Hulu is decent, but uninspired.
Fancast has a bigger selection (and helps you find whatever they don’t have).
ABC does great streaming HD with a variable bitrate depending on the speed of your network connection and computer performance, and offers full seasons instead of just the most recent episodes (including all three seasons of Lost, with which I have just now become obsessed).
MSNBC did a nice job streaming real-time during the New Hampshire primary, but I can’t seem to find the streaming player on a normal day. Too bad.
NBC Nightly News has a nice new site, but I prefer the podcast.
Ads are more annoying online than on TV, but I don’t mind them unless (as in ABC) I am forced to “click to continue.” This single requirement means that watching a show on ABC.com is far from the leisurely activity it ought to be.
$1.99 for a single episode from the iTunes Store isn’t cheap.
But if I were asked to compare my experience watching Season 1 of Lost (iTunes) to Season 2 (ABC), I would come out on the side of iTunes - even though ABC is completely free, and I think for Season 3 I will drop the cash.
Why?
Well, iTunes is commercial-free (and click-free), for one. Minor, but it means I can actually relax and not have to actively participate with the episode, which, for me, is important since I often have a show playing on one of my monitors as I work in the other.
Secondly - and most importantly - I can take the iTunes episodes wherever I want on my iPhone. No other service lets me do this.
Skipping around is difficult while streaming. If I miss something, going back to it is an exercise in frustration.
With iTunes you get the episodes to keep. Am I going to sit down and watch them again? Maybe not, but other people in my household might. And if friends are over, you can never tell when you might feel like starting a marathon, or watching a funny episode or something. Not a biggie, and I would personally pay up to $0.50 for a single-viewing episode that works like the iTunes Movie Rentals, so long as I am able to transfer it to my phone.
Also, finally, online streaming depends entirely on the reliability of the source, and in my experiment watching Season 2 of Lost this past weekend, at least 3 of the episodes (out of maybe 12) wouldn’t start. I ended up just reading the episode summaries on Wikipedia and moving on, but I seriously considered buying the episodes on iTunes.
Conclusion?
There’s a long way to go. But the future is promising.
21 January 2008
TV On The Internet Continued
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4 comments:
I'm unimpressed by Hulu, though the fact that I don't have to install a program that isn't very user friendly makes it better than that J one... (I deleted it, so I don't remember what it was called.)
I agree that the portability of the shows is a problem, though I'm not on the "watch things on a 2 inch screen" train. But, being able to download the episode is nice for when your internet isn't running as fast so you don't have to worry about buffering (or if you're somewhere that doesn't have wireless).
And of course, complete seasons would always be nice. Then I don't have to download them extra-legally.
I've got to second the 2" screen remarks.
But even without the portability, $1.99 isn't bad when you consider the cost of an entire season in a box from a physical store. This is especially true when you consider the bonus features and extra crap you pay for, but most of us never watch, when you buy the box.
Nice analysis, well laid out.
-Brad
www.clashofculture.com
Ben, good point about portability unrelated to my iPhone-watching (which really is great when you get used to it - I've found its 3.5" diagonal to be very watchable at bent-arms-length - but to each his/her own. I'm not going to force it on anyone for sure, but screen-size:distance it works out about the same as a TV. I digress.).
Net connections are fickle, and if you don't have wireless, it'd be nice to be able to take your laptop into bed and still watch, or come back to it hours later and resume no problem. Or be "extra-legally" (love this term) downloading lots of other stuff at no cost to what you're watching.
Price-wise, Brad, you're absolutely right. I never check out special features, and for me the difference in quality between DVD and download is negligible. Convenience and quick access trumps the slight quality trade-off and the price is comparable, even great if you don't have reason to buy the entire season.
$1.99 adds up, though. And because it's so easy to do, I've found myself spending a heck of a lot more than I did before (which was nothing at all). But it's all worth it. Especially since the writer's strike eliminated what little quality programming was around to begin with!
P.S. Ben, that would be Joost. And it seems to be having some troubles lately.
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