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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.
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
Ultimately this is a good thing; it forces NBC to be better than Apple or they fail. It then forces Apple to be better than NBC. Which forces everybody else to be better. Because everybody is competing with free. You've got to be good to compete with free.
Now the trouble is, companies hate competing, so ideally, Congress will ignore the whining of these big companies as they ask for laws to shield them from competition. It should also look aggressively at these companies if they try to work together to avoid competing with each other.
This should be interesting to watch.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
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
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!
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.
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.
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).
As proved by MS. Actually, Windows has improved leaps and bounds since Linux took off, so I guess your point stands.
As proved by MS. Actually, Windows has improved leaps and bounds since Linux^h^h^h^h^hMac OS took off^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^hstarted eating into their market share
There you go. Fixed that for you.
Seriously... Apple is poised to become a fierce competitor once again. Look at the shares of MacBook sales. Linux? I know this is Slashdot and I know we're all pulling for Linux but honstly, "The Year of Linux" is a looooooooooooooong way off.
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.