In my household, the internet has replaced so many reference materials. If I want the definition of malapropism, phone number of my dentist, weather forecast for Abbotsford, map and directions from Vancouver Airport to the Pan Pacific hotel, today’s Get Fuzzy comic strip, to convert 500 milliliters into cups, or the latest news; I can find it quicker on the internet than the old print and TV medias I used to use. As a media that is constantly being update, the internet also has less chance of having become outdated.
The one reference material that we have yet to find a great replacement for is our television listings. Our two non web based alternatives are printed TV listings and our cable company’s listings on channel 2. Since television shows don’t follow schedules as tightly as they used to, with constant preempting, moving to alternative dates and times, and other annoyances; the printed listings are often inaccurate. While the cable companies listings may update, the ads they show on this channel take up most of the screen and leave room for information on three channels at the bottom, resulting in long waits to read the entire listings. It also only tells you what is on now; it’s no good for looking up when The Amazing Race will be on tomorrow.
The online choices all seemed to suffer from speed issues, as for each it takes quite a while for a web page with your customized listings in the grids we are all familiar with to be composed, and after if you wanted to click down to see higher numbered channels or to the left to see what is on later, you then have to wait again as a new page is created. Basically, all the sites offering North American TV listings are not yet Web 2.0.
That is why I have to share the website I found yesterday. I had envisioned almost exactly this site myself a couple of years ago, but I had predicted that it would be Google that would come out with it. Instead, it has come to life as Couchville.com.
Couchville is a free TV listings site that using Ajax to present the listings. What is Ajax? Well even those that are not too tech savvy have probably heard of JavaScript, which is a programing language that works within your browser and makes it so you can experience “special effects”, such as embedded video players, games, menus that expand when your mouse touches them, etc. Ajax is an improvement that combines JavaScript and other geeky items to make web pages that quickly update only the necessary portions of the page, and is what many of the current sites are using to present complex, updating information in what appears to be a simple form. A good example of it in use would be Google Maps, where you zoom in and out or scroll sideways with little or no delay.
Like Google Maps, Couchville’s listings grid can be grabbed by left clicking on it and then pulled in whatever direction you wish to go, with new results appearing almost as fast as you move the grid. There is a red line that represents the current time, which slowly scrolls across the listings as time progresses. Below the grid are navigation aids for getting quickly to places; such as a Jump to Current Time link that brings you back to the scrolling red line, and a drop down list of channels you can jump to if you are currently viewing channels 2 through 15 and want to get to channel 127. In the top left corner of the grid is the date and a calendar button to change to another date.
Any show on the grid can be clicked on to bring up more information on the right side of the screen, such as episode information. This will also show other stations and times that the show will be broadcast, each of which can be clicked on to quickly update the grid to show that time period. There will also be an Add To Favorites button that can be used to mark favorite shows that will then appear on your Favorites page that can be accessed via a link above the grid. Favorites are also starred on the grid, so that you can see shows you don’t want to miss at a glance. Each show’s pages can also be found by using the search box above the grid, and once on a page you are given the upcoming show times. Couchville even encourages linking to the pages of your favorite shows in blogs, such as pointing to their Doctor Who page.
In today’s environment of what seems endless repeats, I like that Couchville has chosen to mark fresh episodes of shows in the grid with New, rather than the standard Repeat marking on other sources. This focuses my eyes to things I am more likely to want to know, rather than drawing the eyes to items I’m likely to want to ignore.
Couchville is brought to us by Snapstream, a company that has been selling their digital video recorder (DVR) software for a number of years. DVR software allows one to add a TV tuner card to a computer, run a cable or satellite connection into the computer, and then use the DVR software to record TV shows to the hard drive or DVDs; much like a Tivo but with more control. You could use it on your main computer, burn the results to a DVD, and then watch a show on your standalone DVD player connected to your TV; or you could have a computer at the TV that is a dedicated multimedia machine. While the latter is an eventual goal in our household, I have not researched it enough to say whether Snapstream is a good or bad solution. Snapstream does have links throughout Couchville, such as Record this program in Snapstream links when looking at a particular airings information, and these links take those of use that do not have their software to a sales page; but the links are unobtrusive and only a small portion of the content, and so they combined with the few Google ads present are acceptable in exchange for this free resource.
The only negative thing I have to say about Couchville is that I don’t like that your settings are only stored in a cookie. This means that your settings are only on one computer, and more specifically they are only in one browser on one computer. Clear your cookies in order to try and solve an unrelated problem, and your Couchville settings are gone. Normally use Firefox, but using IE or Opera for some reason; your settings will not be there. Have multiple computers at home, or want to plan your evening’s TV viewing during you lunch hour at work; same issue. Most Web 2.0 sites realize that computers are now very common, and many of us are going to be often accessing more than one per day; and they therefore usually offer to let you also create a login to store your settings. I can understand why Snapstream is not offering such an offering, though; as they are trying to sell not a web-based solution, but rather their application that will keep track of those shows you want to watch and record.
As I previously stated, I had already envisioned a site very similar to this, and I had imagined that we would see it from Google. Google’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”, and I think a site similar to this one would allow them to fill in a major information gap that they have yet to address and yet is on everyone’s tongue each day, namely “What’s on TV?” As a Google product, I could expect my settings to be saved as long as I was signed into Google, and then I could have my favorite shows and others I marked as wanting to watch appear in my Google Calendar, have an RSS feed of today’s shows to view in my Google Reader, and choose to have a daily summary emailed to my Gmail each morning. There is a lot Google could do with such a product, and Snapstream would be wise to implement as many of these ideas as possible before Google creates a similar product. Alternatively, I could see this company, and thus Couchville, as the perfect acquisition for Google. Google, are you listening?
So Couchville will now join that list of sites that I visit daily. To sum up in a single word why they have become my online TV listings of choice when there are many alternatives… speed. An online tool in today’s world is not worth using if I feel like I’m still using a dial up modem. Couchville finally brings the speed I expect from all my other reference sites to TV listings.
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