All posts in “TV shows”

Hvorfor DR’s streaming ikke retfærdiggør medielicens

Posted 1183 days ago · Tagged: danmarks radio, dr, medielicens, streaming · 0 Comments

This is going to be in Danish.

Inden DR’s medielicens kunne danske borgere se DR’s programmer gratis (og lovligt) vha. en tuner i deres pc. Dette satte Brian Mikkelsen en stopper for i 2006, da han fremlagde et medieudspil, der lagde op til, at alle apparater, der kunne gengive lyd og billedprogrammer, skulle gøres licenspligtige. Dette blev bl.a. gjort for at fremtidssikre licensbegrebet, da planen var, at en væsentlig del af licensmidlerne fremover skulle bruges til at gøre indhold tilgængeligt over internettet. Medielicensen forpligtede dog ikke DR til at udvide deres serverkapacitet, og det lider vi nu, små fire år senere, under, hvilket jeg ville give et eksempel på i dette indlæg.

En lang række af DR’s programmer kan rigtig nok streames på dr.dk, men kvaliteten er så ringe, at det på ingen måde kan betale sig. Lad os tage et kig på “Det Nye Talkshow”. Streamer man programmet i såkaldt “høj kvalitet”, får man følgende:

“Det Nye Talkshow” streamet i “høj kvalitet”.

Ikke nok med at kvaliteten er skræmmende lav (478 x 359 pixels), så har DR sjovt nok også valgt at ændre formatforholdet til 4:3 ved at indsætte sorte bjælker (letterboxing), hvilket medfører at videoen set i fuld skærm på en widescreen-monitor vil være centreret med sorte bjælker hele vejen rundt. Det er ren dovenskab.

Jeg valgte tilfældigvis også at hente et afsnit af programmet via iTunes, hvor det også er tilgængeligt. Her er det downloadede resultat sjovt nok anderledes:

“Det Nye Talkshow” hentet fra iTunes. (Tryk for at se billede i fuld størrelse.)

Her er kvaliteten sjovt nok betydeligt bedre med en opløsning på 640 x 360 og det oprindelige formatforhold er bibeholdt. Én ting er at lægge en lavkvalitets-version op til streaming, en anden er samtidig at tilbyde en langt bedre version andetsteds uden at nævne det på programmets hjemmeside. Uanset er begge udgaver af så lav kvalitet, at medielicensen er en farce.

DR’s hykleri stopper dog ikke her. På hjemmesiden for DR’s HD-kanal står følgende:

“DR’s HD-kanal samsendes/streames ikke på dr.dk, da den desvære ikke kan udsendes på nettet i ægte HD-kvalitet.”

Hvilket naturligvis er klart, hvis man bruger licenspengene på Emmy-fester i stedet for nye servere.

True Blood Season 2 Finale

Posted 1349 days ago · Tagged: alan ball, true blood · 1 Comment

I thought I might as well follow up the resurrection of the blog with another post. I’ve been watching True Blood from the beginning, and even though I wasn’t overly excited by the first season, I looked forward to the second one. For the most part, it did not disappoint. Spoilers ahead.

The first 6-7 episodes were very entertaining, mainly because of the “The Fellowship of the Sun” storyline and Eric Northman’s tie-in into it, i.e. him trying to locate his maker. However, the ending of that storyline was rather disappointing. Godric wasn’t nearly as aweinspiring or interesting as I had hoped, even though it was cool to see a Danish actor on an HBO show. Finding out that the fellowship didn’t really pose any threat was also a bit of a let down, and instead we had to follow the rather tame Maryann-storyline as the season’s finale.

Speaking of which, this storyline never really appealed to me, and neither did the ending. If all it took to kill Maryann was stabbing her in the chest, then why hadn’t they tried to do that before? The twist was also extremely predictable. In the last few scenes of the season it was also painstakingly obvious that the show’s creators had to come up with some cliffhangers, and most of them were idiotic. First of all, Jessica fanging some dude instead of talking to Hoyt was dumb and extremely annoying, since their relationship was one of the season’s best. Eggs dying was just as stupid, yes, he was holding a knife, but will you fucking relax, Jason? Jeez. Then we have Bill being kidnapped, I didn’t really care since Bill and Sookie’s relationship has been annoying me the entire season. Sam’s ending was a bit interesting, but honestly I just want to see scenes with Eric being a bad ass.

Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse

Posted 1560 days ago · Tagged: dollhouse, joss whedon · 3 Comments

Dollhouse

Joss Whedon’s new show, Dollhouse, premiered this friday. This is his first TV show since Firefly and of course I’ve been looking very much forward to it. The show plot outline is as follows

In Dollhouse, Eliza Dushku plays a young woman called Echo, a member of a group of people known as “Actives” or “Dolls.” The Dolls have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas, including memory, muscle memory, skills, and language, for different assignments. They’re then hired out for particular jobs, crimes, fantasies, and occasional good deeds. In between tasks, they are mind-wiped into a child-like state and live in a hidden facility nicknamed “The Dollhouse.” The story follows Echo, who begins, in her mind-wiped state, to become self-aware.

I was a little apprehensive about getting my hopes up, since Whedon surprisingly chose to work with Fox again, and the studio has already given the show the dreaded Friday night spot. Furthermore Eliza Dushku plays the lead, and I really didn’t like her in Buffy. In this show she has to play a lot of different characters and I wasn’t sure if she could pull it off.

Now that I’ve watched the pilot I guess I have to get used to her, because I really liked it. Dushku actually did a pretty good job, and so did the supporting characters. There’s not much Whedonesque humor, but it’s a pretty serious show, so that’s expected. The main story line, regarding Echo becoming self-aware, is interesting, but what I’m looking most forward to is the storylines concerning the tasks of the Dolls.

Spoilers ahoy. E.g. in the pilot Echo gets the mindset of a hostage negotiator who was kidnapped as a child, and during her mission she encounters this kidnapper, which naturally has some consequences for the engagement. We also get to see a little Doll-as-a-Special-Forces-soldier-badassness in the end, I can’t wait to see Echo with the mindset of an assassin.

Smallville introduces Doomsday, hints at flying

Posted 1589 days ago · Tagged: smallville, superman · 2 Comments

I watched Smallville one and off in the earlier seasons, now the 8th season is airing and Clark Kent is still not flying. Apparently this is because of a rule made by the creators of the show, Miles Millar and Al Gough, stating “no flights, no tights”. However, these guys have been sacked (well, they’re not controlling the storyline anymore), and this seems to have injected some fresh air into the series. I stumbled upon a review of episode 10, in the 8th season, and fricking Doomsday is in it. This guy is the only villain who’s been able to actually kill Superman, and apparently this was a pretty huge event in the comics back in nineties.

The new Executive Producers also mentioned some other changes to the show, in a recent interview:

They will not attempt to bring in a character to replace Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) as the prime antagonist.
All of the characters will be moving on to the next phase of their lives.
The show will be moving on to the next phase in the Superman mythology.
They want to bring Clark closer to the traditional Superman character that we all know.
There will be an episode that explores the relationship between Clark and Chloe (Allison Mack), and the underlying sexual tension that’s been brewing there for so long.
On the other hand the season will move Clark and Lois (Erica Durance) towards the relationship that is well established in the comics and films.
They will highlight the need for Clark to maintain a dual identity and move heavily in that direction.

And concerning flying:

“We have a lot of conversations [about flying and the costume], the only thing that we are saying is that we can absolutely confirm that there is no tights, so that’s pretty much all we can say on that.”

“Saving people in Smallville was one thing — when he had to run to the factory to save Chloe the roads weren’t very crowded, the streets weren’t very crowded. Being alive in Metropolis as Superman is a very different experience and you will find very quickly in this season he discovers it’s not so easy when you’re running through crowded streets or your having to run into a crowded crisis situation.”

This all peaked my interest, so I downloaded the two newest episodes (10 and 11), and the introduction of Doomsday is pretty cool. The 12th episode is airing this thursday.

Season 4 of Lost is upon us

Posted 1940 days ago · Tagged: lost · 1 Comment

It’s finally here, yesterday Americans tuned in to watch the fourth season premiere of Lost, and early this morning I tuned in to download 1,1 GB of High Definition awesomeness. We’re a group of Lost geeks here on the school, so we all settled in to watch the episode on the school’s 50-something-inches TV.

Spoilers ahead. First of all, it was awesome to see all the characters again, the first episode centers around Hurley and takes off where the third season ended, although now the flashbacks are flashforwards to a future when some of the survivors (Jack, Kate and Hurley for sure, apparently there are three more) are back in the real world. Hurley sees Charlie in the future, and he tells him that "they need him", so there are possibly still people on the island, probably with Locke. On the island, in the main storyline, people start disagreeing on whether or not Naomi’s people are coming to rescue or harm them, the group split and in a flashforward Hurley tells Jack that he wished he hadn’t gone with Locke, meaning the people coming may not have been as bad as Locke thought.

It seems like the season’s flashforwards will lead up to the one with Jack from the third season, where’s he all depressed and suicidal (in this episode Hurley wants to go back, Jack won’t, and he talks about growing a beard), and then the next season may be about them returning to the island. This sucks a bit, because it seems like filler, but on the other hand, there are only 16 episodes in the season. Anyway, looking forward to next friday!