Those Wild & Crazy #Vikings! #Norway Ditches #FMRadio, Goes #Berserker. #DAB #BFF

I have a thing for Vikings, or perhaps, more accurately Vikings have a thing for me, because I certainly seem to attract all manner of them. (I kid you not, I was once handed a credit card and told to book myself a flight to Sweden in order to rendezvous with a certain Swede at his cabin in Göteborg --- 'twas quite the pickup line.) It's appropriate then, that one of my besties is a Viking... er... mickay... I mean, he's Norwegian.

The two of us have been good friends for well over 15 years and presumably we'll remain as such for the rest of our lives (baring his or my turning out to secretly be a serial killer or something worse). We met in California when I was still a student at university and he was working as a Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist and afterward spent a LOT of time in each other's company. We were so close that people often assumed we were a married couple when encountering us out & about, and I seemingly picked up a Norwegian inflection to my speech at times.¹

My friend and I continue to keep in touch via Skype (mainly in-app txt & Skype-to-phone), regular txt and email though he's since returned to his native Norway and I'm back in my native Georgia. We crack each other up, as we both have a sometimes acid sense of humor, coupled with a VERY secure sense of self.

An etymological aside: The English word "berserk" meaning crazed or crazy is derived from the Old Norse term bearserk, the frenzy into which bear-skin wearing Vikings or bearserkers would work themselves with all that raping and pillaging, which apparently takes a lot of energy. (You've got to respect a culture that gives yours the word for crazy.)

We spend a good deal of time ribbing each other over the various and sundry things which make our individual countries and cultures great. For instance, a month or so back an entire herd of reindeer were struck by lightning when a freak storm caught them out in the open on a random Norwegian plateau. After seeing the article on a news site, I sent him a quick Skype txt asking why Norway had it in for reindeer and pondered whether Santa Claus would be next on their "hit list."

Norway also happens to be one of the most oil-rich nations in the world and so, (circa 2003, i.e., the Iraq War) I would tease that he'd better watch out because America might "discover" Norway held WMD and use it as an excuse to invade any day now. In his turn, he, of course, laments American hubris and gets in his own zingers. We argue good-naturedly over who's selected for the Nobel Peace Prize each year ---- Norway names its recipient, while Sweden picks the recipients of the remaining Nobels --- and sometimes watch the annual Nobel concert together virtually. Between us, nothing is sacred.

On 11-01-2017 at 11:11a local time, Norway began turning off FM radio transmissions, becoming the first country to officially ditch the band, and started moving to Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) which proponents say will be cheaper to operate and provide more clarity of signal. Opponents, of course, worry about the Norwegians who live in far flung rural areas and who travel in older vehicles who might not be able to receive digital signals. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but either way, it was so kind of Norway to act as world guinea pig in taking on this endeavour. I sent my friend a quick txt asking if he could still hear me now or if the broadcast signal was fuzzy where he is and attached the article. (He lives in an Oslo suburb, so I was obviously being facetious, but that's the point.)

As for the transition to DAB, as a tech geek, I like the idea of a crisp digital radio signal. And I also believe America will have to cross this same bridge soon enough --- rather like our recently completed transition to DTV. But as someone who grew up in a rural area, I can definitely understand the concerns that Norwegians in rural areas are voicing. As America is a much larger country with huge swaths of wide open spaces, such issues will no doubt be compounded for us and a solution (potentially a subsidy like that employed to assure rural America could get telephone service) will have to be found. Fun times are ahead!

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¹An explanation for my Norwegian accent: At a friend's house party in San Francisco one evening, I happened to end up standing next to some guy who was regaling everyone with tales of the years he'd spent working in Finland. He'd also traveled extensively throughout Scandinavia, he said. He kept trying to cozy up to me and at one point asked if I wanted to go back to his place, which so happened to be right around the corner. Shaking my head "no," I made an offhand excuse which elicited a very odd look from the guy (odder than being politely turned down should have elicited). When I inquired as to why he suddenly looked as if he'd seen a ghost, he responded, "This is so strange, but you just spoke with a Norwegian accent." I laughed so hard I think I probably snorted my drink through my nose. In between my peals of laughter, the poor fellow tried to find out why on earth this was so funny. I finally gasped that as I spent nearly every day hanging out with a Viking, I suppose that was fair consequence and that I'd also never hear the end of it, if said Viking ever gets wind of the fact that he's succeeding in "turning" me Norwegian.

#NerdAlert: I Was a #Cordcutter When #Cordcutting Wasn't Cool. #OTA #DTV #DVR #Timeshifting #VideoDownload #Streaming #HDTV #JustSaying

I grew up in a rural area where over the air (OTA) TV reception meant you got PBS and a few local channels, if anything. I loved the educational programming offered by PBS and my Saturday morning cartoons, but never felt that television was integral.

Television was mainly an afterthought in our house, we only had a black and white TV. I didn't see color TV until I was in high school and recall finding it jarring, as the colors I'd imagined things were during all the years of watching in B&W often didn't match the colors items turned out to be.

Considering as a child that I'd rather be reading or out climbing trees, or chasing frogs or almost anything other than watching television, I was at a loss as to why anyone would PAY for Cable Television. Sure, you got more channels and sometimes got better reception, but as most TV programming when I was a child seemed a bunch of junk, so what?

No, I've never been a television fanatic. I enjoyed (some) television but could easily do without it. I never set my schedule around air times, no matter what the show. If something was due to broadcast and I was otherwise engaged I'd simply miss it. Broadcast television (like broadcast radio) was simply too haphazard, with seemingly little quality control. Depending on someone else to create programming I appreciated was a crap shoot.

Then came the Internet, and suddenly the user was (more) in control. Look, I've been watching Internet video since... well the Internet (or at least since the WWW became established, yes, back in dial-up days). Getting most of my entertainment via online conduits was a natural fit for a geek like me. I could find something entertaining or educational whenever the mood struck. I didn't have to count on some amorphous producer coming up with programming I wanted to see. It was a liberating, if slow process in the early days of the Net.

As comparatively faster internet connections expanded, my online world exploded. And, as truly fast internet --- which allowed for easily streaming video --- became the norm, videos of everything were being uploaded in droves (initially, often by mere bootlegging fans versus content creators or licensees), and it was a godsend. Being a savvy searcher, I could find whatever I wanted to see and watch it on my schedule. Content from all over the world. It was heady stuff. And a great time to be a techie!

Of course, it soon became obvious that being tied to a computer screen, or worse the handheld devices (early iPod Video, anyone?) that followed, was not optimal. If the best home viewing experience was a large screen television, why had consumers suddenly been sent on a tiny screen detour? (I have no problem with mobile video out and about on the go, but if given the choice between watching something on a tiny screen or a large one, there's no contest. Go BIG or go home! Or more aptly, go big when at home.) Funny that we had handheld video devices BEFORE SmartTV. We soon got back on track as (clunky) web-enabled television add-on boxes that weren't necessarily tied to Cable services arrived. (Cable services got with the program, too.)

Remember WebTV? Yeah, me either. I did an on-site, in office, beta test at its headquarters in downtown Palo Alto and lambasted the (at the time) clunky service, which was not an upgrade compared to using my desktop computer and would not have encouraged me to return my entertainment media back to the "television as entertainment center hub" concept.

Later these boxes evolved, shrunk to dongles and eventually became just the software pre-installed in a TV/Display. (Many modern "televisions" no longer come with built-in tuners and are actually merely displays or monitors. However, as a "free broadcast digital television" or OTA DTV advocate, I will always opt for a built-in tuner, given the choice.) Suddenly, I could watch "television" from almost anywhere in the world on an actual TV with the push of a remote button.

But throw it in reverse for a minute... with the arrival of the (clunky) web-enabled boxes and early media center software, users could now stream almost anything broadcast onto our actual TV sets instead of being tied to a desktop computer, but what to do when one wanted to watch stuff at another time than when it aired? A second component was necessary to achieve total programming control, Personal Video Recorders or PVR that would allow an individual to timeshift viewing and skip past commercials at his leisure. Pair it with a physical media burner, if desired, and users had won the lottery. (There was some rudimentary timeshifting going on, as geeky hobbyists would upload recorded video of shows, etc. but one had to count on finding a specific video, not to mention willfully participating in a bit of copyright infringement, as opposed to legally recording from a broadcast source or downloading and/or streaming from a licensed service provider.)

The third component of licensed service providers wasn't required, but is an augmentation which allows users to pick and choose catalog items to view at will, whether by individual purchase or subscription. Such services provide a pre-packaged convenience, instead of setting up the recording of one's own copy (which requires an investment in either software, hardware or both).

In January 2011, I won a top of the line (at the time) Samsung 46" 3D 1080p HDTV. I stumbled upon specs for the European model of the same unit and discovered it included a built-in PVR, software that would allow the TV to record almost anything pulled from its built-in tuner. Of course, I contacted Samsung to ask why the American unit did not also have this very cool feature and was told US "regulations" prevented it. (The thought of average folks being able to directly record OTA content apparently scared the stuffing out of the Cable lobby. And well it should.)

I was angered at what I saw as US over-regulation, but being a tech geek simply worked around it by rigging a computer to act as an on the fly recorder. Years later now, there's no need for such MacGyver-ing, as everyone expects a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) and commercial platforms like Tablo TV and TiVo Roamio have emerged to offer OTA DVRs that don't require a Cable subscription (though in a somewhat backwards move TiVo still thinks one should subscribe to its television guide service). With all the options available nowadays, I can easily record free DTV pulled from the airwaves and watch it when I want; I can choose to transfer the recordings to physical discs; I can pick and choose content to download (my preference) or stream on my schedule.

It was a long, long and winding journey, but between cordcutting, timeshifting and a plethora of streaming + download services, we can finally spy somewhere up ahead the (entertainment) promised land where the individual viewer is the one who determines what constitutes Must Watch TV. I am in the pilot seat. Buckle up.