Ep 277: twentysomething

Jess Harris and Josh Schmidt are the creators and stars of the new ABC2 comedy, twentysomething. This is a show they previously filmed for Channel 31 in Melbourne with almost no budget. Now the ABC has remade it, kind of.

Courteney Hocking is our co-host and she tells us how she watches TV with more updates from listeners.

Josh gives us his first impressions of life with Fetch TV.

[audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/media.boxcutters.net/BCep277.mp3|titles=Episode 277|artists=Boxcutters]

Keep sending in your examples of How You Watch or maybe tell us something you enjoyed watching when you were six by sending us an email.

Notes

One Thing

14 Comments

  1. Moneypenny says:

    Just adding to the ‘I don’t really watch TV anymore’ pile. Haven’t turned on the television tuner for over 3 years for watching live to air TV. I have a PC based tv tuner with an excellent EPG (NPVR) which records stuff on FTA as .mpg files which can be watched as & when needed. There is a laptop which uses the telly (LCD HD) as its monitor, connected via HDMI. VLC is used to play any files on the laptop. VLC is free & plays anything – i.e. no worries about firmware updates if any new codecs come along & it’s easy enough to upgrade the laptop with more disk space etc.

    90% of things watched are bittorrented or downloaded via usenet (NNTP) for all the normal reasons – no ads, timely & you can watch an entire series of something without some demented tv programmer deciding the ever changing time slot & dropping series for no reason.

    iView shows are also downloaded with a script so they can be watched when & where wanted.

    I watch shows mostly with my telly twin – best friend who lives close by. We hit pause when we need to talk/comment. Neither of us do twitfacespace+ etc. – too old for all that incessant interruption – both grumpy old women.

    If I like a show enough I’ll order the DVDs from amazon – mostly from the UK.

    If there was a way of subscribing to a service which allowed me to watch what I want/when I want, I’d happily pay, but all paid for options at the moment seem incredibly crippled – do TV execs. listen to their audience or potential audience anymore?

  2. Adam D(oxcutter) says:

    Little Captain is my local too! Sunday, James, best coffee in Melbourne.

    I very, very rarely watch live television. This is why:

    1. Whenever I want to watch television, it’s because I want to watch something specific. I’m a busy person; I will not organise my life around a pre-recorded show that’s screened at an arbitrary time (not to mention late or bumped).

    2. Most of what I watch is foreign. If I wait (or hope) for a local screening, the internet will spoil it for me first. That is not an acceptable option in 2011.

    3. Ads are far too cynical, anachronistic and invasive. If I’m in the room – my room, my space – when an ad is on, the sound goes off. Frankly I’m surprised most people don’t do that.

    Nearly all my television viewing happens on a proper widescreen television, with content via ABC iView or a WD TV Live media player. We have an Apple TV but, considering I’m unable to buy or rent what I want to watch, it’s never been used for television shows. Occasionally I watch content on my ipad, streamed from the laptop in the other room.

    We have never had a subscription service, and we don’t have a recording device because we’ve not needed one since 2008.

  3. Paul Boxcutter says:

    @Josh: When you were talking about the Foxtel iphone app, I agree completley, it is infinitly better than the onscreen guide/planner, the only downside that it and the web based app have is that you can’t set the series link. This for me is a major missing piece of functionality.

  4. David Boxcutter says:

    Duane Dibbley?

  5. Hey Fetch doesn’t have the “Bio” channel. Are you referring to Ovation? (or do you mean “Profiles”?)

    Agree that remote recording from iPhone on Foxtel works well. Fetch is working on an app for that so looking forward to it!

    • Josh Kinal says:

      Thanks for picking up on that, Greg. Ovation is exactly what I meant, probably, I think.

      I’m going to spend a lot more time with FetchTV this weekend and keep trying to see its benefits. It’s really the current lack of remote recording that’s letting it down so I’m keen to see how soon they’ll have that available.

      • Check this out Josh – remote recording is coming very soon http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2011/08/the-next-12-things-fetchtv-is-adding/

        Also the Bio channel (although it isn’t called that) is actually offered via the TV on demand content – called ‘Profiles’ with ‘Chronicles’ offering history programs.

        In respect to the breadth of movies – Fetch TV has deals with every major hollywood studio so all new-release movies are available without the need to walk to the movie store..

        Cheers,
        Alec

        * disclaimer, I work with FetchTV.

  6. I don’t usually watch live tv at all – exceptions would be for the occasional show on the ABC (eg Australian Story this week), and some sports. We cancelled our Austar subscription earlier this year because we just weren’t using it – the only thing I used it for was to use the MyStar box to record stuff from the ABC, and I (eventually) realised that was a stupid reason to be paying for the service.

    I download a lot of TV shows – for many of the same reasons as Moneypenny above – no ads, I can get stuff that hasn’t screened over here yet, I can watch it whenever I want and I can wait until I’ve got a whole season to start watching. I put everything on hard drives hooked up to a WD TV Live media player, and watch on the tv through that.

    If it’s something I’ve been waiting anxiously for, I watch it on the laptop sitting at my desk as soon as it’s downloaded (although I don’t like how I get distracted with the availability of the internet right there). If other people are watching something (generally sport) on tv, I’ll go and sit with them and watch something on the laptop with headphones on. For some reason I classify this as being more sociable than watching in another room. Even though I’m wearing headphones. And can’t actually hear anything anyone is saying. It’s the “well, I turned up” definition of being sociable.

    Whether I do anything else while watching tv depends on the show – Game of Thrones I sat riveted to (with brain activity probably reduced to negative values), but with True Blood I sometimes set up the laptop in the kitchen so I can watch it while cooking. Yeah, I know, I’m going to regret that one day when I spill something horribly sticky on the keyboard.

    I don’t know that the popularity of downloading tv shows is just a reflection of your audience base. Anecdotal evidence of course, but the majority of people I work with (both young professionals and admin staff) either personally download or borrow downloaded tv shows. My parents and in-laws ‘borrow’ downloaded tv shows from me. However, most people I work with also watch more live tv than I do – stuff like Masterchef.

  7. Daniel B says:

    How I watch TV:

    Unlimited ADSL2+
    PS3 Media Server / Laptop

    Being that the missus and I are rarely at home at night we don’t have the ability to watch TV live, although I don’t think we would anyway, renovations and reruns of Bones isn’t really our thing.
    We download everything, even (although extremely rarely because of obvious reasons) Australian productions.
    I watch alot of iView, the service is fantastic and using a PS3 as a media server it is integrated into the UI of the playstation console.
    If there was a Hulu or Netflix service in Australia that actually matched watch our overseas friends and enemies have I would pay for it in a heartbeat.

    It’s somewhat tricky watching a show like Breaking Bad or (especially) Lost live in Australia and also having access to the Internet as spoilers are everwhere, even when you are not actively looking for them, I remember theNew York times talked about the ending of the Sopranos on the front page the day after it aired on HBO.

    Breaking Bad is halfway through it’s season in the US and still two weeks away from airing in Australia, it seems like a copout to Australian viewers, especially Foxtel/Austar suscribers who pay for the service.

    This talk of Fetch TV and the Telstra T-Box I don’t think will every truely get up.
    As people are now getting a faster and hopefully cheaper Internet service, surely the posibility of a descent television on demand service comes into play, I know that JB Hi-fi are going to trial a service, but I’m not sure if I am sure they have the background needed to bring the goods.

    We seem to be in a special time for Television where we have programming now that would have been thought impossible or dangerous to produce, (BB, Louie, Madmen, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, etc)

    I don’t mind watching advertising, when I watch the Daily Show / Colbert Report I do it online on their website and the episodes are full of adverts, often showing every 4-5 minutes, it pays for the show (and bandwidth)

    Enough rambling for me, back to work.
    Keep up the good work guys.

  8. Another fascinating, fun, and informative show thanks people! It was especially amusing listening to the discussion on watching shows at 1.3 speed; I walk to work, and to fit in an episode of boxcutters on the way I set my MP3 player to 1.4 speed! There have only been a couple of times I’ve had to wind-back and re-listen to a part I couldn’t quite catch first time.

    The only downside to this is that when I get to work everyone taaalksss sooooo sllllllowleeeee! πŸ™‚

    Thanks again for your great podcast!

  9. Paul Boxcutter says:

    Just a general comment, not about this ep. specifically.

    I listen to the podcast, ‘This American Life’, they had an episode on ‘Gossip’, the last 1/3 or 1/4 of it was dedicated to a woman telling the story about how they get those ‘to camera’ pieces out of contestants on a reality TV show. It was really quite interesting, and the tricks they use to get those looks of concern on the contestants faces just before judging etc.

    I thought it was quite an interesting look in behind the scenes, and maybe someone in the Boxcutter family would find it interesting too. I got mine from itunes, I think there is thisamericanlife.org as well.

  10. David Boxcutter says:

    So, I watched the first episode of Twentysomething – the main characters, Josh and Jess, are they really supposed to be in their 20s? They look and sound around 40.

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