NBC streams iPhone/Touch-ready TV shows
updated 10:00 am EDT, Thu May 8, 2008
NBC iPhone/Touch streaming
Owners of an iPhone or iPod touch can now stream episodes of select NBC TV shows, observers note. By visiting nbc.com, users can gain access to complete episodes of 30 Rock or The Office, presented free of advertising and in an unprotected QuickTime format. The video quality is extremely rough, however, and at least one publication has reported iPhone lockups.
Any form of NBC support for Apple products is unusual, as the two companies had a public falling-out in 2007, which resulted in the removal of NBC videos from iTunes. The studio also went on to form a rival collaboration with Fox, Hulu.com, which operates in Flash and as such does not support iPhones or iPod touches. The company's main complaint has been Apple's inflexibility in pricing schemes; the impasse may be nearing an end though, as the UK iTunes Store recently began selling NBC videos at varying price scales. Apple has not commented publicly on the matter in recent weeks.
Awful quality
05/08, 09:52am reply
Video is muddy and out of sync with audio. Unwatchable.
Guest
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 1999
Hmmm
05/08, 10:56am reply
So you leave because of inflexible pricing, and your solution is to give it away free, with no ads? I don't see the revenue model in there, but, then again, I'm no media exec.
bfalchuk
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jul 2003
Wow
05/08, 11:16am (1 reply) reply
The audio is out of sync with the video by 2-3 seconds. It's really only useable to listen to and glance down at occasionally.
loudpedal
Junior Member
Joined: Oct 1999
NBC insulting
05/08, 12:45pm reply
I almost see this as NBC flipping-off Mac users. In a world where most online video quality has progressed to mpeg-4/H.264 quality even for Flash, for NBC to present this deliberately backwards level of quality is an insult.
cblackmo
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 2006
what?
05/10, 10:22am reply
So NBC benefits by getting $0 instead of $2 and we benefit because instead of high quality we get low quality?
I'm going to trade in my mid size SUV for a Hummer, since I'm fed up with gas prices.
sglewis
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jun 2005