Veronica Mars

[miriam_e]

It was a truly superb TV series. Heaven knows why the dopey network executives decided to cancel it after just 3 seasons. In fact three years after the final episode aired it still rates almost 9 out of 10 on imdb.com (8.7 actually). I have the entire series, downloaded from the net as TV captures. Later on, as I've been able to afford it, I've been buying the DVD sets. I've bought Season 1 and Season 2. Now only Season 3 remains to be bought, and as soon as I have the spare money I'll buy it too.

From time to time I watch the entire series again over a few months, usually viewing an episode during a meal. I'm doing so once more. Each time it makes me appreciate anew what an amazing piece of work that show was.

Now here is the interesting thing: although I have them on DVD, I prefer to watch the ones downloaded from the net. I haven't ripped and converted my DVDs to more efficient, more accessible video files yet. Watching them on DVD is such a hassle. I have to carefully get out the appropriate disk and avoid marking the absurdly soft plastic. Then I have to find the episode I want to watch and wait for it to load and run. I do this on my computer, using mplayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu) rather than a dedicated DVD player so at least I don't have to sit through all the warnings and other nonsense, but even so, finding the correct track to play is annoyingly obfuscated.

Compare that with what it is like when I play the downloaded files, or my own ripped, converted files. All I have to do is click on the file called, for instance, "Veronica Mars 01-03 - Meet John Smith.avi". That makes life so much more easy. And I keep an empty file in the list, named something like "Veronica Mars 01-03", that I rename each time I watch an episode, so if I don't watch one for some days, I can easily see where I'm up to next time because it self-sorts to just above it.

The customer is always right. Deliver what the customer wants. Weird... those things don't apply anymore.

Comments

[greylock.livejournal.com]

I don't know how you would have survived with reel-to-reel and old film canisters. :)

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

heheheh :D
I used to love my old reel-to-reel tape machine. I never quite got into using my old movie camera and projector as much, but that was mainly because of the cost of the film, rather than the inconvenience.

Convenience and hassle are strange things.