New 160GB AppleTV. How far away are we from a standalone unit that can download from iTunes store directly, sync iPods, and write to USB-attached burners?

apple, tv, itunes, itunes store, ipod, media, AppleTV

I’m a newcomer CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, I started watching it with season six while suffering a flu that immobilized me for what seemed like a week or more. Dumb with illness, I went searching for a diversion at the iTunes store and stumbled into the series. I had the entire season downloaded quickly; it took me two marathon days to watch them all.

I got hooked.

Now I’m following season seven, again via iTunes. It’s more convenient than Tivo — each show arrives on schedule and free of commercials — and with the savings I get by going with DSL (naked, $30/month) versus cable (internet + TV, $100/month), a “season pass” on iTunes looks like chump change for the little bit of television I want.

And there’s a chance that consuming my media that way gives me a greater sense of ownership.

So when I say that CSI has jumped the shark, understand that it’s a rather considered opinion. I’m not alone, though some (35) people claim it jumped it as soon as Jorja Fox was cast and others (171) point to the plushies and furries episode (season four, I’ve been catching up on the back seasons via Netflix). Whatever the moment was, it became clear it had already passed a few weeks ago when they did a clip show reviewing the miniature houses subplot, loosely stitched together around lab rat Hodges.

csi, crime scene investigation, jumped the shark, television, decline, tv

On demand internet TV has been just around the corner since the dawn of the popular internet, but like flying cars, it’s still not here. The problem is how TV streams clog the internet’s tubes. Bandwidth may be cheap, but there’s still never enough of it.

Well, that’s true if your metaphor for the internet is a hub and spoke system. Not so if you think of it as a mesh.

Kazaa and Skype creators/founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis are mashing up peer-to-peer distribution with the mainstream media and turning our computers into expensive TV tuners.

Joost (pronounced “juiced”) is graphically beautiful and very easy to use, though surprisingly slow on my Mac Mini (it runs fine on my MacBook Pro). Zach set me up with an invite when he heard I had no cable in my new home (“ahh, look at the media deprived dork, give’m an invite”). And when he flipped to World of Stupid I couldn’t resist.

Sandee’s not altogether pleased, though there is other content. Some.

At least it’s easy to use. A drag and drop install, launch, login, browse, watch. In the background the software is streaming the program in from other peers on the network — people like you — and back out to even more people. It’s watching your viewing habits, and though the few commercials running now won’t reveal it, you have to imagine the ads will become more targeted as advertisers start to understand the service.

Joost, tv, television, old media, ptptv, peer to peer, p2p, video, on-demand, streaming

I always get a laugh out of Cops, and an even bigger laugh out parodies of the show. So I have to thank Cliff for finding this animated video of Santa getting pulled over.

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It turns out that K-Fee, the company that pushes its energy drink with the scary TV ads, has a English-language website. It also turns out they’ve got the scary car ad and eight others online. Here they are:

• Angler
• Car
• Buddha
• Golf
• Beach
• Meadow
• Yoga
• Soothing Waves
• Ocean Path

tags: angler, beach, buddha, car ad, energy drink, ghost, ghosts, k-fee, k-fee energy drink, kfee, kfee energy drink, scary, scary tv ad, scary video, tv, tv ads, video, waves, yoga