After some false starts, NBC has at last officially launched
the download service for its
television
programming, known as NBC
Direct.
Although originally scheduled for an October release, it’s
taken the extra time of preparation to finally ready the beta to be
released to the general public. It seems that time has mainly been used
to build in layers of frustration for potential users.
At no
cost, anyone can now download full episodes of a wide variety of NBC
programs including Heroes, The Office, Bionic
Woman, and Las Vegas among others.
Too Many Prohibitions
The service is available as a public beta and requires Windows
Media
Player as well as Internet Explorer in order to watch videos in the
service’s custom player.
What I once saw as a potentially popular service that
customers
would love because episodes would be free has now turned into a sour
development that will prohibit use by many users because of its many
limitations.
NBC
Direct has already been
stocked full of episodes for viewers to download, after first
downloading the necessary software to play the files.
Once that is
done, users can browse and obtain any video they choose and also
subscribe to favourite shows, but there are a few catches.
Videos must
be watched within 48 hours after they are downloaded, and the embedded
advertisement within the videos cannot be skipped by viewers.
Available For Just 7 Days
Although the video library is well-furnished, don’t expect all
videos to remain available for download forever. NBC will limit
availability to just 7 days after an episode’s air date before it will
be removed from the database.
Why? Probably so as not to harm sales of
future DVD season releases of shows by making all episodes available
for free online. That’s just my guess though, as there could be any
number of reasons.
As it stands right now, only those PCs running Windows will be
able
to access NBC Direct, and many of those will require additional
downloads (on top of the video player download) to get the latest
version of Microsoft’s .NET
framework as well as the latest security updates for Windows
Media Player.
Conclusions
So let’s recap.. No one using a Mac can use it, no one who
prefers
Firefox and and shudders at the thought of using IE can get in, and no
one who’s PC is out of date can get in without first updating.
Oh yeah,
I almost forgot that no one who lives outside of the United States has
access either.
Right now, NBC Direct should re-strategize and develop a
better,
more universal service. There is no incentive to use NBC Direct because
viewing periods are limited, and anyone (using any browser in any
country) can just stream the episode online for free.
NBC offers online
viewing on its own site, and even those who haven’t received a
Hulu invite yet can
access its content through the service’s many partners.
Michael Garrett is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
