Entertainment category

I forgot about Californication last night, but it was flicked on TV so I watched the last 10 minutes of it. By the rate Family First were going, I was expecting to see a sex scene within five seconds of watching the show. Alas, one didn’t happen until 2 minutes in. But even then it was just some simple boobs with a carefully placed hand to hide the really dirty part of a womans body.

Then it went into the sex, (”I want a fuck” she said, how unpredictable). Pants go off the main character and then we see the doggy style. It was sort of like porn but with both characters (?) taking center stage. Then, she started getting into it, pushed him back and he hit his head on the wall, picked up the painting that fell off, and they both threw up.

OK, so 9.30pm perhaps felt a wee bit too early for such things, but then there was that sex scene in NZ dramedy Rude Awakenings, and that was on before 9.30. Didn’t hear anything about that. Also, there was a TV show on TV One where the second scene of the first episode was two guys having sex with both characters being in full view (whereas later in the episode there was a sex scene with a man and a woman, but the camera was limited to above the chest). Recently, there was Eating Media Lunch on TV2 which had a woman having sex with a chicken (a re-enactment of the sex tape shown a police party).

Of course though, there are numerous instances of sex on TV (these days we even have breasts shown during the 6pm news) but these are the things I sort of expected to hear something from Family First. Maybe though they’ve now shifted their bed time from 8.30pm to 10pm and are getting grumpy and irritable from the lack of sleep.

To be honest though, Californication wasn’t that funny so probably won’t end up watching it again.

(PS, I find it rather ironic that Burger King dropped their ads from the program. Their ads are just women in bikini’s with the Burger King logo slapped at the end! One was even banned for having too many sexual overtones.)

TVNZ have signed a deal with Disney-ABC to distribute television programmes via it’s online service, TVNZ OnDemand.

For starters, they’ll have Brothers and Sisters, What About Brian, Criminal Minds, Daybreak and The Amazing Race All Stars available for download. New episodes will be available just 24 hours after their release, and will follow the same pricing structure as current New Zealand-made shows. More shows will be available later.

• TVNZ OnDemand
• Read the press release

TVNZ need to start broadcasting these shows much sooner however. TV3 has already committed itself to broadcasting US shows within a couple of weeks of the original US air date to curb illegal downloading, yet TVNZ still seems bent on having shows broadcast much later – for example, TV3 are showing Heroes just two weeks out, while TVNZ started showing the final series of The Sopranos when the series ended in the States. Also wouldn’t mind seeing Torchwood soon!

If you haven’t heard yet, YouTube New Zealand was launched the other day.

Other than providing increased marketing opportunity on the homepage (where the current welcome video is) and having faster downloads (apparently, I didn’t notice), there really isn’t that much different.

The featured videos are some local picks, I hope it’s not always like that to be honest. The Videos tab now shows what NZers are actually most watching, which would explain why the guy from the One News story about YouTube was the top most watched video at only 1,400 views.

Since going .net.nz, there has been a new section on my blogroll dedicated to internet TV shows (previously populated by podcasts but I don’t listen to those anymore). I just added some more shows that I’ve subscribed to in Miro, but here’s the full list.

Channel Frederator
If you are a fan of cartoons as I am still then you’ll enjoy Channel Frederator. This isn’t your trashy animation either, they are some really good, high quality cartoons. Each episode has a bunch of animation shorts – they are either computer generated or drawn. Right now they have the Meth Minute 39 showing as well, which you may have seen the first episode of called Internet People.

Diggnation
This half-hour show has Digg creator Keven Rose and friend Alex Albrecht talk about some of the top stories on Digg for the week, while drinking beer (or alternative alcohol) and talking about anything. They were talking about holding a show in New Zealand for a total of two episodes recently, the second episode had some New Zealand girl leave them a message on Jangle with plenty of sexual overtones.

Jetset
Your “internet pop-culture source.” Anything big on the web, you’ll see it here. They are quite welcoming of their community too, having its own social networking site called Mix with discussions on the latest episode as well as world events. You will find some interesting websites from this weekly show.

Rocketboom
Another internet pop-culture and current events show. Every weekday you get your dose of whats going on in the world and on the web in a space of five minutes. Every Wednesday is field report day where Rocketboom correspondents from around the world show their side of major world headlines, and every Friday is known as Casual Friday where anything goes but current events.

Tiki Bar
An interesting monthly comedy show highlighting how great drinking is – especially when it contains spirits that are stirred, shaken or blended. Every episode follows a basic formula, something happens to one of the characters, or a new character, and Dr Tiki prescribes some form of cocktail to make everything fine again. The cocktail recipe is also made available on the website, with Johnny Johnny having his own cocktail blog with more recipes. Look in the archives for the Bunnies drinking game.

Cute with Chris
What can I say about this show? It has kittens! Actually, I can’t really describe this show. I can say that every week he presents some animals in the “Cutedown”, and sometimes have a “Teen Letters” segment that was one time replaced with “Angry Teen Letters.” But what he does in between can be anything – in his recent episode he was complaining about how everyone is named Chris, and in many previous episodes pointing out how different Canada is to America with unique TV shows like Canadian Idol and Canada’s Next Top Model. His catch phrase is “All your dreams are dead,” said to anything that wasn’t voted cute in the Cutedown, among other things. You have to watch a few episodes to get it as he has a very unique sense of humour.

Run Away Box
The only reason I put this on here is for their Man in the Box show. It’s very The Office-esque, but very funny. Last month they had a new episode every day, but it now comes in every week on Tuesdays. See how a guy who hates his office job lets the time pass by.

Smosh
These guys have the most subscribed YouTube channel of all time. And for good reason. They produce hilarious shows worthy of it. Recently they had a three-part story involving their breakup because Anthony couldn’t jump over a box because of Wii Tennis, so they went their separate ways with new partners – Anthony ending up with Phoung who can do cartwheels, and Ian with T-Bag who “killed three people already.” Why does Chris Crocker get all the publicity and own TV show when these guys should?

Cory “Mr. Safety” Williams
This guy has been popular in the YouTube community for some time (even with angry video posts), but was recently made really popular by his Mean Kitty song – his cat attacks every thing/one so they named him Sparta. He also produces some other funny songs and shorts.

Enjoy ‘em! They’re all to the right on the homepage for future reference.

Just been informed vai the MythTV NZ mailing list that Sky has started fighting back against Freeview by loading on Freeview only channels to the mix.

Only Stratos and Parliament TV have been loaded on channels 89 and 94. EPG coming soon.

Technically there is nothing stopping Sky from doing it. However it’s just ethically bad. Here are two channels that are free-to-air and yet Sky have them available to pay for (Sky’s Free-to-Air package is $15 a month). Then you have to think about whether Triangle TV had to pay to get Stratos on Freeview (I’m not sure about its status). It apparently costs a lot to get onto Freeview, but hey, Sky will happily take money and not pass it on.

Update: Read the comments for a message from the Triangle TV CEO who basically says “all involved knew ahead of time and before Sky made access available to its viewers and are quite happy about it.” Good to know.

TVNZ have released more details on their HD launch next year. To sum up:

• It will be on Freeview DTT only, Sky will not be able to receive the content, nor will the current Freeview Satellite service. Freeview DTT will be available from March next year.
• 50% of content on TV One will be in HD, 80% on TV2.
• It will be 720p (the current standard from HDTV) and surround sound will be broadcast when available. SD content will be upscaled.
• TVNZ6, TVNZ7 and TVNZ Sport Extra will not go HD.

They have the technical stuff, MPEG-4 using the H.246 ABC codec, 23 Mbps and statistical multiplexing 2 HD channels with 3 SD ones.

Time to get me an HD ready TV

It has been announced on Throng.co.nz that TVNZ will go High Definition from July 2008.

The up shot of this announcement is that the Beijing Olympics, held in August next year, will also be broadcast in HD on TV One.

As Freeview Terrestrial service will be the only one that can support HD at this stage, you’ll need a Freeview DVB-T box (from March 2008). And of course an HD-TV.

Remember, next year the Playstation 3 is getting a DVB-T tuner too…

TV One recently brought back veteran weather presenter Jim Hickey and he’s been on this week. He brought back what he took with him when he left – interesting weather reporting. And it appears that the youth on Bebo (said like I’m not apart of the youth anymore ) approve, they started a Jim Hickey Appreciation Club, some comments,

SOOOO great that Jims back on TV1, I’m not watching TV3 again!

Jim Rocks and I love him!!!

Give me Jim over Toni Marsh anyday lol!I bet Jim will boost TV1 weather ratings!YAH!

omg for realz? yaaaaaaay only watched the news coz of jimmy..

But would a return of an old favourite bring fortune back to One News? As Morph points out TV One’s weather presentation needs some work (and apparently that is still coming). He also says that they can’t depend on Jim Hickey and Karen Olson forever, but 3News had the guys watching for Toni Marsh for a while. Only time can tell, they can only improve on ratings these days.

• Jim Hickey Appreciation Club on Bebo

Freeview will be getting three new channels over the next month:

• TVNZ 6, TVNZ’s new general programming channel, starts on 30th September. It will feature three sections; Kidzone with childrens programming, Family with general family entertainment, and Showcase with dramas and comedy. It will be channel 6.
• [ Oooh, so Wikipedia isn’t right 100% of the time – VIBE is Sky only ]
• Triangle Stratos is Triangle TV’s regional TV spreading across the nation and starts on 3rd October. It will specialise in international programmes mainly and will feature show from DW-TV, Voice of America and Al Jazeera English. Channel 21.

TV One and 2 will be going widescreen on September 22nd too.

Notice the two channel gap between Triangle and VIBE? Future homes of Parliament TV and Alt TV?

This guy made a great music video for the latest Britney Spears song Gimme More (good luck on finding the performance at the MTV VMA’s - she was terrible). Funnily enough, this was out before the VMA’s yet he has all the actions pretty much spot on.

Update After going through his videos, he’s a kiwi too.