TMW Ideas

Channel 4 are making much of their 4od offering. Having (finally) got my livebox and laptop up and running (cheers Orange) I downloaded it last night.

First impressions? Well, it is very pretty. It is also a bit of a git to use. First, I had issues downloading it, due to getting an error message with my flash player. That, in itself, wasn't too annoying - these things are to be expected, and they do make it very clear that it is in beta. What was annoying was that I had to do a little digging (basically playing “guess the search phrase”) to find this answer -

“We have had many reports of this problem occurring, and after careful research it has become apparent the problem lies with Adobe’s Flash software.”

Well, if you have had many reports, maybe make the answer easier to find? Hmm?

Anyway, that aside, I found the interface itself very slow, but the download surprisingly quick - I downloaded Derren Brown in under five minutes. Some people have reported trouble with downloads, but not me…
(I haven't watched it yet, as I got distracted by Total Recall, but I'll update you on the viewing experience.)

There is a lot of critiscism about the DRM (digital rights management) software embedded in it on the blogosphere, as well as a few other issues.

- it uses peer to peer technology to share the downloads - a clever way of oursourcing bandwidth
- it isn't really that cheap
- it isn't really a step forward from what you may have already.

These comments aside, I think the profile and content thay have will make it fairly popular, and if the initial glitches are smoothed out (which I'm sure they will) it's remarkably user-friendly. A friend of mine reports that his girlfriend has taken to downloading shows and watching them in the garden or whatever, so it may be passing the consumer test, if failing the geek test.

Anyway, another ex-tmwist, Marray Gordon, was kind enough to send me an invite for Joost (here for some background) so I'll let you know how that goes.