Vuze

Television production used to be pretty straight forward. You had huge, heavy cameras three people pushed around. In the control room you had sliders, and magically the signal went over the air.

At home you turned on the set. Had dinner (families ate together then) and a half-hour later the tube was lit and you watched the Sid Caesar or Lone Ranger show. It was so cool. For years we all went to the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) show and the behemoths of the industry dominated the floor. Big, sexy, expensive cameras. Big, gorgeous, expensive control panels. TV sets, big/bigger, gorgeous, expensive.

Then the cable and satellite folks emerged with "a better TV experience." Once you got tired of over-the-air only shows then they "offered" you 50-100 fantastic channels for $100 a month. Suddenly our wife could watch HGTV, daughter could watch the gut-buster infomercial, and son could watch Telemundo (he's practicing Spanish and the skirts are short).

According to Nielsen we started watching more TV -- 4 hours, 34 minutes a day in 2006-07. Not bad for the producers, network, cable operators, advertisers. Read more