However your streaming service whilst a nice extra does not look like a winner against a truly competitive alternative. If you don’t get the quality up and the variety up you may find one year a mass exodus to NetFlix.

Now I really like your service at the moment so please consider these suggestions :

• Speak to the BBC find out how they make their video SD or HD look so good in the PS3 app
• Get a deal with Crunchyroll or Manga or who ever and get streaming Anime. Especially simulcast. This will get a small, but very vocal voice shouting your corner on the internet.
• Get season passes to Sporting events. Start small at first stuff that Murdock wouldn’t care about like British Rallying or Ladies Football. Again stuff where the fans will feel great loyalty for your attention to them

Fixed my problems

well my Echostar started failing to record series link shows. First it disabled series link altogether. Then I switch it off and then on. It then showed the series link icon, but then failed to record beyond the first recording.

I have tried: Factory Reset, reinitialising the drive and a firmware update.

I’ve lost all of my recordings and it’s no better.

I am less than impressed with Echostar, compared to PS3 PlayTV and even my mates sluggish TIVO this thing is slow. I can’t imagine how slow other devices are if this is considered fast.

It could be that it was second hand, but when it did series link properly it at least allowed to to just watch the shows I wanted with as little time in the interface as possible.

Taken as entertainment it is ok. I found it to be a bit like an American kid’s cartoon or Transformers 2, frenetic and a bit much. Nothing has space to breath, all ideas good and bad seem to be chucked in to fill airtime.

For it’s time the Star Trek series did try to step things forward, moving beyond the pulp Science Fiction of Flash Gordon and building on the work of the Forbidden Planet. You had an international, interracial, intergalactic and interspecies crew. Bare in mind the controversy at the time of a Russian on-board and a female officer on the bridge.

Old Star Trek had gotten stale. It was by the numbers and re-treading old or unwelcome ideas. I think I was hoping something on a par with the BSG reboot with more mainstream appeal.

Really what we got was something that back peddled to Buck Rogers. Women are back to being love interests only and science takes a back seat to fiction. Add on a Pimp my Ride level of subtlety and any good ideas are swamped by candy floss. The start of the film felt so good to me that the rest feels all the more criminal. Wasted Potential, Vacuous and Shallow in the whole 3/10

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Often jokingly called The Slow-Motion Picture, this is a somewhat successful attempt at taking Trek to a higher brow. I like TMP, it is flaws are balanced out by its audacity. It did spawn the series and TNG. Originally it was going to be an all new crew, but Kirk & co were shoehorned in. Right from the start the Star Trek films focus on people passed their prime, but still willing to give it a go. Maybe in the 23rd century people aren’t over the hill by 40? Bald women ftw 7/10.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Until I revisited it, I did not rate Khan as one of ST’s finest moments. I had never quite clicked with it. In retrospect this probably to to my need to be contrary. It’s a good action romp and Spock’s self sacrifice for the crew adds some needed emotional depth. KHAAAAN! 8/10

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

There is nothing essentially wrong with this as entertainment. It could have easily been a few episodes or a made for TV movie. Some nice effects and Christopher Lloyd  plays a Klingon. Watchably average 5/10

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

This so easily could have been a straight up comedy ALA Galaxy Quest. It just sneaks in as a straight film with a tongue in cheek aspect. Laughs, action, a few serious bits. Good fun 8/10

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Yikes, considering the problems this had it is amazing it is even watchable. An effects team that don’t know how to do effects, a writers’ strike and budget problems did help what was already a big ask for Shatner to direct. A few nice moments, like Scottie knowing the ship like the back of his hand. Passable at best 3/10

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

My favourite of all of the ST: Previous Generation films. The crumbly old cast trade in their bus passes for phasers one last time and save the galaxy again. The greater point being  the importance of getting over passed prejudices for the sake of the future. In a sense this is the whole point of the ST films so far. People of advancing years refusing to fade away as desk jockeys. Zimmer-frames in Space 9/10

Star Trek: Generations

In a sense this is like ST3, its a connector story. Really quite unremarkable, but essentially  neither bad or good. The definition of average, this time for ST: TNG. Average, but ok 5/10

Star Trek: First Contact

So now my favourite ST: TNG film. Frakes directs and does a smashing job. A well written script and some good performances. Highly recommended 9/10

Star Trek: Insurrection

I was really worried about this one, I remember it being bad and also the marker that in my mind ST never recovered from. It turns out its bad next to ST: FC, it has flaws and feels misjudged. By all accounts the studio started sticking their nose in, a classic problem that almost always leads to a weaker film. I had a good time though and Frakes holds it together making a potentially average/poor film enjoyable and very nicely directed film. Surprise surprise 6/10

Star Trek: Nemesis

Not as dreadful as I remember it, but it falls flat at every moment. Absolutely nothing original, the plot is largely a mash up of poor clones of the previous films. Not as painful to watch as some films, but for the series the lowest point since ST: IV. Just a bad tired old clone 3/10

Awesome band by the way.

Avatar is essentially a gaia anime story combined with Dances with Wolves. It’s what you would get if you got the Macross team (Macross Zero) or Bones (Eureka 7) to develop a Ghibli film (Laputa) for the western market. This is no bad thing as I loved all of the above and frankly if it opens peoples minds enough, maybe a western friendly anime series might *just* get their interest.

3D is not the saviour of Cinema. It is as it was every other time, a gimmick. The 2009/10 version is a more polished gimmick, but it is still what it was before; interesting for a few key niches, but at best unnecessary at worst distracting for anything else. My only worry is that Hollywood will strip mine the 3D Sci-Fi/animated tale blockbusters until even the hint of space or a pixar-like film will have people running for the hills. This could do major damage to genres I enjoy.

As for 3D at home, anyone who invests in that is an idiot of emperors’ new clothes level.

For Matt at Bumpy Trails

Also Windows Live Writer is sooo good.