When we first got IPTV at home after years and years of cable, I was intensely happy. No more endless waiting for Roadies/Splitsvilla repeats (yes I was a Roadies AND Splitsvilla junkie, and I'm only a tiny bit ashamed to admit it), no more rushing home in time for a prime time movie, no more waking up at 4am to watch the Oscars (which I have never till date seen, despite thinking every year that I totally will), and best of all, no more scheduling lunch, dinner, study breaks etc. around TV programming.
Academically, all that still holds, and I no longer do any of those things. But, my TV watching has dropped drastically. And one of the major reasons for that is the Time Shift. I don't follow any show regularly, so it's not like I have something specific to watch, and the Time Shift is really really bad when you just want to chill and watch something vaguely interesting. The sheer pressure of having every single thing that has aired over the past one week available to watch is too much. I spend so much time poring over the week's programming for every channel, in fear that I'm watching this slightly interesting show, when on another channel there might be a far more enticing one. I worry that I'm wasting my time watching a movie that I'll only somewhat like, when I could be watching one that I missed in the theater and had been waiting for.
I have to see EVERYTHING that's available before I decide what I want to watch, and usually by the time I've gone through everything, an hour has gone by and nothing has seemed more than 80% convincing. Even worse, if I actually am able to decisively choose one show/movie, the overwhelming chances are that I've forgotten which channel and what time it was supposed to be playing, and I'll have to go through everything from the start, trying to find it.
Time Shift is a boon if you know what you want to watch - I regularly blessed its existence during the Masterchef Australia days. But either most content on TV these days sucks, or I've become far too spoilt by having Torrents.
Whatever the reason is, TV isn't fun anymore. I miss watching ads too. And movie trailers. But they're repeated sooo often that fast-forwarding them isn't really optional. How many times in one commercial break can you watch a mediocre or downright stupid ads? Sadly, in the skipping, I miss out on the good ones too.
I tell myself that if it's really good, it'll get shared on Facebook/Twitter.
