Thoughts on ABC, The Biggest Loser, and American Idol Finale Week

It has been a while since I have talked about TV since I have been rather involved with other things as of late. So I want to talk about TV today.

Well after ABC recently announced that they are ending 2 of their 3 long running soap operas, now ABC is about to drop their entire current Saturday morning lineup. The interesting thing about this is that most if not all of their current Saturday Kids lineup are Disney shows and Disney owns ABC. Apparently Disney can't even get kids to watch Saturday morning TV shows anymore. If they can't, the question is who can?

Since ABC still has to have a few hours of children's programming because of FCC requirements, they are going to introduce a new children's programming block to replace their current Disney themed one. I have mixed feelings on this. The good news is that the new block will be new shows in high definition and will probably have more educational value than the current Disney themed ones. The bad news is that the ratings will likely be down with the new kids format, ABC is once again giving up on a long tradition of Saturday animated shows just like they are planning on doing with their soaps, and kids (especially teenagers) will likely pursue other forms of entertainment such as browsing the Internet or playing video games on Saturday mornings which is much more subject to controversial material than broadcast TV. Usually the worst things on Saturday morning children's TV are just ad spots aimed at kids to get their parents to buy sugary cereals or the latest toys. With Internet browsing, you don't know what kinds of people or advertising your kids may be approached with.

I watched the Biggest Loser Season Finale. I was glad that it was finally over. It went on way too long this past season. I didn't like the usual "feel-good" mentality of the final episode. The Biggest Loser people constantly try to convince the viewer that they are changing lives. The answer to that is yes AND no! The no part was what they didn't show. Rulon Gardner, the Olympian from this past season, was a no-show at the finals. It would have been nice if we would have gotten an update on his weight loss journey. Moses and his daughter have actually GAINED weight when they returned to the finale from the time they were eliminated from the show. Meanwhile Dan and Don, the police officer twin brothers, who were eliminated early on after throwing their weigh-ins managed to lose more weight than many of the contestants who stayed a lot longer on the show and didn't try to throw weigh-ins. So the key thing to remember is that the Biggest Loser show works, but only for SOME people and NOT for MANY people apparently.

Finally, I have to mention this season's top 2 on American Idol. This is a season where I don't care who wins because there were other singers who would have made a better top 2 than Lauren and Scotty. I thought Lauren was quite a bit better than Scotty. But I think the show's producers were trying to imply too much that Lauren was the underdog and that Scotty was the frontrunner. I think this effort of making Lauren look like the underdog will backfire and Scotty will still win. I think Lauren and Scotty are in the finals only because their fans stuck with them the entire season while James and Casey and Pia's fans were so upset over the shocking results that many of them quit watching the show as voters and only watched to see who was left in the competition instead of voting for the remaining pop singers. That is my theory why we got 2 young country singers over the more talented singers that were in the other genres this season.

The only good news is that we are almost 100% guaranteed we will have a better top 2 matchup next year on Idol.

Another WDTV Live Plus Update

Since Western Digital just updated the WDTV Live Plus Firmware the other day, it is time for me to give an update on the WDTV Live Plus.

First, I will mention the good news about the latest firmware update to the WDTV Live Plus. Text which was messed up or nearly unreadable in the previous firmware appear to be back to normal. And the arrow keyboard keys seem to work in most of the WDTV's Internet applications now.

But those problems mentioned in the above paragraph were problems that you shouldn't expect to have in the first place. They were the result of shoddy beta testing. Hopefully Western Digital will take more preventive steps to keep those kinds of problems from reoccurring in the future.

Now the bad news: Western Digital did little in the new firmware to increase the machine's functionality. There is the ability now to use hard drives that are greater than 2TB with the WDTV, but that is about it in terms of new features. There is no support for any other types of USB devices this time around.

Even worse is the lack of any new Internet applications, which means you still have only the 13 that Western Digital has included while Sony and Roku's media players have so many more to choose from.

Hulu Plus is already announced as coming to the WDTV, but not until "later this year" which means it might be Christmas before we ever see Hulu Plus added to the WDTV machines. That is way, way too long in a rapidly changing market. Also a problem with the WDTV right now is that some media outlets are quitting their existing services. Examples include CBS pulling content from the Flingo app and ABC News eliminating a couple of their shows from the Mediafly app. How many other organizations will pull content from the only 13 WDTV Internet apps before Western Digital actually adds some more useful Internet apps to the WDTV?

The bottom line is that Western Digital needs to start adding some more free Internet apps to the WDTV series, and they need to add them very soon (like within the next few weeks) or the WDTV machines will likely go the way of the Flip cameras in my opinion.

Two more Video Reviews uploaded to my NATHANROADINWA YouTube Channel

Sorry for the long absence once again. I appreciate those readers and viewers who have been and continue to have patience while I try to figure how to keep things continuing here and what direction I plan on taking my online plans in. As some of you probably already know, this blog and my videos on YouTube are not part of a job that I am being compensated for. I do not currently nor have I in the past received compensation for the products I have reviewed on here and on YouTube.

Right now, besides the financial issues, I also have to deal with the rapidly changing electronics market. For example, if I purchase something at Best Buy or Fred Meyer and I want to review it, by the time I review some products they are already discontinued or put in the clearance sections. It is a double whammy because first the item is no longer available for sale so I am reviewing a product that you might not be able to buy anyways. Second, I purchase this stuff right before they go on clearance so I am stuck paying the whole price for something that I could have purchased somewhat cheaper had I waited a few weeks or months. So this is something I am going to have to continue to deal with for now.

Now I want to mention that I have recently uploaded to YouTube two of my video reviews. They are video reviews of the GE DVI-to-HDMI Adapter Part 22701 and the LinkStyle Component/VGA to HDMI Video Converter Box. The DVI-to-HDMI Adapter was purchased in order to eliminate the rather long DVI-to-HDMI cable that I had been using. With this adapter I can run a shorter HDMI to HDMI cable from the adapter plugged into the TV's DVI port to the port of the machine I am using that has HDMI output. The LinkStyle Converter Box was purchased by me to use the TV's screen as a second PC screen. I bought it with the intention of watching free internet videos on my TV so I wouldn't have to watch them on the smaller PC screen.

As I always say, please rate and let me know what you think about these reviews and look for the other reviews and videos I have uploaded onto my NATHANROADINWA YouTube channel.

To see the videos, CLICK HERE!!