To paraphrase the great Joe Rogan, from last Saturday’s UFC 104, I don’t watch much TV, maybe the Discovery Channel here and there to see a documentary or two. I bring this up because I’ve been told to write about some TV show called “V,” and the beauty is that I have no idea what it’s about! My first thought was, “V For Vendetta? Oh, no? Oh, well, then yeah, not a clue.” Apparently it’s a re-make of an old sci-fi show. Thankfully, though, ABC, the network where this show will air here in the U.S., has just posted the first seven minutes online. Let’s watch it, together!

Note: I’m not sure if this video works outside of the U.S. Sorry if it doesn’t, but there’s no other source right now. So if you’re an international reader, feel free to skip all of this.

Opening scene, it’s the blonde woman, the former “Other,” from Lost, who, to be totally honest, was the only reason I watched Lost as long as I did, and I’m not keen on blondes at all.

Moving on, a priest looks ominously at a street lamp. He talks to a man in a wheelchair, saying nothing of any importance.

A man is trying to buy an engagement ring. “Can’t go wrong with a knee,” says the shopkeep, in response to a question if going down on one knee is corny or not when asking a woman to marry you.

We’re about a third of the way through, and the one thing that’s painfully obvious, given the spooky music and quick camera cuts, is that something bad is going to happen. Plus, everything is shaking for some reason. Shaking = bad.

The Lost woman is back. Her no-good son in at a doctor’s office in SoHo (following a party he wasn’t supposed to attend), which either means this is taking place in New York City, and thus totally unreliable to Middle America, or in London, which would be reasonably exotic and interesting. Fingers crossed!

The shaking has returned! Books fall off the shelf (to illustrate how severe the shaking is), and the priest saves that same man in a wheelchair from a giant, falling crucifix inside the church.

… and then a fighter jet crashes into the streets of, sigh, New York. The CGI here is abysmal. Goldeneye for the N64 had better fire effects. Oh, and Goldeneye was also fun. This? So far…

The pilot of the fighter jet, who’s presumably dead, floats down to the street via his parachute. Then the guy who was buying an engagement ring looks up and sees… something! They’re building suspense, that’s what they’re doing!

And we’re back to the kid who’s talking to his Lost mother. She tells him to stay where he is, but then his phone, an iPhone, cuts out. It needs to be said that the kid’s iPhone cutting out may be totally unrelated to the oncoming commotion because, as we all know, AT&T is a hunk of junk in New York City. So far, this is the most realistic scene in the show.

Now we get scenes of people looking up into the sky. Clearly something is up there, but what?

We get a better glimpse of what’s going on: a vessel of some sort is floating in the sky.

There it is! It’s a vessel of some sort, all right, and it’s shaped like a sting ray.

The cops are telling everyone to remain calm while the Lost woman’s no-good son arrives on a motorcycle, presumably to reinforce his tough guy image. He can’t be seen driving a Ford Fiesta, now can he? He tries to go against the flow of people to go home, but a soldier tells him to keep walking with the crowd, away from home. Oh, my.

Then we see some news footage of people talking nonsense, including some nerd kid who corrects his friend’s reference to the movie Independence Day. The one kid says, “Dude, this is Independence Day,” but then the other kid says something like, “Well, that movie was a ripoff of any number of other alien invasion movies.” I get it.

The engagement guy meets up with his girl, and they embrace. Guess they won’t be getting engaged today. Now that guy has to psyche himself up all over again, presumably after all of this craziness ends. That’s if they both survive, of course.

The Lost woman is looking for her son on the streets, but a solider tells her to hit the bricks. She crosses the police line anyway. If this were real life she would have been detained right then and there—you mean to tell me that no officer saw her cross the police line?—but not in the clever world of TV, where anything is possible.

Of course Lost woman finds her son. Why challenge the audience? What could be more terrifying than losing your child? Bring some emotion into this dreck.

The vessel is opening! We see lights, and people are looking up!

And there’s a woman looking down from the vessel. She looks like Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2.

End of video.

Boring. I’m sorry, but you see one invasion angle and you’ve seen ‘em all. Granted, Alyx Vance may portend something not quite usual, but I can’t get behind another invasion angle. It’s played out. Not even the Lost woman will get me to watch it.

Feel free to disagree, but I shan’t be watching this show (outside of this here preview).

According to a Reuters report however, the top four TV networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, & FOX) have all stated that they will continue broadcasting until the new shutoff date. This is sure to confuse many Americans as DTV educational PSAs have been a staple during primetime for months all preaching the February date. Those not ready are sure to breath a bit easier when February 17 expires though. Plus, it seems more cash might fund the DTV coupon program again.

Part of the gigantic economic stimulus program Obama and Co. are trying to railroad through Congress includes $650,000 to subsidize DTV converter boxes for more $40 vouchers. The original $1.5 billion ran out of money a few months ago and we hear that millions of people are on a waiting list. But apparently these DTV boxes stimulate the economy and procrastinators need to be bailed out. (Too much?)

Bad news, “Lost” fans. Well, those of you who download 720p caps of the show. It looks like ABC, per juicy message board rumors, is doing something screwy with the video as it airs in order to fit in more commercials—removing frames after the 2:3 pulldown, that is. So, when cappers convert the video into bite-sized x264 chunks for us, it results in jerky playback. (Dupe frames that are present in the original broadcast are removed from the cap.) You’re not going to notice the dropped frames when watching the show on TV (due to the nature of broadcast television), but it makes capping the show a pain in the neck. The resulting cap, less the dupe frames, plays back like garbage.

This dropped frames issue only seems to have affected S05E01—episode two doesn’t exhibit the same problem.

The moral of the story is, as “scene” cappers grapple with this dropped frames issue, we’ll have to wait longer than usual for “proper” caps, perhaps after the shows airs in the UK, where, presumably, Sky won’t drop frames left an right to fit in more adverts. Clever way for ABC to combat piracy, though.

Fans of ABC’s American Inventor should remember The Claw from last season. It’s a neat bike-hanging device that grabs and releases the bike, or other items, at a touch of the large button. The thought is all you need to do is lift your bike high enough to engage the button that releases the spring-equipped claws, therefore holding the bike in place. To release, you simple lift the bike into the button, which disengages the claws. Simple and clever.

However, what the judges of the show kept stating still holds true today that the main competitor of this $59 gadget is the $2 hook. Amazon has the now-called Gladiator GarageWorks Claw Advanced Bike Storage v1.0 up for pre-order if you’re too good for the simple hook and need a more upscale solution to hold your Kona Bike.

Fire up iTunes and you’ll find, for the first time, TV shows from the four major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) in HD. It’s still $2.99 per HD episode, and that includes a standard-def version of the TV show for your iPhone or iPod.

HD shows now include hits like Lost, CSI, 30 Rock and The Office.

But we all know The Shield is the best show on TV now, so whatever.

About damn time. ABC is the last major network to make the HD jump but the network is using the Democratic National Convention to premier their nightly news in high definition. Both ABC World News, as well as Nightline, premiers tonight in 720p high definition. Following the DNC, and the Republican Convention after that, World News is going to return to the NY studio which they will, of course, continue the HD tradition. That date, September 8th, also marks the date that 20/20 and Primetime debuts in high definition. Enjoy!

via B&C

Those of you who are keen to watch Lost or Grey’s Anatomy know ABC has been kind. For over a year now, ABC has let users stream episodes of all the hit primetime shows for free via a flash-based video player. Though it’s fantastic, a lot of users probably wanted to start jumping on the HD-bandwagon. ABC listened and is now offering users a beta of its video service in HD.

Got a 1024×768 resolution or higher? Broadband? OK then. Normally you’d just fire up a web player and sink into your chair, but ABC requires you to install a player from Move Networks. Sorry ABC, but myself and pretty much every Mac user just isn’t down with the third-party software. Call us when you figure out how to do it over a web browser. In the meantime, those of you who are qualified can check the beta out here.

ABC.com Launches HD Streaming (in Beta) [Business 2.0]