I borrowed the video of Blade Runner from my nephew, Keith, who is, like I am, a science fiction and fantasy buff with an extensive video library. Because I was visiting Debra Hanks for the weekend, I took the video along to watch together; we reviewed the assignment before viewing the movie. Her son and my sister also watched the movie—Deb’s son kept pointing out the details that might be appropriate to our assignment, just about driving my sister nuts (she was less than enthusiastic about the movie, and the interruptions just kept making the experience longer).

DVDs and video on demand seem to me to serve different functions. I own all of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel DVDs because I know that I will want to watch them again. Video on demand is one of my favorite technologies on which to watch tv shows because I don’t want to keep them—one is probably enough. Before I bought the Buffy DVDs, I video-taped the reruns of it and had to remember to set the equipment and make sure there was enough room on the tape. I did the same thing with Star Trek the Next Generation, and ended up with boxes and boxes of tapes. Not convenient, but somehow I could not quite throw them away.

I am not sure where DVDs and video on demand are on McLuhan’s tetrad. Obviously, they have both enhanced the viewers’ ability to control when and where they might see productions. The both allow for the manipulation—fast forwarding for example, although NBC has started to make fast forwarding of their on demand tv shows unavailable so viewers are forced to watch the commercials they have on the shows. They have obsoleted VCRs to a large extent, at least on demand usually comes with a DVR capability. They retrieve story-telling and reading in some ways. They are probably going to be replaced by computers, television, home security, and telephony systems that are all connected somehow.