According to that email Microsoft adheres to broadcast flags included in the video stream that limits the rights of the users on the receiving end. Windows Media Center users however will not be pleased to hear that software and hardware developers do not have any obligations to interpretate the broadcast flags at all but Microsoft apparently decided to side with the content distributors effectively turning against a part of their customer base.

EFF’s Danny O’Brien commented on the issue in a blog post at the Electronic Frontier Foundation website. (unfortunately slashdotted right now): “They’ve imposed restrictions way beyond what the law requires. Customers need to know who Microsoft is listening to and how that affects their equipment. Right now, the only way customers know what Microsoft has agreed to is when the technology they’ve bought suddenly stops working. Microsoft needs to come clean and tell its customers what deals it has made.’”

It is still unclear if NBC set the broadcast flag to test the waters or if it was an accident that was not supposed to be happening. The most interesting information of the whole incident is the fact that Windows Media Center follows the broadcast flags, that content distributors can regulate what viewers may or may not do with the content stream and that old hardware that was produced before hardware had to be broadcast-flag compliant was not affected at all.

There are however several catches which really reduce the attractiveness and quality of this new video download service. The service uses DRM, works with Internet Explorer, requires a NBC Direct software to download and view the movies and requires you to have a IP from the United States.

The selection is limited at this time offering episodes from The Office, 30 Rock, Life, Bionic Woman, Friday Night Lights at this time and only the latest episode is available for download at NBC Direct. The service seems to be rather unstable at this moment because my first tries of launching the NBC Direct player ended in an offline (Storefront is offline) notice.

What’s even worse is that there is no way to try to reconnect to the service from within the player and I did not have the impression that the player tried to auto connect to it either. Closing the player and opening it again was the only solution that I could come up with.

It should also be mentioned that downloaded tv episodes will not be in your library forever. You have got two days after hitting the play button for the first time to watch the video which will become defunct after that period.

To sum it up. The pros are that the NBC Direct service is free at the moment. Cons are that it uses DRM, only works with Internet Explorer, requires a proprietary software, offers only five tv shows and only one episode of them at any given time, has connection issues and lets the users watch the tv episodes in a period of 48 hours after pressing play for the first time.

NBC should really take a look at Torrent sites to see how such a service could be created that would be successful.

Unbox ? Yes, that’s the video download service that imposes more restrictions on the user but apparently more flexible when it comes to bulk pricing and discounts. Users can only use Unbox is they have a computer with a Microsoft Windows operating system. Linux and Mac can’t use it which does not seem to bother NBC or Amazon at all.

One of the likely package deals offered is a 30% discount if you buy the complete season of a tv show. This discount is of course given on the sum that all single episodes would cost and NBC made it very clear that they could go as high as $4.99 for one single episode download.

So, to keep it short. NBC ditches Apple iTunes to work with Amazon Unbox instead which offers them more flexibility in pricing. You did not read about the people anywhere in this article ? That’s easy to explain, the people – aka the consumers – don’t matter at all.

I suppose NBC thinks that they will switch to Unbox because they want the shows so badly. I would suggest you show them otherwise.

When I heard the figure $4.99 for the first time I was wondering who came up with it. Who at NBC thought that people would actually buy one episode of a tv show for that amount of money ? If you would buy all episodes of a show which usually has about 12-20 in each season you would pay about $60 – $100 for a season which is way more than buying the season on DVD which offers much more value for a lesser price.

The only advantage of the online purchase is the ability to download the episode earlier which is not a huge advantage if you ask me considering the fact that you can watch it on television as well. (tape it there for instance)

I strongly support that every content owner may assign the prices that he likes for his products. Heck, they could raise that amount to $100 if they want. I would not care because I do not buy music or videos online. I don’t like DRM, I don’t like the fact that I have to burn them – if possible – to be able to view them on my television.

I would say that a price of about $10 for a complete season would be nice. That is my price of course and others might disagree. this amount would be my personal maximum for a full season of a tv show – if I would buy them online, that is.

Back to NBC and Apple. It remains to be seen what will happen in the future. My guess is that they will come to an agreement in the end because both probably need each other.

I can’t see many changes in this version. TVU Networks are unfortunately not publishing release notes so I have to compare the old and new version by myself. The only change that I was able to find is a link to the program of that network that you could click on. Some stations are not there for the moment, I’m missing ABC for instance.

If you run into errors with TVU Player you should take a look at my tvu player faq which addresses some of the most common problems that are encountered. Please note that you do need a broadband connection for most channels, only the channels marked with low could probably be viewed without one.