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…)

The BBC’s pioneering service Ceefax is to be switched off in 2012. Not bad for a service that recently celebrated its 35th birthday. (Thanks to Mike Brown, you can even spend An Evening With Ceefax, as it was in 1982…) (more…)

By the time my primary school bought a video recorder – some time in the late 1970s, if I recall correctly – I was already quite familiar with video recorders (I think we had a Betamax at the time, but I don’t remember correctly). I do remember, however, being fascinated by the fact that the tapes were square, rather than rectangular, meaning that the two spools were stacked one above the other, rather than being next to each other as VHS, Beta and Video 2000 tapes were. (more…)