NBC Direct launches: NBC's kind of lame video download service

by Brad Linder Nov 10th 2007

NBC has launched a video download service. The network first announced its NBC Direct initiative in September, which left us scratching our heads a bit, seeing as the network also recently partnered with News Corp to launch Hulu, a free service for watching TV shows and movies from a web browser.

Still, you might not always have an internet connection handy, so a download service isn't a bad idea. Unfortunately, NBC Direct doesn't quite live up to our low expectations. We've put together a quick video look at the interface, (note that the video plays smoothly, but our screen capture software had a hard time keeping up), but here are the highlights (and lowlights):

Pros

The video quality is at least as good as anything you'll get see on Hulu (except the commercials, which seem to be encoded at a lower bitrate).
You can start watching videos shortly after you start your download. No need to wait for the download to finish.

Cons

You need to download and install the NBC Direct application in order to download and watch movies (although you can probably also watch them using Windows Media Player once they're downloaded).
The videos include Windows Media DRM, which means no Mac or Linux for you.
There's an extraordinarily limited selection available right now (You can choose from The Office, 30 Rock, Life, Bionic Woman, Friday Night Lights, and that's it).
Half the time when we login, the library is not available.
Shows are only available for one week after they air on TV (while you can find 5 weeks worth of shows on Hulu)
Once you click play, you have to finish watching your video within 48 hours or it will self destruct.
You can subscribe to a series to download all new episodes, but you have to visit NBC's web site to do this. You can't subscribe from the player, even though there's a button that makes it look like you can.

Overall, color us a bit less than impressed. At this rate, we'd pretty much rather pay $1.99 per episode to download the shows from Amazon or iTunes. NBC is calling this a beta, so we're going to hold onto some small bit of hope that some issues will be addressed. But we're not holding our breath.

[via Mashable]

Tags: NBC, NBC-Direct, video-download

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

RazorD said 5:47PM on 11-10-2007

What about the con of: 'The writers don't get a single cent for their work'? ;) [WGA]

kastonie said 7:33PM on 11-10-2007

not to sound like a horrible immoral person, but does faruse4wm work on these files?

michael said 8:20PM on 11-10-2007

Well at least the fact that you can view it using WMP (hopefully 11)sounds good. I much prefer playing my media on WMP 11, than iTunes because of the fact that WMP 11 does a better job at streaming the media.

It's still a beta, so I guess there's some hope. So it's not really fair to yell at them, until we see the final version.

But they still have a ton of work to do.

Mick said 11:56PM on 11-10-2007

I should have paid attention to this post, but I must admit to being curious. So I installed it, tried downloading the progams to view. I have promptly uninstalled it. Was able to view all the commericals, but not until I "upgraded" some undetermined component would I be able to view any of the limited programs. Not worth it the hassle. Until NBC makes it painless and no brainer for any potential user. You know sorta like Itunes

YourTechSupport said 9:47PM on 11-11-2007

It's obligatory to point out... just to drive the salted stick into NBC's wound a little deeper... Bittorrent is free, with better resolution, and no commercials.

Not that I mind commercials, but they could use more variety.

james 42 said 12:29PM on 11-12-2007

Maybe someone can very slowly explain the idea of 'the long tail' to NBC.

Adam K said 10:38PM on 11-12-2007

I haven't got it to work in Windows Media Player (and FairUse says it doesn't have a recognizable DRM header)... It plays fine in the NBC Direct window. Anything I'm missing?

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