Sites offering live coverage of the election results:

• CNN
• MSNBC
• FOX News
• ABC News
• CBS News

In addition, the campaigns themselves are broadcasting via the web.  McCain and Obama both have official Ustream channels.

Sadly, Comedy Central will not be live broadcasting it’s Indecision 2008 coverage.

For more, check out NewTeeVee’s guide, as well as this how-to from Silicon Alley Reporter.

Will you be watching online?  If so, where?

via AppleInsider.com

A commenter, Geoff, suggested that for the No More TV experiment, I get a TV Tuner and pull stuff off the air. After all, this is not considered paying for television service; the signals are freely available. I thought about it and decided that this would not be allowed for the experiment, as the goal here is to focus on how to get television from the Internet, not just free of charge. In addition, it’s to measure the affects, both practical and social, of timeshifting one’s television consumption, and to try to better understand the affects this has on one’s watching habits and lifestyle. As such, I think using the iPhone with a TV tuner attached would not be allowed under the No More TV rules. But it’s a cool app!

A Long Time Ago…

Let’s talk Star Wars for a minute, shall we? Growing up, I was the biggest Star Wars fan. I was born about 3 months before the first Star Wars movie came out; I’m not sure when I first saw the movie, I remember going to the theater to see ESB and ROTJ. I have vivid memories of playing with my toy Snowspeeder, Hoth Battle Gear Han Solo and Tauntaun in the snow before I was five years old. I lived and breathed Star Wars. I was upset that Greedo did not shoot first in the Special Edition of A New Hope that came out 1997, but overall enjoyed the touchups that were made. There weren’t substantive changes to the newer versions of ESB or ROTJ, but overall I was a contented and happy Star Wars fan.

I’ve Got A Bad Feeling About This

1999. A new trailer. Downloading it over dialup at 56 kbs at home. I was so unbelievably excited, it’s hard to describe. I thought the alien with the floppy ears was some kind of mysterious Jedi master, and combinatio of Yoda’s wisdom and skill with the mystique and danger of Boba Fett. My first child was due to be born around the same time as Phantom Menace came out, and I considered it somewhat cosmic: my child would have a new generation of Star Wars movies to fall in love with, and would then rediscover the originials, bridging the gap between our generations…

And then I saw Phantom Menance (at a 7 AM showing, with Penny, who was due in a week and wouldn’t let me go to a midnight screening, since, if she went into labor, I probably wouldn’t have left). It’s hard to describe the emotional state, or states I was in in the days after. I can only liken it to the five stages of grief from the Kubler-Ross model (actually, I don’t think I was completely through all five stages until after seeing the final movie). The second movie was almost as bad as the first, and while Revenge of the Sith was the best of the prequels, subsequent viewings have shown it to be, overall, a mediocre film at best.

The Force Will Be With You…Always?

So, when, earlier this year, a new Star Wars movie came out, I didn’t even think twice about going to see it. My son, now nine years old, wanted to see it, but I convinced him not to. Many considered the movie a flop, as it made less than $70 million, a far cry from a traditional Star Wars movie take. The movie itself was criticized for being overly juvenile, a critique that should have been more readily applied to the prequels themselves. Somehow, the originals, although made for children, felt more grown up than Lucas’ sophomore efforts.

The animated feature did, however, set up the new television show. Like the victim of Star Wars abuse that I am, I had to take one more peek to see if, maybe, perhaps, the television verison of Clone Wars was worth watching. I’m happy to say that, after finding a few episodes of the new show online at Cartoon Network, I really enjoyed it. It’s certainly not a masterpiece, it could be that the medium of TV show lowers the expectations, but overall, it’s a fun show. Stupid comments coming from a cartoon attack droid seem less objectionable than in a live-action setting. And the voice actors on the show actually do a better job with the characters than Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman did; Anthony Daniels, the voice of C-3P0, is, of course, always up for another gig.

Do or Do Not; There is No Try

But enough about my standards, how does Clone Wars (the animated series) stack up to the No More TV standards? I will say that I had very little in the way of expectations for this show. It’s for kids, it’s on a smaller cable station and it’s animated. It turns out that there’s a whole lot more kids content online that I had previously thought (most is, however, illegal, such as the veritable trove of Pokemon episodes on YouTube, which is a separate but potentially more important topic to discuss later). And, it turns out, Cartoon Network shows actually do a pretty good job of putting their stuff out there.

There’s really little in the way of social/sharing features around the content, and so I’m stuck watching it on Cartoon Network’s mini site (which tends to crash my browser). You can buy the episodes individually for $1.99 on iTunes (not on Zune Marketplace or Amazon Video On Demand, however).

Let’s see how Clone Wars stacks up:

Overall, Star Wars: The Clone Wars gets a grade of C. We can’t fail them, as they are making an effort, but we can’t let them off the hook either. Consideration was taken due to the fact that this a show for kids, and not a major network with infinite resources.

You can purchase episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars on iTunes:

Check it out!

Watching baseball online is hard, even if you want to pay for it.  Before we talk about that, though, I should tell you:  I’m a Red Sox fan.  So, while the last few years have been a pleasure (I’m looking at you 2004 and 2007), this year didn’t turn out so good.  On the other hand, had the Sox made it to the series, this experiement would have gotten a whole lot more interesting.

But back to the topic at hand: watching baseball online.  Trying to understand the rights for live broadcast of Major League Baseball is not a simple task (there’s an entire Wikipedia page devoted to it), and it gets even more complicated once you factor in the local sports networks like NESN and MASN.  To make a long story short, Major League Baseball is broadcast on ESPN, TBS and FOX.  This year, the World Series is on FOX (the ALCS was on TBS).  None of these stations actually own the content, they have a deal with Major League Baseball to get the feeds of the shows (regular season games are produced by the local sports networks, I’m not sure how the post season works).

Going to The Majors

So, no luck going to FOX, TBS or ESPN.  All you’ll get are clips and highlights.  The place to go is Major League Baseball itself, which offers MLB.TV.  The good news is, with a subscription, you can watch the games live; there’s just one catch: you have to be outside the United States, since MLB sold the exclusive broadcast rights to FOX.  This international package costs $9.95.  For US fans, you can listen live over the web, and get an archived version of the game about 45 minutes after the game is over.  This package costs $4.95.  This is all less than exciting for the US baseball afficianado.  A full detail of MLB’s online offerings is available on their website.

It’s Two Outs, Bottom of the Ninth, Bases Loaded.  What Do You Do?

So what’s left, if you want live baseball?  Audio isn’t bad, but it’s not ideal.  MLB.com offers something called MLB Live (you can find it from just about any page on MLB.com), a streaming channel with commentary during games.  Not that exciting.  I suppose the tech-savvy US resident could bounce through a foreign proxy server and buy the international package (but that would break the No More TV rule of not doing anything illegal to watch a show).

I’m not going to use the traditional rankings as we used for The Office (and will use on other serial shows), since they don’t make a whole lot of sense in this context; this post is more of an exploration in how to get live video, or even audio, of Major League Baseball, and isn’t really a full exploration of what can be done with footage after the game has aired, archives, etc.  We’ll cover all of that in another post.  I do give credit to Major League Baseball for putting together MLB.TV; there is no reason why they should give their stuff away, and the prices are very reasonable.  I’m a little peeved about the US blackouts, I understand that they have to do this in order to get the big bucks from the networks, but it’s a shame. 

Overall, I give Major League Baseball a C+ for their online efforts, since the games are available to watch after the fact, you can listen live, but there is no way to watch live, and I don’t really want to watch a game afterwards, especially if I know how it ended; that’s what Sportscenter is for.

The Best Show on TV?

I’m going to go on the record:  The Office is the best show on television (right now, that is; ask me this again when Lost and Battlestar Galactica are on in a few months).  I was worried that once Pam and Jim got together, the show would just flounder about without purpose or direction.  I’m happy I was wrong.  Season 5, of which we are currently 4 episodes into, has been nonstop hilarity.  Even the characters that were struggling to find their purpose on the show, such as Andy Bernard (who does not lose contests…he wins them or he quits them, because they are unfair), have developed into fully-blown freaks worthy of their positions in the Dunder Mifflin empire.  The addition of Amy Ryan to the cast has been a great boon; she’s the perfect complement to Michael’s self-centered obliviousness (the one exception is Ryan Howard; that character has no place on the show; I has happy when he left, and sad when he returned).

More Than Just Paper

The Office is a perfect example of a show that is not only bringing it’s content online, but using the web to further engage audiences.  The show has an extensive website.  Over the summer, NBC produced a series of webisodes starring some of the minor characters (Malone’s Cones), and has launched several websites that are related to happenings on the show, such as Angela and Andy’s Wedding Page.  Many of the actors blog regularly, some in character, and some as themselves.  All these efforts, especially those that continue in the off-season, help audiences connect with and stay attached to their favorite show.

Performance Evaluation

We’ve been busy in the NoMoreTV labs, working on a set of evaluation criteria for online television shows.  The Office is probably one of the best shows out there, not only in terms of the quality of the show, but in the show’s availability online.  Let’s take a look at how The Office performs against the NoMoreTV standards:

After accounting for weighting (a secret NoMoreTV formula), the overall grade for the office: B+

(We have to leave some room for improvement. ;))

The article has some good statistics, estimating that online 1% of consumers watch all their television online.  Some of the problems identified by the article as to why consumers stick with the telvision experience: channel surfing is a natural behavior that is hard to duplicate online.  Watching online requires intent on finding and watching a particular show, while TV is often used to fill up leisure time without direct intention on consuming a particular piece of content.  Also, the delay between when a show is available online from when it aired can be factor.

The article discusses the trend of set-top boxes such as Apple TV, Roku and Vudu, and takes a look at the financial side of cutting the cable connection, with savings anywhere from $40 monthly up to $100 a month.

The article concludes with a great quote from Jeff Pulver: “Some people will [continue] to subscribe to cable, the way their grandparents did.”  Yep, and a whole lot of us won’t.

I’m a sucker for time-travel (as long as it’s used properly), and I was a big fan of last year’s one-season one-hit-wonder, Journeyman.  So I’m interested to see if Life on Mars is going to be any good.  On the plus side, it’s got Michael Imperioli and Harvey Keitel.  The show released a screener earlier in the summer, and got horrible reviews, so much so that the show was completely revamped, changing everything from the location of the show (to New York from LA), adding more weight to the cast and changing directors. We’ll see if it works. Life on Mars is based on the BBC/UK series of the same name, which ran for two seasons (shows in the UK seem to only run for a few seasons, like The Office and Extras…why is that?).

The premiere airs tonight at 10, on ABC. Below is a sneak peek.  I’ll be watching the premiere on ABC.com over the weekend, if it’s available.

Let It Begin

I didn’t jump on the Heroes bandwagon at first; I think it took till the third or fourth episode for me to add it to my schedule (which is odd, since I’m a sci-fi nut; the same thing happened with BSG). But once I started watching, I was hooked. The first season started strong; what I enjoyed most was how each of the Heroe’s powers were some kind of manifestation of their inner selves: Nikki was a mother torn between her son and her life as a stripper; Nathan was the son of a prominent family with great expectations for him; Peter was a nurse who was able to understand and sympathize with those that he got to know. And Sylar! I recall how everyone thought that Sylar ate the brains of his victims, absorbing their powers through what, digestion? From the first moment I saw Sylar in Season One take apart the watch, and then take apart his first victims’ brain, I knew his power was that of examination, of being able to dissect and understand something at its most fundamental level. I can’t begin to tell you the amount of gratification I had, finally, in Season 3, when in response to Claire’s question of whether or not Sylar was going to eat her brains, he replied, “That’s disgusting!”

The end of Season One, however, was where things started to fall apart. The finale was less than spectacular, and the whole wrap-up of the time-traveling stuff just didn’t fit (time-travel rant: don’t use time-travel as anything other than the central part of your story; once you mess with time, anything is possible, and unless you’re making fun of time-travel, as in Bill and Ted’s, you lose all credibility once you introduce it). But I was willing to overlook it and check out Season 2.

A Turn For The Worse

Season 2 was a disaster. It made no sense. The characters had no motivations, It was boring. It made no sense. Did I mention that the story made no sense and that it was boring? There was no focus on the character’s inner turmoil, they were just people with cool powers running around and doing stuff. I don’t know if it was the strike or just sophomore jitters, but I hated myself for watching the whole of Season 2.

One Last Chance

Which brings us to Season 3. There was a lot of noise from Tim Kring and the producers that they were sorry for Season 2, had learned from their mistakes, and were ready to move on. I bought it, and tuned in for the premiere, which proceeded to put me to sleep before the end of the first hour (I’m not joking…I actually fell asleep). It was the same old, same old, so reminiscent of everything I hated about Season 2.

I might as well say it: I don’t like the comic-book/soap opera-esque style of Heroes. I think it hurts them. The apotheosis of Heroes, for me, was Season One, Episode 17, “A Company Man.” This one episode focused on the relationship of Claire and her step father, the awesome Noah Bennett, or HRG for short. It was one hour (or 42 minutes, whatever) of continuous narrative and character development, with suspense and intrigue thrown in for good measure. There never was, and perhaps never will be, another episode like it, and I fear I will forever be chasing the dragon that is that episode.

As long as Season 3 sticks with the jumping around style, the time-traveling (yet again…the Heroes are trying to stop something that happened in the future from happening…), with the same characters (didn’t half of these people die, sometimes multiple times, in previous seasons? No stakes equals nothing interesting), I don’t think there is much hope for the series. They need to go back to character-driven stories with episodes that focus on a single narrative.

I will say, the second episode (episode 3, since the premiere was technically episodes 1 and 2) was a bit more interesting, but this week’s was another let down (you know that the explosion in Costa Verde is not really going to happen, right? You know that Peter is going to go back in time and make it so it never happens, and Sylar will still be evil, and Ando won’t kill Hiro…). I’m on the fence whether or not I’m going to watch next week.

Final Showdown

As for watching Heroes online, despite my issues with the show itself, it gets stellar marks:

Grade: A+

Heroes is available online at NBC.com and Hulu.com. I am subscribed to Heroes on Odeo via Hulu. The show is also downloadable using the NBC Direct Beta, which I have been unable to get to work on my notebook. It’s also available for purchase/download on Amazon Video On Demand, iTunes and Zune Marketplace for around $2.00 (I still can’t figure out why I’d buy something from Amazon, if I can watch for free on Hulu, and the most modern compatible mobile device is the Creative Zen, but hey, that’s me).

In addition to watching the show, NBC has done an excellent job in providing supplemental material for the obsessive fan. Not all shows have the budget to do something like this, and not all should, but this type of extension of the show’s brand is a perfect illustration of how the web enhances the content and creates a fuller experience for the audience.

Here’s hoping that Heroes can turn things around; the show has the makings of a great, classic show, it’s just lacking in execution.