Ruta Lee play charades with Hans Conried.

Video Quality: B. Crowd Pleasing Scale: B-minus. It was interesting for about ten minutes, then it just became exhausting. It just comes down to that charades is not fun to watch.

But I urge you if have a Roku to check this station out. Lots of fun video to dig through.