Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Entertainment’ Category

6
Apr
d11s01ep00_wal_23_generic

Losing the ability to just sit back and be immersed?

There may be a couple of spoilers for Doctor Who: Eleventh Hour starring Matt Smith in this blog post – if you haven’t seen it and don’t want to be spoiled don’t read on.

Like many of the posts I’ve been writing recently, this one started life in another form – in this case as a Facebook status update.

Read moreRead more

12
Feb

SeeSaw TV on demand now in CI and Isle of Man

I wrote a blog post two weeks ago about SeeSaw, the new television on demand service – mainly for archive content.

This service, currently in a limited invite only beta, is born out of the ashes of the rejected Project Kangaroo – planned by BBC, ITV & C4 but rejected by the BBC Trust.

When I first got my invite I was very excited by it, but I was instantly confronted by a message telling me it wasn’t available in the Channel Islands (well I think it said my location).

This was down to rights reasons, they didn’t have permission from the various rights holders (even though all the same shows were available through 4OD and Demand five for the islands) to make it available in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man – independent territories that have to be negotiated separately.

Then I got a message this morning to tell me that they’ve now managed to negotiate rights to make their shows available to the islands – which was a nice thing to read after a day flying to and from London.

It said: “We’re pleased to let you know that we’ve recently acquired the rights to show programmes in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

“You should now be able to join in the fun and watch your favourite programmes on SeeSaw.”

Which more than made my day and – I’ve tried it and it works brilliantly. This puts SeeSaw, even though it is still in invite only beta – well ahead of all the rest as it is the ONLY multi-network service available in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
29
Jan

See how SeeSaw could soon be seen in CI

SeeSaw is the name of the online video service that was born out of the ashes of the fallen Project Kangaroo – purchased from the consortium of broadcast partners by the telecommunications infrastructure company Arqiva.

Arqiva was born out of a history in broadcast infrastructure running transmission faciltities as Crown Castle. Now they’ve moved into online transmission with the launch of SeeSaw, a service that will allow you to watch a raft of old and new television shows online.

The shows are displayed through a flash player, streamed and at the moment support by either advertising or pay per play.

SeeSaw wasn’t the first of its kind to launch in this space, beaten by offerings from both Google (YouTube) and Microsoft (MSN Video Player).

The YouTube offering has content deals with a number of content providers, most notable are Five and Channel 4 and for MSN their content deals are with BBC Worldwide and Channel 4.

SeeSaw has content deals in place with the BBC, Channel 4 and Demand Five as well as hints at a much wider range of content in the future.

Not to mention my favourite of all the online video services, BlinkBox, which has a huge range of content from the BBC, Channel 4 and American networks to view for free, pay per view or to keep forever for a fee.

And then there’s iTunes – a download you can put on your iPod, iPad (more on this in my next post) or iPhone and watch when you like.

This all sounds amazing, something I could easily spend hours using, catching up on shows I already own on DVD but can never be bothered to open – or shows I would like to watch but don’t want to spend money on the DVD.

Six different video players

But it isn’t that simple for me – because I live in the Channel Islands.

I’m not complaining about the fact that I live in the Channel Islands – I love it, I chose to live here and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else – but the perculiar political situation means some things work …. differently.

One of those things is content rights.

Yes we have the BBC in the Channel Islands, we have Channel 4, Sky and pretty much everything people in the mainland UK have – our television and radio is more or less the same.

However, when it comes to the internet things get a little bit more complicated.

For the iPlayer, 4OD (on the Channel 4 website) and Demand Five things are fine – we can access and watch shows on all of those services as if we were in the mainland.

But when those shows move across to YouTube, MSN or SeeSaw – things are a little different.

I recently got a beta invite to SeeSaw – very exciting, couldn’t wait and first impression were good – it’s usable, easy to navigate and seems to have a reasonable selection of content for a beta service.

But when I went to click play I got the same message I’ve become used to from Hulu, MSN and YouTube shows – they allow follow the ‘sorry this content isn’t available in your location’ structure.

My intitial reaction to this message, something I’ve not had confirmed despite several e-mails, is that it’s down to the fact that they’re using a GeoIP list that doesn’t include Channel Island IP addresses.

However, a little bit of research and an actual response from one of the companies involved (SeeSaw) suggests that in fact it is a rights issue.

This isn’t the first time I’ve come across ‘rights’ being used as a reason why a service isn’t available in the Channel Islands.

iTunes isn’t officially available here and an Apple spokesperson told me late last year that it was because they haven’t got rights agreements in place for the streaming of samples for the Channel Islands.

The e-mail from SeeSaw explained that: “Unfortunately, SeeSaw is not currently available in the Channel Islands (or the Isle of Man) as we don’t yet have the rights to show programmes there.”

However all is not lost as the next paragraph in that e-mail explained that they were in negotations with rights holders.

“The good news is that we are currently in negotiations to make our service available to you, so hopefully you’ll soon be able to watch your favourite programmes on SeeSaw.”

What I don’t understand is how I can easily watch the full range of 4OD shows on the Channel 4 website – with 4OD actively going out of their way to fix an issue that blocked access to CI users last year – but I can’t watch it on YouTube, MSN or SeeSaw.

Fortunately I work for a large UK corporation so my computer at work is behind a proxy that IS in the UK – so I got to try SeeSaw out, even if I didn’t have enough time to watch a full show.

My second impressions are that, although it is completely lacking in ANY social or sharing functionality it does have some nice features.

It is EXCEPTIONALLY easy to use and has a couple of nice touches like a fade to back on the background on the player page when focus moves away.

It has a lot of information on the programme you’re watching, the advertising isn’t OTT and it is very easy to find previous and future episodes of the same series.

So for a beta service with a limited user base and no external access (where sharing and social stuff wouldn’t be that useful anyway) I’d say it is pretty impressive.

As long as they work towards introducing social and sharing for launch in March I’d say this is a real contender for the television site of choice crown – especially as they’ve launched so far ahead of a UK release of Hulu.

But if they want to compete with Hulu when it launches - the social, sharing and ratings content will become increasingly important.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
3
Aug

iPlayer Pick: Man on Wire

When coming up with my iPlayer picks I would normally ignore anything in the top five simply on the grounds that most people will have seen it already – but I’ll make an exception for Man on Wire.

The film tells the true tale of how Philippe Petit managed to achieve his amazing high wire walk between the Twin Towers in New York back in the 70s – it’s funny, poinant, irritating and slightly scary all at the same time.

It’s a British film with a French sensability and Philippe Petit has such an over archingly exuberant personality that he brings the whole film alive – mixed with black and white footage and a selection of equally ‘interesting’ head 2 head interviews with his ‘crew’ of the time.

Watch it and enjoy.

Embed code generated using the Up Your Ego PIP tool.

I first saw Man on Wire at the first Branchage film festival in Jersey, an event I’m more closely involved in this year through the Sheer Talent/BBC Jersey Introducing gig.

Branchage pulls together films in alternative places – in locations you might not expect to see a film like The Wicker Man at the twelth century Gorey Castle.

It also mixes live music with that venue selection as well – from live scores to silent films to a heavy metal guitar solo before the screening of Heavy Metal in Baghdad.

If you can be in Jersey between 1st and 4th of October – you’ll find SOMETHING to do and probably discover a few new ‘favourite’ films in the mix.

Speaking of mix and music see if you can spot me in this months Gallery Magazine.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
31
Jul

Mobilising the fans

I can’t believe I’m about to start ANOTHER blog post with the words ‘I’m a massive Top Gear fan’ but there you go – I did it – but this one is about more than just the television series.

Although I am a massive Top Gear fan, I wouldn’t say it is the best show of the last decade – it certainly is ONE of the best shows on television, but my heart would really want to see an original comedy series or drama fit that roll – even if TG is part both of those things.

But when the question comes up ‘what is the best television show of the Noughties?’ in a poll on the Guardian website – I find myself torn.

First there is my love of good drama and original comedy: shows like The West Wing and The Wire, The Thick of It, QI, Life on Mars, Flight of the Conchords, Doctor Who, Black Books and Spooks are all on the shortlist.

LONDON - SEPTEMBER 01: Television presenters ...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

But then there is my loyalty to the community, brand and bigger multimedia experience that is Top Gear. You see Top Gear is more than just three blokes pissing about for an hour a week 12/13 weeks a year. It’s a magazine, a series of columns and books by the main personalities and most importantly a community.

There aren’t many British shows with online communities surrounding them the size of the one Top Gear enjoys – what with the hundreds of comments every new blog post attracts on the official Top Gear website to the 40 thousand member Final Gear fan forum.

The only other show I can think of off the top of my head is Doctor Who and its related spin-offs – Torchwood and Sarah-Jane Adventures – two shows with a long history and relatively recent major re-launch.

So back to the poll – as you can see I’m torn, between my love of a good drama and my loyalties to the Top Gear community – in the end I decided to vote twice – for Top Gear and Spooks.

But not before heading over to the Final Gear forums and posting a new thread with the details of the Guardian Poll and inviting members of the forum to go and vote.

I included the word Rig in the title but really what I was doing was attempting to mobilise the mass of internet savvy Top Gear fans.

Here was my thread opening post:

The Guardian are running a poll trying to find the best TV show of the noughties and Top Gear currently has 1.5% of the vote.

The top two shows are currently The West Wing and The Wire – they’d both get a vote from me if I could as would The Thick of It, QI, Life on Mars, Flight of the Conchords, Doctor Who, Black Books and Spooks – but you get to vote for one only.

So it went to Top Gear.

And I included a link to the Guardian page with the poll. As you can see when I posted it Top Gear had a share of just 1.5% of the vote and there were even comments questioning why Top Gear deserved to be in the shortlist at all.

Within a few hours it was up to about 3% and by the time I looked the next morning it was in second place with about 10%.

After lunch it had gone up again to about 12% – taking the lead and by the time I wrote this blog post Top Gear had 22% of the vote – a nearly 12% lead over second place The Wire.

The Guardian picked up on the mobilisation moves themselves with JasonDeans posting: “Although at the moment it looks like the Top Gear fans have got organised & that could be top soon. Let’s see if any other fanbases mobilise…”

Oh and in response, later, to a post saying ‘how the freak can Top Gear be in first place’ JasonDeans came back with: “cos top gear fans have got organised.”

Now, as I mentioned before – this isn’t a case of saying ‘look Top Gear IS the best show of the last ten years’ but more of how a strong community, when mobilised can easily influence things like polls, debates and even charts.

I’m now wondering just how successfull the Facebook campaign to get people to download ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead‘ on the day Margaret Thatcher dies will be.

Although to be honest – it does only have 113 members and to have any impact it would need to break into the top 20 singles chart – for that you’d need to sell thousands of copies.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
28
Jul

A full on summer

I’ve been working in Jersey for about nine years now and seven of those have been spent at the BBC doing everything from live blogging elections (first one was seven years ago) to photographing a street carnival in the form of the Battle of Flowers.

There is also the Jersey International Air Display – one of the largest free air displays in Europe.

In the last few years a number of new, cool events have started up in the island – some with a message like the Human Rights Film festival and OxJam – others cool, fun and funky.

First there was the Jersey Live festival, now in its sixth year and featuring some of the hottest musical acts in the world. This year headliners include Basement Jaxx, The Kooks, Doves, Dizzee Rascal, 2ManyDJs and Passion Pit.

More on Jersey Live (I’ll write a whole post on the festival later): Official | Twitter | Facebook | My Podcast

Then last year two new events joined the funky fold in the form of Grassroots, a more acoustic, green festival taking place the first Sunday in August and featuring mainly Aussie singer songwriters – this years headliner is Newton Faulkner.

More on Grassroots: Official site | Twitter | Facebook

And the Branchage Jersey International Film Festival – a cross arts festival that puts films on in places you wouldn’t normally expect to see them – like The Wicker Man at the 12th Century Mont Orgeuil Castle in Gorey.

Anyway – here is the promo video for this years festival:

Last year I reviewed four films over the three day weekend and went to see about six. Although because of BBC rules the reviews had to be more features than reviews.

This year I’m hoping to do at least as many reviews and will also be co-hosting a live music event tied to the BBC Introducing brand – not done anything ‘live’ in front of actual people before – so it could be fun or it could be horrible.

I know I’m talking to a few thousand people when I present my show – I’ve seen the stats – but it just isn’t the same, sitting locked away in a stuffy soundproofed studio talking to a microphone isn’t really the same as standing up, amplified voice in front of a few hundred!

More on Branchage: Branchage Site | Branchage Facebook | Branchage Twitter

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
16
Jul

Harry Potter and the cool effect

On Wednesday I got up early, took the children to school, went to work and then walked on down to the St Helier waterfront to the Cineworld cinema – in time for a film that started at 10:15.

Now this is nothing unusual for me, I’ve been to the cinema that time of the morning many times before, in fact I almost ALWAYS go to the cinema in time for the first screening.

The reason for that? There is usually nobody there – I mean why do people go to the cinema in large groups, eat noisy foods and THEN talk to each other in whispers throughout the film? I CAN STILL HEAR YOU!!!!

So by going to the first screening of the day I normally get a cinema to myself, even for the bigger films. No noise from people sitting near me, no noise from people thinking you can’t hear them – I get to be my anti-social self and enjoy a film at the same time.

But on Wednesday I went to see Harry Potter and I went to see not only the first screening of the day but also the first screening in Jersey (or at least ‘official screening’ anyway).

Image by xcaballe via Flickr

I was in a screen with at least 200 other people – it was ever so slightly insane. OK so it is the start/middle of the tourist season but Jersey doesn’t exactly have a ‘massive’ tourist market anymore – so it was a little mad to be in a half full large cinema screen at 10 in the morning.

Anyway to the point – Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – the review.

I was a bit of a late-comer to the whole Harry Potter thing, getting into it around the time book four was released but I quickly caught up and was waiting impatiently in line at midnight like everyone else for books five to seven.

I heard them all in audio form as read by Stephen Fry, have watched all the movies in the cinema and have them on DVD as well. Not that I like them much.

So you now know I went into this film as a little bit of a Harry Potter fan boy, unlike other films I’ve been in to where my default position is ‘come on then, impress me’.

I was impressed by Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. In fact so impressed that I am slightly scared that Director David Yates had been looking around inside my head as he made the film.

The whole thing looked and felt almost EXACTLY as I imagined it in my head while reading the book – the different scenes panned out how I imagined they would, the conversations happened as I expected – with a couple of minor exceptions.

The first involved the Snape and Dumbledore thing – in my mind that happened on the grass outside and not in a clock tower but it was more effective this way.

The other was those things in the water in the locket scene – in my mind it was a sort of Munch inspired hands coming out of swirling water thing without seeing the rest of the body.

Instead the film had creates that sat somewhere between Dobby the House Elf and Gollum but a bit more grabby.

The relationships between the characters continued the increasingly intense and growing mutual respect and sense of dread that the last couple had started to set up.

My only concern was that the whole thing felt a little bit ‘glossy’, maybe I need to see it for a second time but the dispair didn’t really come through as intensly as I expected it to.

And when I say glossy I don’t mean it as a critisism of the look of the film – that was spectacular, it felt completely immersive, water was intense, the breaking up of the wobbly bridge out of this world and god I love the Quidditch scenes.

But I felt that maybe, just a tiny little maybe, the ability to look stunning over took some of the simpler intense scenes that could have been created between a couple of good actors on a plain set.

Overall though I would still give it a high four out of five.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
6
Jul

iPlayer Pick: 13×03 Top Gear

As I’m sure you’ve guessed from the many, many, MANY posts on the subject – I’m something of a fan of Top Gear.

So with that in mind I’ve tried my best to avoid doing the obvious and posting Top Gear episodes as my iPlayer pick – I usually rate an episode somewhere between eight and ten every week – so it would be easy for me to choose it.

But it would be to pointlessly obvious, you know I like Top Gear, you know where the iPlayer is so it sort of acts as a default Pick without me actually saying it.

However, all that said and done – I am picking Top Gear this week. There are a few reasons for it, one of which is the openly political – stop nannying us rant – straight after a scene involving a hot day, no air con and three middle aged men in a sealed up car. See it for your self HERE.

But also because it is possibly one of the funniest episodes of Top Gear in the last few years. I spent the whole 55 minutes clutching my stomach in pain from laughing so much.

The three brilliantly childish presenters confront the credit crunch, in a way only Top Gear could/would by finding three ‘sensibly priced small cars’ and showing them off to bankers – they then paint them, add loud speakers and drive around Parliament Square.

Plus, James meets American stunt driving legend Ken Block, Jeremy tests the mildly insane Mercedes SL Black on the track, and Michael McIntyre is the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car.

As a bonus here is a video of Ken Block outside of Top Gear.

When I said Top Gear was a default pick of the week – to be honest – that’s true. My real pick of the week was supposed to be posted last week and was a radio pick. But I was stuck in Bristol and left it to late – the first part expires today.

But just in case you want to look it up on your favourite download service of choice – it was called Voyage and was an alternative history story on the tale of the American Space Programme.

In this alternative world JFK just got injured and we see the programme go on towards a manned mission to Mars in the mid-1980s.

Listen to the remaining parts on the iPlayer.

Giving you the embed is a bit pointless unless you see this before 18:30 tonight (Monday 6 July) but here it is anyway – just in case.

All embed iPlayer code generated using Up Your Ego PIP.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
9
Jun

Top Gear back 21 June

Everyones favourite motoring based televisual entertainment programme featuring three middle aged men returns on 21 June 2009.

The 13th series of the iconic BBC Two show will be pretty much business as usual – but when that usual business leads to some of the best television in the world – I say keep on keeping on!

Top Gear producer, Andy Wilman said in a BBC Top Gear Blog Post: “I’m trying to distract viewers from what the title of the actual film would be, were this new series an actual film.

“It would be Top Gear 13, which sounds like something with Dolph Lungdren in it, or bad hotel porn.”

The next series will have seven episodes and will feature a mix of all the things we’ve grown used to over the last few years.

Andy said: “Over the coming seven-week series run a race or two will occur, supercars will slide from the left of your telly screen to the right of your telly screen in a cloud of tyre smoke, and a man in a white coat bearing a gold envelope will trigger a series of comedic and juvenile adventures.”

tv_preview_two2I don’t see anything wrong with that. And for more details the BBC Top Gear Magazine Transmission Blog will be publishing a daily preview.

Some of the highlights from that blog and from the Final Gear Forum so far seem to suggest the following will, may or may not appear in series 13 of Top Gear.

The boys buy some old cars and join a group of beardy enthusiasts on a classic car rally – I’ve been to a couple of these for the Beeb and the smell – oh god the smell!

From the Mole blog post: “The twist? The office chose their co-drivers too…”

So these are the confirmed features

  • Train vs Car vs Bike [more]

That’s the only preview from the official blog so far – but what has been suggested on the rumour mill that is the Final Gear Forum?

To avoid spoiling your surprise – just in case you stumbled across this hunting for a start date (although I put that in the title), I’m just going to give you the headline for the feature and a link.

You choose if you want to follow that link to find out more.

NOTE: These are not all proven to be true and some are probably not. Just a taster to wet your Top Gear appetite.

I’ll add more to this page as I find them – in the meantime take the above with the pinch of salt they may require – nothing should be taken as gospel until you read it on the BBC Top Gear Blog or see it on the show.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
« Older Entries