Tag: television

EuroNews rules Cyprus news channels

A quote from Kim Andrew Elliot’s post (sourced stats from Famagusta Gazette Online Edition):

Expats in Cyprus prefer their news without analysis. Online survey indicates EuroNews is most popular among expats in Cyprus.

Agreed.

One other advantage of EuroNews that wasn’t mentioned is the total absence of the “talking head”.  It’s funny sometimes to see how each of the news channels tries to solve the problem of the news reader, who doesn’t have much to do while reading the news.  The poor news readers are bounced around the studio, separated into corners or grouped around one table, sitting or standing or sitting again, with empty hands or a piece of paper and a pencil or a laptop computer which is probably switched off because nobody ever looks at it, etc…

EuroNews solved the puzzle years ago.  They don’t show the news reader at all.  Brilliant!  It’s TV for crowing out loud.  It’s about moving pictures.  Show me the footage from the location.  Show me a graphs and scans.  Show me a marquee line or a visual effect if you can’t think of anything else.   But don’t show me the talking head!

Enjoying the “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”

Although I try to limit my television to as little as I can, I have to say that I enjoy the “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” series. Not that I a big fan of detective genre or occasional lesson in human anatomy, but somehow it all comes together. It’s a slow going story with episodes being separated enough so that I can watch them each on its own, but with enough connection to build the characters. It has a little bit of everything – life, humor, action, crime, nice stories, pretty good acting; and the proportions work for me.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

(image source: IMDB)

There are a few other TV series on roughly the same subject going on at roughly the same time, but nothing comes even close. They seem to either focus on supermodel cops, or deepest details of decomposed organic materials, or on vague logic connecting scenes together. None of these appeals to me after a long day at work.

Browsing through IMDB, I get the feeling that I’m not the only one enjoying the series. For better or worse, they’ve made through eight (8!) seasons and still going. Also the user rating seems rather high – 8.6 out of 10. Nice.

Hacking music

After hacking WordPress for a full week straight, it was nice to see other people hacking other things… These music videos were quite entertaining:

All three found in this post and comments.

PrimeTel’s PrimeHome Triple Play

Today I became a happy owner of PrimeTel PrimeHome installation, also known as Triple Play. Triple Play is this new way of bundling together loads of television channels, ADSL Internet connection, and really cheap telephony. It’s said to cost only 25 CYP month, but I got lucky and received a promotion offer of free installation and 3 month of service free of charge as well.

I didn’t have any time to play with it just yet, but it looks quite good. Here are the things that I’ve noticed during my short experience:

  • Television has an electronic TV guide with a time schedule for all programs for all channels. This is very handy.
  • Internet connection was way to easy to install. Just plugged the Ethernet cable straight into my laptop and I was done.
  • Sound quality in the telephone is a bit less than CYTA’s. There is some minor background noise all the time. But it’s not as bad as it can sound.
  • Switching channels on TV is a lot slower than before. This will need some getting used to. But it’s a fair trade for not having to configure any of the channels, crispy clear quality of image and sound, TV guide, and the selection of channels.

I’ll probably post more about it later, when I’d played more with it, but don’t hold your breath on that one.

P.S.: I might be somewhat biased being an employee of PrimeTel Ltd., and having received the package free of charge (installation + 3 month). Take my words with a grain of salt. And pepper.

The IT Crowd – geek comedy show

I am starting to fall for television. First there was (and still is, by the way) Comedy Central‘s The Daily Show. And now this – The IT Crowd, new comedy show on Channel 4… Boy, am I waiting for those times when my TV will be able to connect to souces like this, no matter where I live. I’m willing to pay for this today. In three years I’ll be desperate.

Anyway, I managed to see one of the episodes, thanks to a certain someone. It’s hilarious. It’s as funny as I could imagine, and even a bit more so. By the way, all episodes are online, it’s just they are for UK audience only. If you know how to become a UK audience – there’s all you need.

And let me tell you something – don’t let the name of the show stop you from watching it. There’s not that much of IT in it anyway. At least not in the episode that I’ve watched. It’s more of an office humor. If you’ve spent more than half an hour in any corporate or startup office recently – you’ll dig all the humor in the show.