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NBC to Offer Free Video Download Service
Damocles the Elder writes "Apparently NBC realized that people on the internet do watch TV, because after breaking up with Apple over iTunes pricing schemes, they're setting up their own free service." From the article "NBC first contracted with Amazon to offer its programs for sale to downloading devices like MP3 players. Now it is establishing its own downloading service, which NBC executives say they expect to become a viable competitor to iTunes.
"With the creation of this new service, we are acknowledging that now, more than ever, viewers want to be in control of how, when and where they consume their favorite entertainment," said Vivi Zigler, the executive vice president of NBC Digital Entertainment. "Not only does this feature give them more control, but it also gives them a higher quality video experience."
Cue Comcast and other ISPs complaining that NBC is taking advantage of the bandwidth they provide and should be forced to pay in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
...that MP3 players can now play videos
...
Commercials will be embedded in the programs and viewers will not be able to skip through them.
Is anyone suspicious about the fact that Microsoft has a HUGE stake in NBC and all of a sudden NBC's content is pulled from Apple's store?
Criminals.
From TFA:
Commercials will be embedded in the programs and viewers will not be able to skip through them...
Further into the article:
But NBC intends to transform the service into a model similar to iTunes by the middle of 2008 -- that is, consumers will pay NBC directly to download episodes of the shows. "We did this to eliminate the middleman," said Jeff Gaspin, the president of NBC's digital division.
That's fine and dandy, but will the paid version of the episode come complete with ads or is this just an interim solution until the paid model is in place, because I sure as hell wouldn't want to pay for episodes if they contained unskippable ads.
make all media pirate proof 100%, make no money. the slightest crack in the system and you make no money.
simply release your media in a format everyone can enjoy for free in a quality higher then the pirates are putting out, slip in some well targeted adverts, hey presto you just won over a market you had no chance of ever having previously and your making money from it.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
From the article:
You can't skip through the commercials? Can't transfer them to a disk or other computer? Any bets on how long this will last?
But maybe this will help...
Right, because online payment systems are magical. Only the top wizards understand the spells that make them work. That's why nobody except Apple has secure software to allow payment by credit cards: Steve Jobs is the toppest of the top wizards.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
I've tried downloading/watching heroes from NBC before.
Because i was accessing it from a non-american IP address, they locked me out, citing no advertisers for my region (New Zealand)
Talking of which, they previous/already offered the ability to watch previous episodes of heroes before, what exactly has changed?
Isn't this just a rehash of what they already have, just with plans to turn it into an iTunes competitor later next year?
To avoid criticism; Say nothing, Do nothing, Be nothing.
FTA:
Holy smokes: the most succesful legal online music distribution service on the Internet is actually a haven for piracy? Up is down, war is peace. Next up: the beef market has been terribly devastated by the popularity of McDonald's restaurants.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
If studios had addressed this in 2001 we, as "consumers", would be much better off.
As it is this is all coming about because of a tiff between studios and Apple, which will culminate in differing DRM models as more media sources decide to go online, greater likelihood of a "pay-to-play" internet (at least in the US), and the certainty that commercials will be inserted into the shows *real*soon*.
Thank god USENET remains an option, as does Miro.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Commercials will be embedded in the programs and viewers will not be able to skip through them. ...
... consumers will pay NBC directly to download episodes of the shows. So wait, we have to pay to see un-skippable commercials? Forget that! They aren't going to win over the people who are simply TiVo'ing their favorite shows, or (god forgive) the ones who downloading them elsewhere. NBC is asking a little too much here.Just great, another advertiser-based Internet-distribution video service. And naturally not compatible with any other service and/or PMP.
Here we go...
1) download
2) crack (?)
3) strip advertising/convert format
4) watch
5) share (optional)
6) delete when DVDs are released
7) repeat steps 1-5 with DVDs
8) when pay service starts change 1 to "pay & download".
Meh. As long as my PVR keeps working I'll stick with 1,3,4 & maybe 6.
I am an Apple fan boy. With that out of the way, it is simply obvious to me and millions of others that iTunes is a well-refined product. With years of polish it has become one of the best media management packages around. So what are NBC going to end up releasing? My bet is some clunky, flash-in-the-pan web site with Windows-only formats and all the broken crap that comes with then. I am not denying problems with the Apple offering (DRM among them), but this move has the unfortunate effect of fragmenting a service that, for the consumer, is best unified.
I think what he's trying to imply is that iTunes (not iTMS) allows people to rip their own CD's unencumbered by DRM. In fact, it doesn't even have an option to force DRM on songs. I was curious about this too, until I realized that MS Windows Media Player has an option to "Copy Protect Music" and presumably has the ability to force people to "copy protect music" if Micrsoft deems it important. Imagine if iTunes never became the dominant music software; I'm guessing this option would already be turned on.
This is probably some sort of PR spin over the fact that NBC is most likely going to use Windows Media Player to base their options, and this is a feature that a marketing person would tout as important. And at first glance, I think Joe Average will see this as important too, since it will cut down on those dirty hackers and pirates from stealing music.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I've used Amazons Unbox on my Tivo HD and downloaded the NBC pilots for Bionic Woman and Journeyman. Neither had commercials, so ran in about 42-45 minutes. Both were in SD format, which I should have expected given the amount of bandwidth required for HD, but I could set up a download from amazon.com at work, go home and then watch a show.
Neither of these were shows I might have watched otherwise (or told the Tivo to record), but I may watch a few episodes of both now and give them a chance. Thanks NBC! Now bring back Studio 60 and all will be well with the world.
Apple wouldn't let them double dip. Now they can charge the advertisers to embed their ads in the program. Then charge the viewer to watch the ads. Boy am I glad I have a DVR... Not only can I watch Heroes when I want; I can skip the commercials pretty easily.
~ Normality is merely the achievement of the mediocre...
Are there any players where a media file can disallow 'skipping the commercials'? Will it disallow skipping for commercials only, or will seeking be disabled for the entire file?
"With the creation of this new service, we are acknowledging that now, more than ever, viewers want to be in control of how, when and where they consume their favorite entertainment,"
You know, you should really change 'viewers' to customers and 'consume' to view. You act as if your customers are mindless drones that gain sustenance from viewing your content.
Oh, wait...
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
With the on-demand services, the feed you the programming locally. With this, the cable company has to pay other people for bandwidth... for each and every person that uses it.
According to this paper the revenue to NBC would be about one dollar per viewer with traditional media distribution. I'm not an Apple fan boy, but at the $1.99 price for television I would guess that NBC was actually making more money per video than they will running their own distribution system and supporting it with advertising.
load "$",8,1
August 31 - NBC announces that it will terminate its relation with iTMS. The reason is reported by Apple to be that "Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99." NBC announces a relationship with Amazon to sell shows.
September 20 - NBC announces that they will give the shows away, with ads. Note that they could have kept their pricing with iTMS and also given the shows away if they had wanted to. This seems to me to indicate a major screw-up on NBCs part.
I wonder if anyone got fired over this - after all, the Fall season is beginning. Maybe NBC felt that they won't get any Internet audience at all. Clearly, there is something going on behind the scenes we haven't heard of yet.
instead of "buying shows on iTunes and getting ripped off" you will be buying commercials from NBC and getting screwed.
instead of buying an episode from iTunes and watching it (maybe even with out commercials) as much as you like, you will get 7 days to watch the commercial content. You can't even fast forward these things.
truely a TV executives wet dream.
this is just like the stupid lillypond thing. WMA, DRM, crap.
but I'm sure that this will stop piracy. yar.
-- Sig under construction...
Much as I'd like to say this is a fine idea, I've been watching TV for free for most of my life. I don't want that to change now, or ever. I'm used to commercial breaks, and I'm not prepared to pay for something I can watch on network TV, for free -- it'd be different if I paid to watch NBC, but I don't. The sponsors pay for it, and the deal is that I get to watch for free in return for a few ads, which I can walk away from. When I first read that I would be able to watch TV online without paying, I thought it was a great idea. Two things stop me having the warm-fuzzies by the end of the article. 1) 7 days isn't long enough. I want to be able to record it, the same way I would with a VHS tape. Download, watch later. I'll even leave the commercials in. 2) FREE is what matters. I'm unwilling to pay for essentially free content. So while the system is free, I'll take advantage of it. As soon as it requires money, I'll be on the do-not-watch list, and back on BitTorrent, where I can get the whole show, edited to be without commercials, for a price I like.
iTunes shows cost $2. These shows contain unskipable adverts. Both contain DRM. Assuming they include 10 minutes of adverts in a one-hour video, and that you will only watch the show once, your time would have worth under $12/hour for them to be better value than the iTunes version. Where I live, that's barely minimum wage.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Just about the only Emmy they got right, 30 Rock.
Assuming they include 10 minutes of adverts in a one-hour video, and that you will only watch the show once, your time would have worth under $12/hour for them to be better value than the iTunes version.
Of course! Time spent watching TV is billable time. I think we've found the ???? step before PROFIT!
I like this idea. If the content is high-res enough and manageable size - say about 300 MB, then I don't mind this have non-skippable commercials. For one, it beats downloading the content illegally. Second, it supports the content providers. Third, there are few shows I'm interested in watching and of those some are on NBC. Cable is an expense I would rather spare. And buying box-sets on DVD (or renting them) is expensive in my area.
;) ) - they don't have to exist anymore since they don't have any control over digital mediums. Besides, in Canada, the CRTC *makes* cable TV more expensive since I *have* to buy Canadian channels and American channels. I could care less for all the Canadian channels save the CBC.
Lastly, I live in Canada - it sends a big Fuck You to the CRTC (I'm quite sure there won't be too many opposing me here
According to TFA, the videos will "degrade" after seven days.
I'm assuming this means that your download of 30 Rock will slowly morph into an episode of Studio 60, and eventually, Saturday Night Live itself.
"viewers want to be in control of how, when and where they consume their favorite entertainment"
Too bad that will no longer include watching shows on a video iPod. I've seen lots of people watching Heroes (NBC) and other programs on the subway, so the interest is there.
As someone else pointed out, NBC could have done just fine by sticking with iTunes AND trying this concept out. Anyone else expect to see them back on iTunes in 2 years after their failed experiments with ad-imbedded content?
"With the creation of this new service, we are acknowledging that now, more than ever, viewers want to be in control of how, when and where they consume their favorite entertainment," said Vivi Zigler, the executive vice president of NBC Digital Entertainment. "Not only does this feature give them more control, but it also gives them a higher quality video experience."
Followed by:
The service will allow customers to download full episodes of NBC shows for seven days on Windows-based PCs. The file will expire after the seven days.
More control? Windows-based PCs only?
In control of how, when and where? File expires after seven days? Windows-based PCs only?
But, the best part (which actually manages to top the above marketing double-speak), is this:
Commercials will be embedded in the programs and viewers will not be able to skip through them.
Followed by:
But NBC intends to transform the service into a model similar to iTunes by the middle of 2008 -- that is, consumers will pay NBC directly to download episodes of the shows.
Consumers will PAY to be forced to watch commercials? Consumers will be scammed by a company double-dipping?
Greedy fucks. Media corps are wondering why consumers are getting sick and tired of their bullshit? It isn't hard to figure out.
Glad I'm Canadian. I'm going to vote with my dollar and exercise my legal right to download for personal use only.
Suuure. A viable competitor - but without a quarter of the video content, no music, probably crap software, lousy integrated experience, and no iPod support. It's as if they just opened a new brick and mortar NBC store which sells laser disks.
Let me know how that goes for you.
Although I suspect this is more of an attempt by NBC to get people to pay to watch commercials, it's ultimately going to be bad for their business and the on-demand market in general. It's almost never a win to fragment a potential market, particularly for the consumer but who really cares about them anymore? With entertainment consolidated to a few major players, the consumer is an abstract concept with no form or value as an individual.
Ultimately this will prove to be a fruitless endeavor. You can't drive an internet market by conscription. The history of the internet is littered with the corpses of companies that thought the same thing. Imagine needing a set-top box to tune in an individual TV station. NBC and CBS use the same type box, but you need a different one for ABC and Fox. WB has their own. It seems silly in any other market context, but that's what Apple and NBC are trying to do.
Personally, I don't think the big media players are ever going to catch on. The farther down the road we go, the big media companies actually seem to be devolving. Fortunately that will open up markets for smarter players. Production companies with a leaner cost structure and the freedom of thought to consider product placement, co-branding and a host of other revenue streams rather than a strict commercial model.
I gave a keynote at a NAB convention a couple years ago about the likely impact of the internet on media distribution and the opportunities for new revenue channels. Got a lot of head nodding but when I talked to them afterwards it was pretty clear it wasn't sinking in. They were still trying to fit the internet into the revenue models they already knew.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Let's be honest guys and see this for what it is.
The iPod is *the* portable media player. period. Zune has made no traction in the market. NBC's affiliation with Microsoft is now being used to forward the Microsoft monopoly machine.
Microsoft says shut off apple and ipods and only serve Windows machines. You know the shoe will drop when the Zune becomes the *only* portable media player that will work. Just you watch.
Big companies like Windows with its DRM because it allows them to manage your pesky "fair use" rights for you to their benefit.
Also notice that the service only free till "mid 2008". And It also has commercials. The videos dont come out till a week after airing and expire 7 days after you download them. Finally what can we expect for the "real" price in 2008. Well some details have emerged on the price NBC wanted apple to charge. You may recall the price they wanted apple to charge was said to be $4.99 but NBC denied this vehemently. Well it turns out what they wanted was to force apple to purchase bundles of shows. SO to get a popular show like Heros apple would have to buy one episode of heros and 2 episodes of some re-run. The equivalent price of those 3 shows was 4.99. But apple could only charge 2.99 for the Hero's. This would have left apple with a net loss for all the re-runs it could not off load to other customers for 99 cents.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
the Balkanisation of online video. Instead of being able to find everything in one place, I'm back to using Google to find individual shows. Also, NBC currently doesn't allow video on its site to be seen outside the US, I suspect the new service won't be any better in this regard.
At least we could count on Apple wanting to distribute these shows worldwide; I doubt NBC will want the trouble of allowing worldwide access (they'd rather sell the rights to the show to a national broadcaster instead).
Im willing to get in on that and even pay for downloads if they put RATIONAL prices. and by rational i mean nothing like the dvd 'prices' they are circulating around in the market. I need logical stuff.
there are loads of nbc comedies i want to get on my disk.
aaah, and i wont be using no microsoft stuff for that. if thats part of the deal, forget it. id rather make a sock puppet and watch it, instead of having to buy a zune or zone or whatever.
Read radical news here
This story is titled "NBC to offer FREE download service"... Nobody is going to buy episodes with commercials, we are going to get them for free.
They offered Heroes and about a dozen other shows in HD downloadable content last season. I watched the 2nd half of the Heroes season this way. The download files are about 500 MB; very large. And they come slowly. Each one needed about 1015hours to find it's way to my computer. The results were great - it's like DVD-quality video. (Not quite 1080p but I don't remember the exact specs.) Very, very pretty video. And only one 15-second commercial between each segment means you're done in about 45 minutes. The only downside is that you had to watch your video during the week that it was broadcast, otherwise it would "expire" and be deleted from the player.
Speaking of the player - Proprietary player. Very clunky. The GUI is all about NBC content, just what you'd expect. Worse than ITMS by far. But, you know, I put up with a lot for that kind of convenience, and I'm pleased to send NBC the "message" that I'm interested in great high-quality video that I can timeshift on my computer, no TV required. I LOVE IT. I just run it in a Virtual PC because I'm a little scared of their software.
Cheers.
Don't at least ABC and Fox already do this? I distinctly remember watching Andy Barker this way and I'm pretty sure it's also how I watched the Lost finale. Frankly, both of those systems suck hard. Lost kept skipping and the quality of Andy Barker was dismal. And I thought that NBC offered online viewing of select shows anyways? Or was that just recaps?
I think it's time that Apple remember their original iTunes marketing campaign: "Rip. Mix. Burn." Let Apple TV, iTunes and the iPod manage video with as few restrictions as possible.
If Apple were to unleash the devices in their arsenal and give maximum freedom to their customers to do what they want with their media then the various studios will be begging Apple for re-listing on the iTunes Store.
i dont think i'd even consider downloading anything with drm, but i have to say its nice to be able to watch the new heroes chapters online though the nbc site when i get a free hour in college, now if fox would just follow their example ...
It's not a free download. As others have pointed out here, the file can only be played on Windows with a proprietary player, and the file expires after seven days. This is so lame. I wouldn't mind it so much except that NBC is trying to milk this for the we-care-about-users-and-are-providing-them-with-choices angle. This is not free, and no better a choice. Anyone who really cares about TV probably has a DVR anyway. And really, there is nothing new here. NBC has been doing limited downloads and streaming for at least all of last season. Please NBC (not the you read /.) get a clue!
In this corner you have: Disney/Pixar/ABC + Apple + Google
And in that corner you have: GE/Universal/NBC + Microsoft
The industry has learned from AOL/Time Warner. Why buy each other when you can get the same advantages from partnerships and board placements?
What are we thinking the odds are that the new NBC pay-for-download service will be based on Microsoft's DRM? Anyone?
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
What NBC and its advertisers fail to grasp is that if they made good commercials, and not boring preachy drivel, people would actually *want* to watch them -- and then they wouldn't need to charge money or add DRM. After all, look at how many people watch cool commercials for free when they get posted to YouTube and similar sites.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
"But NBC intends to transform the service into a model similar to iTunes by the middle of 2008 -- that is, consumers will pay NBC directly to download episodes of the shows. "We did this to eliminate the middleman," said Jeff Gaspin, the president of NBC's digital division."
What this sanctimonious prick would never admit is that he and his ilk are the middlemen. If Apple accomplished anything, it concealed them behind the façade of iTMS' superior user experience, one that will outlast and outperform anything these morons devise.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
Bittorrent and streaming sites work perfectly fine for me.
If there's anyone I hate more than stupid people, it's intellectuals.
So the plan is, you pay NBC for the download, still have to watch the commercials, presumably can't burn a DVD so you don't have to sit at your computer, are still paying the cable bill to get NBC in the first place, and are paying the internet bill to get the download. Plus you can only avail yourself of this high privilege if you use windows. Do I look like the tooth fairy, NBC? Thank gods for VCRs.
With the creation of this new service, we are acknowledging that now, more than ever, viewers want to be in control of how, when and where they consume their favorite entertainment,"
I can't play it on a mac at home.
I can't put these videos on an iPod to go.
I can't watch the videos after seven days.
How dare they proclaim the service is about allowing the viewer to watch wherever and whenever I like!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yeah, sure 22 minute episode is padded with 8 mintues of commercials THE FIRST TIME THE SHOW IS AIRED. After that one-time event, the show is cut to 18 minutes with 12 minutes of commercials. This is much more typical since the show debuts once, but may run hundreds of times in the hit-you-over-the-head mode. TiVo rules. And you do not have to 'fast-forward' the commercials. I use the instant 30-second skip (and it really is instant, i.e., 1/30 of a second). ------- Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select. Now your skip-to-end button is a 30-second-skip button.
Opportunity cost. If I can spend 10 mins longer at work and watch my favorite TV show in 10 mins less time, which is better from an economic and user experience point of view? Ads are horribly annoying and disrupt the whole mood, so I know which I'd pick.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
nt
Torrents don't conflict with any of my morals, so what's the problem?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Last week Forbes declared Apple TV to be the 'iFlop'.
Sorry, but NBC and the like really don't give a damn about catering to the Jobs worshippers that buy whatever he tells them to and bought into Apple TV hype and bought that piece of turd.
I watched Heroes episodes by downloading them for free from NBC's "VIP Access" service that was available to anyone with Intel based PCs. So it sounds like they're just opening it up to everyone now, with the possibility of moving it to a pay service later on. They say you can't skip the commercials, but that's only within their player. If you open up the actual file that is downloaded, you can play it however you want.
... the day they announced pulling from iTunes...
Now, if only NBC would release some quality shows ... I might care.
If it doesn't play on my iPhone I will just DVR it, use TiVoToGo transfer and reencode. I would rather pay the $1.99 at iTunes for episodes than go through all of this trouble.
I don't want another online account.
I don't want yet another line on my checking account statement to keep track of.
I don't want to hassle with another piece of (shit) software or whatnot.
Screw this.
I'll use my DVR. Other people will just get from IRC or Torrents. Good Goin'. You suck once again at television.
Microsoft has *NO* stake in NBC. You are probably thinking of MSNBC, which MS has little to no stake anymore.
- sigs are for wimps.
That is, you are gettin paid approximately four dollar an hour for watching advertising.
Personally, I can find other jobs that both pay better and are more interesting than watching advertising.
They could take advantage of Amazon, iTunes and NBC site. Then viewers will have a choice. Go to Amazon or iTunes and pay for it without commercials or download it free from NBC. That really starts to give the consumer options.
You do realize that the standard price for TV shows on iTunes is $2 per episode, don't you?
I'm not seeing where this "net loss" comes into play - assuming someone were to buy all three episodes on iTunes, they would actually spend an extra dollar.
Goo goo g'joob.
I'm not seeing where this "net loss" comes into play - assuming someone were to buy all three episodes on iTunes, they would actually spend an extra dollar. NBC wanted to reprice things. 2.99 for new and 99 for old, instead of 1.99 for all. PLus they wanted to force bundle pricing at the wholesale level so Apple was screwed if they unbundled things. And if they kept the buble together it was 4.99 and added complexity for the sale (3 downloads and 3 consumer shopping items). NBC was trying to say they were not going to charge 4.99 for a new release. In fact they were effectively doing that for anyone who did not really want the old shows. NBC might even claim they were selling things cheaper for those folks that actually wanted the three shows.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Ohhh...when I read that, I didn't realize you were using the new prices instead of the old ones. My apologies. :)
Goo goo g'joob.
For example: My group at work has 10 windows licenses for office desktops and laptops. However, 8 of us have Macs at home, and the other two don't have computers at home. We can't use our office computers to watch TV, but we could use our Macs. Expanding, globally my company must have 100,000 or more Windows OS licenses, but not a one of them is for entertainment purposes. I know I haven't included Linux here but nobody I work with uses it at home, but again, that's probably also a signficiant entertainment market share.
In general, Mac users are more entertainment focussed (lots of exceptions on both sides, I know) so I'm wondering if excluding them from something like this actually cuts off a larger share of the downloading market, both in terms of numbers of users and amount of downloading each user does, than apparent when one looks at what percentage of all computers using one OS vs. another.
You said that the videos would come out a week after airing. It's actually worse than that: "The programs, including 'Heroes' and 'The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,' will be offered for a week immediately after their initial broadcasts"
So they will only be available for a week, AND you will have to pay for them. Sounds convenient, until you use your brain.
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
"Right, because online payment systems are magical. Only the top wizards understand the spells that make them work"
Bwahahhaha. Funny +1
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
the first one is allways free.
-- Sig under construction...
i found the site. it's right here
The thing that I find interesting about all this selling of TV Shows crap is how pointless it all is. I mean, I support my favorite shows by buying their releases on DVD but I don't feel a need to buy them because TV is free to watch and record. With the exception of a few rare events(NFL games and a few others) all television can be recorded and distributed as desired as long as profit is not being made. The Supreme Court legally upheld this position when the MPAA tried to fight it in recent years. They are effectively trying to roll back time to before VCRs were invented. I have heard many people say that they will just watch illegally recorded TV shows that they download. Well, according to national law, it's not illegal. Go look up the laws for yourself and you'll see that the MPAA and similiar abusers of law are trying to create a campaign of fear against people on false legal grounds.
"All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fear, fraud, greed, imagination, and poetry." -Edgar Allen Poe
There are some interesting files in %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Entriq\MS. http://codebase.entriq.net/authdomains.xml appears to be a remotely-access file that can allow the download manager to access content on a domain. I haven't been able to track down where the files are downloaded to, as the download manager doesn't actually put them where it says it will (My Documents\My Videos for me). A simple system-wide search yields nothing, even with all files (including system files) shown.
I vote bogus malware until the files are put where the program says they will be put. Additionally, the damned thing takes up 18 MB of RAM even when idle. This is completely unnecessary. NBC could do all this through a real web-based interface (instead of a VB program with an IE control in it, and the control accesses a poorly layed-out and non-WAI504 compliant site) and allow users to download using their choice of browser, even if the file is encrypted to all hell with some kind of proprietary DRM (that will, of course, be cracked in a matter of hours).
On top of that, the content is 566x420, i.e. about 480i/p but 4:3. Where's my widescreen?
I was willing to pay $2 for a commercial-free, HD presentation of my favorite shows. Now that I can get them for free through this, but with all these terrible restrictions and inefficiencies, I feel compelled to return to Pirate Bay and the like, or just wait until the DVDs (or HD-DVD or Blu-ray) come out and rent them from Netflix and rip them. I want no commercials. I want to be able to play the file wherever, whenever, and on whatever OS I want to.
lol, they must be really retarded then, because I wouldn't even pay 2 dollar for an episode of a tv-serie, thought it's close to what I probably could have paid if I missed one and really needed to see it. 5 dollar are retarded, you get a whole movie for that and it's not worth to pay that just to get rid of commercials.
Why shouldn't people just buy a tvcard and record all the series and watch them when they want to instead?
How many episodes are Prison Break? (Of of the series which might be worth having.), 20? 40 dollar probably buys you the whole box with extra content. 100 dollar is so stupid that I can't even makeup something to compare it with!
Or an easier way is to download it from piratebay or mininova. I understand the desire to do things in a legitimate manner, but sometimes the rules are simply too restrictive.