20×2 Who Loves you, Baby – By Min Jung Kim from Min Jung Kim on Vimeo.

Gorgeous day in Austin and the convention center is starting to look busier and livelier as new and familiar faces start filtering in.  This is … my 7th SXSW I think. Wow.

Anyway! My panel’s in just a few hours. I’m pretty psyched for it and as always, I’m pretty sure it’ll be a blast.

After all, I already have my bottle of bourbon in hand.

Booyah!

“How to Rawk SXSW Interactive” panel on Friday, March 12 at 3:30pm in 18ABCD on the top floor of the Austin Convention Center.

Ben Huh, Jeremy Keith, and Denise Jacobs

Musical Guest: Annie Lin

You wonder why retention on video services are diminishing? Why folks are watching more of their favorite programs on their laptops vs their 55″ flatscreen HDTVs?

Could it be because you still have some crap that’s broken?

First let’s talk about the IPG. (Interactive Programming Guide) and how it interacts with the DVR

Several programs listed in the IPG cannot be “Season Passed” to auto record and I am forced to queue up recordings on a weekly basis.  Is it a limitation to the channel that I’m choosing to record a program on or is it you? Well, considering my friends can TIVO season pass the same recording without any issue, I’m going to assume it’s you.  I’m speaking specifically to ethnic programming which is frequently a premium service at additional charge.

Next lets talk about Video On Demand

Oh, who’s driving this thing?

1. Who is editing the Video On Demand website?
Because personally I consider the front page Valentine’s Day Editorial alongside Editors Picks for Satan’s Cannibal Holocaust to be pretty fail.

2. VOD guide via the IPG has consistantly additional failure.

On Shows:  Episodes are frequently delivered and made available out of order

Please. Someone. Look at the TV Shows Directory.

And tell me why when you click all shows. It offers another sub directory that’s again All Shows.

It looks like this.

TV Shows

HD

All TV Series

A-F

G-M

N-S

T-Z

All Series

Season Catchup

Season Catchup

All Tv Series

A-F

G-M

N-S

T-Z

All Series

On Movies Directory: Cross tabulation by genre/category is frequently lacking and needs better structure

At the time of this writing the Starz Comedy category disappeared.  The only genre subcategories currently are “Action Packed”  Cute.

And if you’re going to list a bunch of films as being in Spanish, why not make that an actual category. That might make sense.

On Movie Descriptions: Do you have folks reviewing this for appropriate tone, grammar, and accurate descriptions?

The On Demand Movie Description:

“Singer. Rebel. Outlaw. Hero. With his driving freight-train chords, steel-eyed intensity and a voice as dark as the night, the legendary “Man in Black” revolutionized music – and forged his legacy as a genu.ine American icon.

Oh.So.Pretentious.And.A.Run.On.Sentence.

Or inaccurate to the point of embarrassment.

Here’s the description for Monster’s Inc.

When a young BOY[my emphasis] accidentally enters Monstropolis – a secret city powered by energy from children’s nightmares – it’s up to a pair of friendly monsters to set things right. Oscar -winning fun fromt he director of ‘Up’

Anyone who’s actually seen the film will tell you with confidence that BOO IS NOT A BOY. Dumbass.

If you need someone to be scrupulous meticulous to project manage this, I’d be willing to come back to cable. But in the meantime. Someone. Please. Get your head out of your ass and fix the OnDemand menu. Make it a quality product that’s without reproach. At this point I find movies in sub categories that aren’t in the “All Movies” or alphabetic by title section pretty regularly.  Films listed in the HD category aren’t consistently named as such in the directory. Why aren’t you more embarassed by this?