The Screen Savers Reunited 191
HABITcky writes "Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, Kevin Rose, and Robert Heron have gotten together and recorded their first podcast of The Return Of The Screen Savers (ROTSS) It's a 56kbps MP3Pro file weighing in at around 14MB. Join them for 34 minutes of Skyping fun as they discuss driving in the dust, cell phones, Kevin's new webcast, Systm, and the demise of TechTV. They plan to make this a weekly broadcast."
Very cool.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Now all they need is a few DV cams and a QTSS (QuickTime Streaming Server) and a big pipe.
Viva la Revolution!!!!
Cool (Score:4, Interesting)
Cool, I've missed them (Score:5, Interesting)
US stations have such a knack for taking great channels (or TV shows), and totally foobar them in a vain attempt to 'improve' them.
The Screen Savers (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I LOVED TSS (Score:2, Interesting)
Soledad O'Brian, DevNull, and Cliff Stoll rocked! (Score:5, Interesting)
The Site was the perfect blend of high tech news and tech-related interest stories. I never cared much for ZDTV/TechTV/G4, they were actually "too geeky" in a bad sort of way.
Leo Laporte was the voice and actor (motion caption) for the tech gossip character "DevNull" (Laporte's old radio handle). He was also "Technical Managing Producer" of the hour-long show, so he did most of his work behind the scenes. The show was actually recorded in the same studio where all of the TechTV shows were, except they had just one huge room, a "working set" where segments were recorded all day while researchers, TV show webmasters, and others were hard at work in the background. These people were often featured in their own segments. It was very cool to hear from the show's own tech people (the show's site was originally hosted on a SPARCstation 20 running Apache and connected to a single T1). I loved the little details like that. And yet they really didn't dwell on the really technical aspects.
Soledad O'Brian was a great host, I think that job fit her better than the current news gigs she does these days. There was also a really good band of reporters for the show, Craig Miller was awesome, I wonder what he's up to these days? Lots of people from the old science show days from KRON/Discovery Channel.
Cliff Stoll ended each weekday show with about 5 minutes of insight, rants, and stories from his home in Berkeley.
TheSite was a nice grounded "magazine" look into the dotcom world. They interviewed a lot of visionaries and up-and-coming people in the industry. Lots of cool viewpoints and persepctives. Too bad their budget didn't allow for travel beyond the SF Bay / Silicon Valley area.
I really miss TheSite, but there won't even be anything like it. Even in it's best days, The Screen Savers was just a bunch of unwashed geeks hanging around Leo Laporte. Lots of geek details, flash, and no substance. *sigh*
Please never watch G4techblahwhatevertv (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure, Leo didn't know everything and would sometimes say shit that wasn't right, but he had a TV personality. He was educated and talented in television entertainment. I miss him.
I have no idea what the tv executives were thinking after the two consecutive buy outs or whatever the hell you call them, but Leo showed up less and less with each one until he was no more. Though I never watched the show much in the past 5 years, I remember when it was good, and I did watch it with Patrick and Leo riding in the convertibles, and I do remember that I liked it.
To the now owners of G4TechTvCnetZDtvblah, I never change the channel to your network. You guys can go to hell and take shows like w1nn3r and 3l1te with you.
porp
Downhill since 1995... (Score:5, Interesting)
In 1998 ZD started their own TV channel. The Screen Savers started out as a very crappy replacement for TheSite. I still enjoyed it, but you could tell that the company was now using the same resources to make about 5 hours of TV a day rather than 1 hour.
The Screen Savers was really starting to suck by the time ZDTV became TechTV.
Soon G4 got involved and totally ruined what little was left of the original ZD venture. Thankfully they finally changed the name of the show.
Re:Soledad O'Brian, DevNull, and Cliff Stoll rocke (Score:3, Interesting)
Several of the reporters/hosts on TheSite came from The Next Step / The Know Zone and Beyond 2000.
Next Step, Know Zone, and later, The Answer Guys, were produced by KRON TV in San Francisco. Beyond 2000 was also shown on Discovery channel via KRON, but it was mostly produced in Australia. Next Step actually lived on for a few years after it was taken off Discovery, but you had to live in the SF Bay / Silicon Valley area to watch it. I think all of those shows are gone now. KRON isn't what it used to be. Last I saw, Henry Tannenbaum was hosting some gardening show...
Re:I LOVED TSS (Score:5, Interesting)
Patrick, also a print journalist, had a bit of geek in him, but was bitter enough about technology to question things rather than drool over the latest new gadget.
Jessica, of course, eye candy with a brain... what else could you ask for???
Kevin Rose was always better doing his little bit pieces than he ever was a host.
Sarah just annoys me (and I hear from a friend of mine who was a set painter for the LA version of TSS that when they first got down here, little Sarah was stomping around bitching about how their set wasn't nearly as cool looking as Martin Sargent's--of course look where he is now.)
G4 is now using that lovely Hollywood idea of creating programming by looking at the marketing numbers... "Well, my Excel sheet says that if we change TSS to 'Attack of the Show' blah, blah, blah." Merely the fact that they have wardrobe people should tell you something. Do you think Patrick Norton could've gotten away with wearing his utility kilt on G4?
Yep... Everything that made TechTV semi-interesting to watch has gone away. Why did G4 even bother to buy TechTV?? Oh, yeah, that's right, TechTV actually had dial space on many cable and satellite systems. G4 didn't because who would actually want to watch a network who's programming was pretty much exclusively gaming?
Here's an example of the brilliant G4 programming: "Cinematech"
From G4's website
Yep... nothing like watching the screen of someone playing a video game for a half hour. Why, it's so in depth it gives me chills. The creator of that program must be cut from the cloth of the finest tapestry.
Anyway... listen to the Podcast. It's interesting to hear Kevin Rose and Robert Heron talk about the TV by marketing numbers that G4 is using. Hopefully the podcast will continue on and eventually become a video cast of some sort.
BTW, here's the direct link to the podcast if you're using some sort of podcast receiving software:
http://leoville.tv/podcasts/tlr [leoville.tv]
--J
Re:Kate... (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting. (Score:3, Interesting)
Who wants to watch 20 somethings that know nothing about tech other than "Wow that Sony PSP is cool...."
Umm. I'm the 30 something that buys all the neat toys, the first ones to buy the new phones, pda's, and hardware. So, you insult us. Nice, we go off on the next place to get our tech news. Too bad Slashdot is about it. If slashdot could just a TV Show.
Re:I LOVED TSS (Score:2, Interesting)
Leo makes "Random Taco" call on Slashdot vs Digg (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I LOVED TSS (Score:2, Interesting)
of course look where he is now
Well, where is Martin Sargent now? Is Unscrewed cancelled? What is he doing? I thought he was cool, and I would be curious to know where I could see him. TIA.