On the small screen, the very small screen

After poo-pooing the idea of watching video on an iPod, I finally changed my mind and was the lucky recipient of an 80GB iPod for my past birthday. With the help of Handbrake and iSquint, I can rip DVDs and torrented movie files of things that Conny doesn't want to watch and consume them in novel places, like the subway, or in bed, or on a plane. Thanks to this, I'm now no longer the only geek on the planet who hasn't seen the new Battlestar Galactica (still only midway through season 2) or Firefly (only one episode left.)

Firefly reminds me a lot of a live action Cowboy Bebop, but less noir and more A-Team. While it's a fun show, and a clever mix of genres, it gets a little hokey and tends to get by on the charm of the characters. It's comicbook-like nature makes it well suited to watching on my itty-bitty iPod screen.

Battlestar Galactica feels a little more meaty. Perhaps that's just because I haven't been able to find a decent space opera on television since that one good season of Deep Space Nine many ages ago. Galactica is a mirror image of Star Trek: gritty, military, and strictly about survival, and it is good precisely because that gives the show more narrative direction and resonance. That's not to say I don't have some bones to pick with Battlestar Galactica. I will hold my tongue for now, mostly because I'm still catching up. Between some technological quibbles, and the Cylons seeming more like a convenient dramatic device than anything else, I'm still managing to enjoy it.

I also went wild and signed up for a bunch of video podcasts. I figured getting a bunch of short, fresh videos on my iPod was a perfect fit to my commute. That was before I discovered almost all video podcasts are dreadful crap that wouldn't make the cut on public access cable, or tiny teasers of commercial shows wrapped up with too much padding (I'm looking at you, Comedy Central). The one exception that stands out, though, is The Show, with Zefrank, which I adore.

Not that I am worried, though. I already have more things on the iPod than I have time to watch. By keeping busy I solve the problem of finding new content.

Labels: culture, gadgets, tv

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