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In2TV Goes Public
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like AOL has finally released In2TV, allowing us to watch some of our favorite shows on the internet. It looks fairly promising." In2TV has managed to bag four major advertisers right from the start but if you want to watch on anything but a WindowsXP machine you may be out of luck.
In2TV is also out of bounds to other alternative browser users inside XP.
Unless you use Internet explorer 6.0 and Media Player 10 you can't watch the big streams.
This obviously rules out Firefox users, so no Babylon 5 for me
You can't even use it on XP 64.
Damn good though, and so far the only thing that has tempted me to install WMP 10...
Hell, I might even use IE for it as well.
tip for Windows users who have removed their IE icon, open "My Computer" and directly enter the URL into the address bar - it converts from Explorer to Internet explorer automagically...
liqbase
Somebody please get Steve Jobs on the horn and tell him to get the Sopranos on iTunes.
Please.
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AOL and Warner Bros. have launched In2TV, the first broadband television network, . . .
I thought BotTorrent was the first broadband television network?
Who has the bandwidth to watch crappy, jerky streams?
Until they fill that worldwide "analog hole" there's no way this stuff is really going to compete. Even if the US succumbs to pervasive DRM, are they going to stop marketing shows internationally? It seems most of the torrents come from abroad anyway. I once downloaded a "West Wing" episode before it had even appeared on TV in my east coast market.
Thanks to the indie film makers there's already better stuff freely available on the internet than on most of those 500 TV channels, anyway.
It's because of the DRM. If you go to in2tv.aol.com and try to watch a show they explicitly tell you that, before you see the link to the .avi (will verify with wget when I get home).
Sounds like a bunch of dusty re-runs from decades past. From TFA:
The shows are organized into six genre-themed channels (with two more to launch this summer), including:
- LOL TV: Laugh Out Loud with everyone's favorite comedies from Welcome Back, Kotter, which made a household name out of John Travolta to the slapstick antics of Cousin Balkai and Larry in Perfect Strangers as well as the Emmy-winning Chico and the Man, Hangin' With Mr. Cooper and Head of the Class.
- Dramarama TV: Fans will enjoy the unaired "lost" pilot of juicy soap Falcon Crest and all the drama of five-time Emmy nominated Sisters, plus there's Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Spenser: For Hire and the family favorite Eight Is Enough.
- Toon Topia TV: Kids and adults alike will flock to animated fare such as Beetlejuice, Steven Spielberg Presents Pinky and the Brain and Freakazoid, The New Adventures of Batman, and Histeria!
- Heroes and Horrors TV: Sci-Fi and Horror come together in heroic proportions with Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Babylon 5, Wonder Woman, V and Freddy's Nightmares.
- What a Rush TV: Rev up for plenty of action-adventure when East meets West in Kung Fu, plus La Femme Nikita, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., Dark Justice and The Fugitive.
- Vintage TV: Fans find all-time favorites such as Growing Pains with heartthrob Kirk Cameron, F-Troop, The F.B.I., Maverick and Alice.
I know you are in denial... but one of these days you're gonna have to rid yourself of Windows 95. There are bigger and better things - like WindowsME.
I just fired up episodes of Pinky and the Brain and Babylon 5 and they both seemed to go fine (besides me having to switch to my Windows box and fire up IE - if you want to use Firefox on Windows (no Mac/Linux) you have to install an ActiveX plugin, which scares the living bejeezus out of me). It looks like you're watching a 30-second ad before the video; I didn't watch long enough to find out if they're inserting advertising in the middle of shows as well. The quality is actually quite good; at least VHS quality, and you can click a button to make it full screen. Some shows are advertised as having a higher quality version available, but you have to install their client that downloads in the background; it appears to use Kontiki, which I'm reluctant to install (I already have enough upstream being used between Vonage and Bittorrent without another content delivery system gumming up the works). Lastly, they seem to have a limited selection of episodes up - I'm not sure if they're planning on making all epsiodes available on demand or if they're going to rotate through episodes and only have a limited selection available.
Overall it's not going to win any awards for design - but it works, and for free I suppose I can't complain too much.
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
if you want to watch on anything but a WindowsXP machine
Damn. I was just about to fire up AOL on my Apple ][.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
It's probably just old recycled code, we can but hope....God I love "Pinky & The Brain"...
How thoughtful.
If you look into the service, you can stream the videos for free with nothing but an ActiveX plugin and Macromedia Flash. However, if you want "HighQ" video (what they claim is "DVD Quality"), you have to install a piece of software.
It's basically a BitTorrent ripoff. It's a peer-to-peer upload-as-you-download service. But since the files are stored locally and not streamed, I started poking around. Lo and behold, I found the hiding place for the WMV files!
Download a file with the service, then navigate to:
c:\Documents and Settings\~user\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\*random hash*\filename.wmv
Note: You may have to do this at the command prompt, as any attemps I made to get into the "Content.IE5" folder through the GUI were futile. But take a look around, and you'll find all of the WMV files the program uses. Copy them to another directory, and there you have your DRM'd file. The first one I tried was named "PerfectStrangers_Barcode_151772C_1500.wmv~". It plays fine in the standalone WMP10, but not in BSPlayer or MPC. GSpot also doesn't recognize the file.
So there's the source file. Gentlemen, start your cracking!