The ABC's Playback interface
commentary When the ABC announced last month it was stepping up its IPTV endeavours to move from basic streaming and podcasting to providing "catchup TV", there was a rush to sign up for a limited trial that will run for the next three months.
According to the ABC, only 5000 Australians would make the cut-off, and given the rush of visits to the signup page in the first few days, there were obviously going to be a lot of disappointed punters.
So when the e-mail arrived in my inbox advising that I had made the cut, it was a pleasing moment indeed.
"We hope you enjoy ABC Playback and we look forward to hearing from you," wrote my new friends at ABC Innovation. Well thank you kindly. I flicked my browser (Firefox) to the appropriate URL.
As the site loaded I digested the warning that "the service is not recommended for users with a connection slower than 1.1Mbps". Thankfully my ADSL2 connection manages around 3Mbps on a good day, although it does have a tendency to cut out unexpectedly if the phone rings. (Yes, I have ADSL2+ splitters on my phone lines, but I think I need to get someone from Telstra to put in a central splitter).
Anyway, enough of my connection hang-ups. Playback TV opens after a brief interval as a clean enough looking Flash screen with dozens of tiles that seem to represent individual television screens flipping around as your mouse runs across them.
However this is not a 500-channel universe just yet; the actual content being offered in this initial trial of Playback TV is rather limited. There are just five regular programs available to "catch-up" with: The Bill, The New Inventors, Good Game, At the Movies and How Art Made the World. There are also a bunch of nature documentaries and couple sample clips from DVDs on sale at ABC Shops.
I realise this is only a trial, but I find it hard to imagine there are too many viewers out there agonising over the fact they missed the latest episode of The New Inventors.
However I do remember a time when The Bill was essential viewing on a Saturday night, so I selected the latest episode from the Playback navigation bar.
The player responded almost immediately by loading up a generic motion graphic intro that played for a few seconds before the program. Even during this segment it was obvious that, despite the 1.1Mbps bandwidth, we were still in the nebulous land of Internet streaming.
The images were pixelated and did not handle motion well. This became even more obvious when the episode began. The usual picture artefacts of compressed video were present and things degraded noticeably whenever the actors moved rapidly or the camera picked up speed.
It was certainly better than your average YouTube clip, but you would not put it up against a digital or even analog PAL broadcast.
However it's a step above the other options on offer in the Australian catch-up TV space. Despite being launched more than two years ago, NineMSN's catch-up TV has never moved beyond offering lo-res streams of McLeod's Daughters, which is still the highlight of its current offerings. You can also pay a couple of dollars an episode for a series from HBO called Mad Men, a 13-part drama from the makers of The Sopranos.
Both are available to Internet Explorer users only and its full-screen view is heavily pixelated and pretty crummy.
There are some more comprehensive offerings on Ten's catch-up TV site, although viewing is once again limited to users of the IE Web browser. The new Kelsey Grammer sitcom is available, although you can only catch-up to Episode 2 which is a fair way behind what is screening on air at the moment.
Some of the other selections on Ten's catch-up TV include Bondi Rescue and Good News Week. However when you look at Ten's on-air line-up you have to ask yourself, where is House, The Simpsons and Law & Order?
Yahoo!7 is not offering any catch-up TV at all in advance of the local launch of TiVo in Australia some time this year.
The British are embracing the BBC's iPlayer, Hulu is going gang-busters in the US and the French can catch-up on the latest Canal Plus programs online. When it comes to catch-up TV, Australian broadcasters still have a lot of catching up to do.
Is it any wonder that more and more Australians are embracing illegal downloading? Even the closure of sites such as Torrentspy last week will have little impact when it is a simple job to Google your latest favourite US or UK prime time show and have it downloaded within a few hours.
Dean
04/04/2008 08:45 AM
My wife is Korean, and she is able to stream catch-up episodes of her favourite Korean dramas from servers in Korea (in fact, that's the only way she gets to watch them!) We've got ADSL2+ at home, and the quality is surprisingly good. Sometimes it stutters a bit, depending on the network load, but given that it's coming from *overseas* I'd think it would be a walk in the park for an Aussie station to do it.
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