Video on demand services seem to have sneaked up while I wasn’t looking and implanted themselves all over the web. First of all, there’s the disarmingly simple-looking Seesaw, a recent launch from the broadcast services company Arqiva (by “broadcast services”, I mean they own/run transmitters, digital radio multiplexes and so on). Seesaw perhaps doesn’t have the range of programmes that other services do, but it does a clutter-free interface well, along with high-quality compression (the “low quality” 500kb/sec still looks pretty impressive) (more…)

In the 1920s, the BBC was transmitting a single television channel (actually the only television channel transmitting in Britain) using the first system to be given an ITU letter designation. System A was positive modulation – meaning that dropouts were light patches rather than dark ones, as seen in later systems such as the 625-line PAL system currently in us (until 2012, at any rate) in the UK. (more…)