Toons "On Demand" - A long time coming
Tonight I saw some Comcast trucks rolling through the neighborhood for no apparent reason. They were working in tandem, one on each side of the road, lights blinking. My cable has been working fine so I did not think there were any issues ... but I had about what could be going on. I turned on my TV, cable box, and pushed the "On Demand" button on my remote - to find glorious video on demand. Cartoon Network on demand, Anime Channel on demand, Boomerang on demand - as if I did not have enough toons before - Comcast put more at my fingertips!
I know they may have turned this on within the last few weeks,and my finding it tonight was coincidence, but I have been waiting for this for a long time ... and not just the two years I have been living in this house aware that Comcast was working on it.
Sometime around 1992 I was in a pre-req Journalism course in college, "Mass Comm and Society." While he was on one of his many tangents, my professor told us about all the new media technology was supposed to be coming down the pike. A new form of Laserdisc, a video on demand service, and something called HDTV, he said, all were supposed to hit the market in about 5 or 6 years. (Incidentally, that same year I wrote a paper on something called the Internet that I thought would change the media forever ... I even had to petition the College of Engineering to get an email address ... boy things were different then. And I guess you can say I nailed that one!)
Well, he missed the mark on some of it by a little bit - it took roughly double the amount of time - but it did arrive as promised. I have HDTV in my house, a DVR that has made VHS recording a thing of the past, DVD, and now video on demand. Granted, the programing is still a little limited, but I could watch the Smurfs on demand and follow it up with some Robotech if I wanted to - and then go post about them on the Internet.
It's about time.
I know they may have turned this on within the last few weeks,and my finding it tonight was coincidence, but I have been waiting for this for a long time ... and not just the two years I have been living in this house aware that Comcast was working on it.
Sometime around 1992 I was in a pre-req Journalism course in college, "Mass Comm and Society." While he was on one of his many tangents, my professor told us about all the new media technology was supposed to be coming down the pike. A new form of Laserdisc, a video on demand service, and something called HDTV, he said, all were supposed to hit the market in about 5 or 6 years. (Incidentally, that same year I wrote a paper on something called the Internet that I thought would change the media forever ... I even had to petition the College of Engineering to get an email address ... boy things were different then. And I guess you can say I nailed that one!)
Well, he missed the mark on some of it by a little bit - it took roughly double the amount of time - but it did arrive as promised. I have HDTV in my house, a DVR that has made VHS recording a thing of the past, DVD, and now video on demand. Granted, the programing is still a little limited, but I could watch the Smurfs on demand and follow it up with some Robotech if I wanted to - and then go post about them on the Internet.
It's about time.
llazarusllong wrote:
--LAZ