Six months ago, if you’d asked me what was the UK’s best online-delivered freeview TV archive service, it would have been 4 On Demand.
Absolutely terrific, it was.
But now they’ve changed it. Instead of time-limited downloads that you can watch offline, they’ve switched to streaming video. That’s bad enough. But here’s the thing: it’s streaming video that doesn’t buffer – so you can’t open it up and let it accumulate in your memory for silky-smooth playing, the same way Youtube does. Nope. If you pause it, you stop the whole process dead.
This is distinctly unimpressive.
Oh, Channel 4, I commend you for your idealism. I’d dearly love to live in a world where everyone’s internet connection was a broken fire hydrant of data with enough pressure behind it to punch your laptop through the ceiling. It would be lovely. But it’s not happening. (Especially in Wales).
So, 4 On Demand – you held the crown, turned it this way and that, tried it on and found it fitted perfectly – and now you’ve handed it back over to BBC iPlayer.
D’oh.
Image: dan taylor
