As I was flipping through the stations on the TV the other day, I became particularly aware of the slight delay between the time I pressed the button on the remote and the actual change of the channel. This is one of those minor annoyances that shouldn’t bother anyone but it just seems weird that all the amazing technological advances in television (high-definition picture, thousands of channels to choose from) should come at the cost of the “crispness” in performance that I remember from the old analog broadcasts.<\/p>\n
The lack of responsiveness really becomes noticeable during casual browsing. The two- or three-second pause between channel clicks appears to be much longer than the amount of time the average human needs to evaluate the onscreen content. This sets you up for a lot of waiting and really has a negative impact on the user’s experience. If you have cable, you can use the guide feature, of course, but it just doesn’t provide the same satisfaction as a good, old-fashioned, rapid-fire channel surf.<\/p>\n