The Internet — not a solution for everything

You’d think there’s a solution on the Internet for most every digital need, at least when it comes to audiovisuals and telecommunications. It’s not always true. 

You’re crazy about sports on TV, big events in particular. With the currently ongoing tennis French Open at Roland Garros and perhaps even more dramatically the upcoming football World Cup in Brazil, what are your good options for watching the games in Jordan?

The obvious choice is to acquire a dedicated set-top-box, a special satellite receiver with a subscription to the countless Middle Eastern sport channels that offer high definition live watching. The only thing is that these come at a price and often cover much more than what you are looking for in terms of events and coverage. Unless you are an absolute, die-hard fan or want to spend the money anyway, you start thinking “Internet”.

Live streaming is the buzz word on the web. It has radically changed the way we listen to music and watch video. It provides, and by far, the most convenient way today to play audiovisual material without having to store it locally or to buy physical media like CDs and DVDs.

Purists and demanding audiophiles still maintain a local collection of music and video, so as to listen to and to watch the highest quality of audiovisual contents and never to have to do with frustrating but unavoidable stream interruptions, or “hiccups” as they are sometimes called. Still, the vast majority of the population is living happily with web streaming. Not to mention that audio-video streaming often is a good substitute for traditional satellite TV.

Therefore, logically, you start searching the web for online channels that would let you watch Roland Garros or the World Cup live. Regardless of whether you want exclusively free viewing or are willing to pay a premium your search will hardly lead to a solution, at least one with full-screen high-quality image.

The hurdles you are likely to face are subscriptions that are not allowed in the Middle East (the otherwise excellent Eurosport online, for example), subscriptions that are nothing but plain deception and that will not let you watch what you came here for in the first place, or sites that ask you to pay a substantial amount for a year-long commitment to countless events that you are not interested in. Besides, if you are to pay anything more than say $300 you may as well buy a dedicated, physical set-top-box hardware — the original solution.

The ideal online answer that would be charging some $20 to $40 for just one event with full-screen viewing and in high-definition, simply does not exist. Well, all searches I have done so far didn’t lead to any such practical solution, anyway.

In the same line of thoughts, the recent increase of advertising on YouTube, whatever you are trying to watch, is another indication that in the end it’s all about money –– nothing new, of course!

In conclusion TV as we’ve known it till now remains the most viable solution, the one that gives us the greatest viewing pleasure, at the most reasonable cost.

This also comes to confirm the article by The Jordan Times reporter Mohammad Ghazal published yesterday in this very newspaper and that was aptly titled “Television — here to stay…”. It quoted Sam Barnett, CEO of the MBC Group: “TV is the foundation for entertainment. Viewership of TV is robust and growing every day... TV is not dying.”

Until further major change, let’s use the Internet for what it is and keep watching the big games on TV.