It's About Learning

While I do use my iPhone to look up the occasional stat on an actor or the name of a movie or other related information while watching TV my two teenage sons are the true uses of mobility or the second screen while watching TV. It must also be noted that we seldom watch traditional TV with news being about the only thing that we will watch live. We download all TV shows from the Usenet and watch them comercial free on our computers, iPads or other mobile devices. Our main TV is attached to a Mac Mini which acts as our media station so even when we are watching TV it is in way that we control.

It would be fair to say that we don’t watch any less TV but we do spend less time watching and have total control over when and where we watch the shows we like. The following infographic does a fine job of summarizing the changes we are seeing in the Couch Potato. I don’t know if I would say that the Couch Potato is extinct but broadband internet and mobile are definitely serving TV up in a different dish.

Original Image Source: Search Engine Journal

http://www.dx3.net/rise-of-mobile-infographic.html

Rise of Mobile Infographic | DX3.net via kwout

This infographic clearly demonstrates that many people are using the Internet to watch television and videos in general. Perhaps the most interesting number is that 25% of video viewers in households with high speed internet watch those videos on a device other than a television.

When we were living in the US we didn’t have a full cable package because we could watch most television shows on our computers through Hulu, directly from shows website our through a Usenet download. This is not only more convenient it eliminates most commercials. Unfortunately, media services like Hulu, Pandora or Spotify are not available in Canada so one has to rely on the Usenet and the NZB process of searching, downloading and recompiling media. It is not nearly as slick as the full streaming that you would get from Hulu but it works and it is free and the best part is that it is commercial free. A typical 60 minute show runs between 38-42 minutes without the commercial breaks. A 30 minutes show runs 19-21 minutes.

Depending on the time zone you live in you can even get access to a show through the Usenet earlier then when it runs in your local. We currently live in MST and can download a show from the Usenet within minutes of it running in EST. This is dependent on the popularity of the show but for a major hits like Grimm or Burn Notice you can download the current episode before it is scheduled to run here in the west. Another advantage to using the Usenet is that you can download the files in formats that are either fully compatible with mobile devices or that can easily be converted to a mobile format. The internet and mobility is changing everything.