The Big Question on 'Lost': Where'd the Audience Go?

Depends on which one you get. As I posted in my response to this

videonovels...

.

Neither my parents not my brother have DVD players. Tape is still the
most-universal standard for sharing with others.

benjil81...

I don't know even one person that still has video and no DVD. You live

Brandy Alexandre...

She's talking about her life and projecting it to others. Didgital and
optical technology is still voodoo to her.

John Duncan Yoyo...

Christmas is coming- just give them a DVD player. There are under $40

videonovels...

I'm not Bill Gates. I'm not made of money. ;-) ;-) And "only $40"
is 4 hours of hell.... er I mean work, that I don't want to spend.
Perhaps you enjoy working, but I don't, so I spend as little time there
as possible.
.

As it is, my parents/brother have VCRs that they don't even know how to
use. "Are you sure I can tape something while watching something
else?" "Yes Kevin." "And it's not going to mess anything up?" "No
Kevin."

Or my mom: "I was tired so I went to bed." Me: "You could have taped
it." "I don't know how; I'm too old to learn new stuff." :-)
.

THIS is reality. Most americans *don't* know how to use modern
equipment (the blinking clock syndrome). They're not tech-saavy like
us, the posters of rec.arts.tv. YOU are in the wrong to assume
everybody is like us. They're not.

Jim Reid...

So because of your laziness and lack of drive and thick-headed
relatives, technology should just freeze where it is. Lead, follow or
be left behind. Sounds like you've picked the third option.

.

One more thought. Back in the 90s I used Super VHS technology. Great
near-dvd-quality picture, but then I took my tapes over to a friends'
house, and suddenly I realized the drawback of non-standard
technology..... the hassle of trying to move a 500-pound entertainment
center, so I could access the tiny ports on the back of the tv, and
thereby plug in my S-VHS machine.

That's the drawback of non-standard equipment: Difficult to share. I
try to avoid it as much as possible.

ones out there now or just wait until Black Friday for a $10 to $20
one. A DVD is easier to share, copy and transport.

in the early 90's ?

issue, I burn stuff to DVD all the time and the blanks cost about 5¢
apiece. Even MORE portable than a tape and if your parents have a DVD
player, there ya go! All you have to do is make sure you get a DVR
that will burn the same format you want to be able to play (DVD-R seems
to be the most compatible.)

By Lisa de Moraes
Friday, October 6, 2006; Page C07

Despite ABC's promise of more action and no reruns, a sizable chunk of
viewers appear to have lost interest in "Lost."

PuddinTame...

Shocking.

Don't get seduced by the 18.8 million "Lost" drew for the debut of its
third season on Wednesday -- that was about 5 million fewer viewers

Fred Ellis...

Actually I have 4 DVD recorders, all Panasonic. The first model I
bought several years ago was the DMR-E20 which records to disk only.
Then about 2 years later I got the DMR-E100H which records to disk or a
120GB harddrive. Late I got the DMR-E75V which records to disk or VHS
tape. And then I got the DMR-EH50 that recorders to disk or a 100GM

Jon Purkey...

That's the one I have. I do plan on getting a DVD recorder with hard
drive someday. But for now the VCR in the E75V does allow me to record
two shows at once (one program to DVD-RAM, the other to VCR.) 99% of
my recordings are done to DVD-RAM though.

Fred Ellis...

That is one of the features why I went with a Panasonic DVD Recorder.
With a DVD-RAM you can erase and record over and over 100,000 times. I
bought the double sided disks that come in the plastic cartridge. I can
get up to 12 hours on one disk.

Fred Ellis

Brandy Alexandre...

You know, I bought the RAMs, but I've never used them. What I forgot
to do was get a player for the bedroom that reads them. Oops!

harddrive. This last model allows you to program a show using on air
'TV Guide' programing selection. Which is simular to TiVo.

~consul...

Do any of these allow you to tape the HD content? I didn't think they did.

Fred Ellis...

I'm not sure what you mean. The two DVD recorders with HDs can copy
from the HD to a DVD disk or visa-versa. The recorder that has both DVD
and VHS can copy from the DVD disk to the VHS tape or visa-versa. And
yes, I can copy from a DVD recorder with HD to a VHS tape recorder.

~consul...

HD in my case meant "High-Definition", not as Hard Drive as you meant. High-Def broadcasts
are 99% widescreen, 16:9 ratio. I say 99%, because I'm sure that there are some High-Def
broadcasts that are just 4:3, with the high def quality image, but I don't know who does it.
Like my tv can receive HD programming, but my VHS can't record it. So I would be watching
LOST in 16:9, and taping it on my vhs as the 4:3 version.

Fred Ellis...

Thanks for clarifying what HD stood for. Yes, as far as I know, my DVD

telenovels...

.

Digital VHS has been able to record high-definition 720 and 1080 video
since ~2000. As far as I know, it's still the only option. (Bluray
and HD-DVD and supposed to be able to record high-definition on their
~50 gigabyte discs, but not yet. Probably won't happen until 2008.)

DVD can only hold ~30 minutes of high-definition content. Microsoft
has found a way to squeeze a full movie onto DVD (using a windows media
codec), but at the expense of visible compression artifacts.

DVD is just too small.

I'd like to buy a Digital VHS, but they charge $1000 for it. Insane.
It's as-if JVC wants the standard to fail, so they deliberately
overprice it. (In reality, DVHS should only cost $250... not much more
expensive than a s-vhs vcr.)

~consul...

I've been looking for a dvhs that wasn't too expensive for a loooong time.

I've been looking also at just the harddrive system, but so many of them were tied to the
subcriber systems like DirectTV or TIVO. The only HDTV recorders that I see is the Sony
DHG HDD250/500 units, which I've only seen used, and near $500 to boot.

Then there are all the computer mockups that folks have made.

recorders can not record in High-Definition. But my understand is the
lastest Panasonic DVD recorders can play High-Definition DVD disks. But
I'm not sure they can recorder in High-Definition.

Fred Ellis

I have done this several times. Taken a show I recorded on a HD and
copied it to a disk. Then taken that disk and copied it to a VHS tape.
I can also do it the other way around.

Fred Ellis

Two of the recorders are connected to the TV in the living room. The
other two are connected the TV in the bedroom.

Fred Ellis

Brandy Alexandre...

I have the DMR-E85H. Best thing I ever bought even though the price
bottomed out the following month or something like that. But isn't
that always the way with technology?

than the second-season opener. That's not what ABC hoped for.

The network noted that this season's first episode picked up where last
season left off, and grew ratings-wise. But by the end of last season,
"Lost" had misplaced nearly 6 million of the viewers who'd watched the
season starter, and ABC suits were acknowledging they'd mishandled the
show, letting too many reruns and plodding, head-scratching story lines
drive away fans.

PuddinTame...

Ya think?!

And let's not forget that last season's "Lost" finale, which clocked
under 18 million viewers, faced the biggest "American Idol" finale
ever, attracting more than 36 million viewers. This Wednesday, the
season debut of "Lost" only faced a "House" rerun on Fox.

Benj...

What we are seeing now is the change in TV habits. All the ratings are
going down. The best show now is around 25 million viewers when 20
years ago it was pretty average, and the US population was fewer than
250 millions (over 300 millions today).

Gemini Jackson...

Still though, the less tv viewed the better, Lost or no Lost.

In particular in the case of a serialized series like Lost, more and
more people prefer to download it, or buy or rent the DVDs and watch it
when they want, than watch it at a definite time with commerciales.
This is a real shift in the viewing habits and I see it in the past 2
years among everybody I know.

mcardle...

If a lot of people are going to start buying the DVDs, this is not a
problem for the producers. But when people stop watching your show, how do
you know it is because they intend to wait and buy the DVDs??

Do you choose to keep going in the hope...?

Benj...

These people work with statistics. If they see that many series have a
drop in watchers but an increase in DVD sales, they will know that it
does not rely on hopes but facts.

et472...

But statistics only show trends.

I"m sure they do have enough data to show that there is a trend for
people to tune out of a show, yet buy it on DVD.

The problem is that it can't tell you whether the people tuning out of
XX show are going to buy the XX DVD. Only after the fact will they
be able to see whether sales did make up for the lack of initial
viewers.

WHen an audience stops watching a show, it just means a lack of
audience. You can't know at that point what their reasons are.

Gemini Jackson...

~GJ~

Electric Frog...

It's a problem for the broadcast company though, they might not see any
money from the DVD sales and so do they care that Lost is going to get money
from the future DVD release

"You'll find a lot more happens this year in every episode than
happened in all the episodes last year," show exec producer J.J. Abrams
promised gushing TV critics in a phone call this week, while the show's

PuddinTame...

This says a lot about season 2.
See? It wasn't just me whing without cause. :-D
But are they too late to fix things? System failure! System failure!
System failure!

other exec producers had promised Entertainment Weekly there would be
much more "romance and action" this season.

tomcervo...

It's like that old resort joke. The food here is terrible, but they
give you big portions.

Default User...

No, the old resort joke is:

"The food here is terrible!"

"Yes, and such small portions too."

It's just Abrams running out of steam midway through the second season,
just like "Alias".

And yet, yesterday morning, the raging debates on various "Lost" Web
chats included the following (we cleaned up the typos for your reading
convenience):

(a) which Stephen King novel Juliet and her book club were reading

(b) whether Juliet's name really was Juliet, given that she was heard
being called Julie at least once, although, as one chatter noted, "upon
re-listening it's hard to tell if [Benry] actually said 'Julia' instead
of 'Juliette' but placed very little emphasis on the 'ette,' it could
sound like an 'a' instead," adding, "I think this is gonna be one of
those things that will be much debated and will divide the fandom."

and, our personal fave

(c) if an actress on the show appears to have had breast implants, does
that mean the character also had breast implants and "if we are to
assume that the character has breast implants are we to assume she got
them ON the island or has she arrived on the island after having lived
in the modern world?"

There was also a certain amount of Internet navel-gazing as to whether

PuddinTame...

It's what we do. :-D

Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" "might have been an influence for this
quasi-society that The Others have built and whether or not some of the
technology that might be part of the Dharma Initiative acts as a visual
forcefield to protect it from intruders . . . even radar."