On BBC4 recently, they made an adaptation of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. This rant is not about this quite lighthearted adaptation - which I thoroughly enjoyed. (By the way, for those of you not familiar with this - it was written by Douglas Adams, of Hitchhiker's guide fame! Worth reading or watching at the very least.)
Being quite busy however, and not necessarily a slave to the TV listings, I have not been able to follow the show in realtime.
This was OK though, because I could watch it on iPlayer.
Except.. iPlayer has got rubbish!
Be it that TV itself is now so bad that less and less are watching anything realtime or be it that that the BBC are not spending enough money on bandwidth its impossible to
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watch anything without
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Almost constant interruptions.
Before anyone suggests it, its not my internet connection (which is actually pretty low contention (not BT - poo to BT broadband) & reasonably good speed,) which can play any number of movies on lovefilm - at good resolution, without a single noticeable halt or pause.
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Its evident then, that we are getting screwed somewhere along the line. If they are going to offer the service (using the money that we are forced to pay them for the TV license) then they should be doing it properly - offering something that can be viewed without problems.
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As stated - the premium film rental services (which at £6ish a month - or only £72 a year (far less than your TV license)) can do it - good quality and for long duration. So what's going on BBC?
Even something relatively short like Top gear stops every couple of minutes - its infuriating!
Beyond this too, the fact that they only keep content a week bugs me. Other channels offer far longer duration - and we only pay for that content by watching it. We have to pay for what the BBC offers us - but they seem hell bent on selling it too us - for an inflated price later.
The whole thing just gets on my wick. Looks like its finally time to invest in a PVR - so that I don't have to use this useless bloody service any more!
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Rant over.
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