I mean, we all know the answer to such a rhetorical question, but seriously, why does it have to suck this bad?
Like many Americans, I would like to embrace the notion of cutting the cord and completely absolving myself of cable television. I mean, I have nearly 350 channels available on my subscription, with maybe 10 networks tops that I actually bother to peruse through, so why should I pay for that many channels?
Unfortunately, I’m not going to be cutting the cord any time soon, and frankly, I still think that we’re a long way off before the thought will gain any substantial traction in the near-future.
I was trying to watch Making A Murderer recently, which as you might recall, is only available on Netflix, a streaming service. I’m getting into the general plot and ease in which the facts are presented to me, but about 40 minutes in, suddenly I get my first stop in the action on account of buffering. I’m watching the little red Netflix swirly-circle counting up the progress, and it hangs up on like 82%. A minute of this, and I’m already pissed, and have to stop the program, only to try to open it again, hoping the reset will jumpstart the stream. Nope, it starts back up 15 minutes prior to where I was interrupted, and I have to play the guessing game of trying to fast forward without knowing where to resume playback. My watching experience is basically soiled.
And this is the story of almost all streaming media, to varying degrees. Mind you, this particular instance was involving wireless connectivity, and it basically relegates me to having little to no faith in wi-fi technology, at least when it comes to utilizing attempting to stream high-definition television. Wi-fi is a great technology, but honestly it’s kind of crap if you’re trying to do anything remotely heavy, like streaming television or playing League of Legends; the slightest hiccup is enough to stall your show, or create lag spikes that will undoubtedly cost you dearly in-game.
Ultimately, there’s no real good solution to shitty internet, save for wiring your home and places you like to hang out with internalized CAT-5 in the walls, with ethernet jacks in the walls. Wi-fi is far too weak and unreliable when it comes to heavy data consumption, and Powerline wall jacks, which at one point, I thought were the second coming of christ, I’ve learned through trial by fire, require such stringent electrical configuration for optimal speeds, that in a place like my house, speed testsworse than wireless.
Which all amounts to the fact that the idea of streaming media is great and all, but until internet speeds can really be relied upon to not suck balls, then we’re relegated to this age of insufferable, where turning on your Xbox to play video games, loading Netflix to watch television, always runs the risk of a lag spike, connection issue, or other lame excuse, to why things can’t simply be gratifying.
I want to watch Battle Royale again, because reading the book has got me feeling nostalgic, and wanting to watch the film again. I know it’s available somewhere streaming, but I’m not going to bother, when I own a DVD of it. I’m not even going to play it on my Xbox 360, because the last thing I want to run into is an update being required for the DVD player software. I’m going to play it on a standard DVD player that’s wired directly into my television, where I can guarantee that being two minutes of menu and preview window skipping, I will be relaxed and watching a stall-free version of a movie, even if it means having a few pieces of hardware and a physical case in my home. Fuck the internet.
