Ordinary Gweilo

It’s often interesting to look back at what was expected and compare that to what has actually happened. For example, the convergence of the Internet and traditional media has happened rather differently (and more slowly) than many expected a few years back. The Internet is not on TV, but TV is on the Internet (PCCW’s Now.com.hk and free services offered by the BBC and others; PC hardware is being used to replace the video recorder (TiVo & Sky+), and broadcast TV is being delivered to the home over the Internet (Now Broadband TV).

This article is specifically about what is happening in the UK, which is ahead of Hong Kong in terms of having Sky+ (a digital video recorder that lets you record any of the channels on satellite TV to a hard disk) but slightly behind in that PCCW’s Now Broadband was available before BT’s Home Choice.

Incidentally, Now Broadband TV did eventually write to me to say that their service is finally available where we live, but I am considerably less keen after seeing how much hardware they install and discovering that you can’t record the programmes. And I’m still waiting for the price of digital video recorders in Hong Kong to come down to something more reasonable.