Video Asylum

Posted by John C. - Aussie (B) on June 02, 2002 at 00:07:02

In Reply to: Question for US & UK viewers posted by Andrew S. on May 31, 2002 at 17:09:17:

I'm not sure you are painting the true picture of the Oz situation. We get ABC and SBS downfeeds from satellite as well as Austar. The ABC does have "commercials" in the sense of program promos and SBS has heaps before and after programs as you know.

As for Austar (cf Foxtel), it depends which channel you use. The History, Discovery and Geographic channels have commercials as do some of the others but the movie channels only do promos of their programs.

However we dislike the program promos as much as commercials so videotape and time shift most of what we watch off satellite as well as free to air - easy to zip through the crap. And, if the original broadcast is of good quality we can see pics of DVD quality. Unfortunately the video broadcast quality varies so this is not always the case.

I'll be interested to read of any responses you get from the UK and USA. From the little I've seen in the US, cable quality is pretty mediocre on direct view sets and I would guess it would be too poor to project. All I have seen is as plagued with commercials as anywhere else.

John

Peace at AA