Today’s the day… ABC launched their two month trial (5/1 – 6/30) offering free web rebroadcasts of current, prime time television series. Unlike most streaming content, you do not need Windows as ABC is broadcasting via cross-platform Flash. Of course free is just another word for advertising, but it competes well with $1.99 iTunes downloads. Assuming all goes well, ABC is planning on tweaking the model and relaunching with the fall television season.
Check it out here!
Do I need to watch all of the advertisements?
The advertisements are placed at various points during the show. You cannot advance the show beyond that point until you have watched the ad for at least 30 seconds. You may see a maximum of four advertisements per show.
Can we watch this through our TIVO box if we have a broadband connection?
Nope… the shows are streamed only, not downloaded, and require Flash 8 for playback. Similar services such as AOL’s In2TV require Microsoft DRM and a Windows platform. It sure would be nice to have VOD through TiVo — wish someone would hurry up and get it to us!
ok, thank you. So no DVR or set top box for that matter can do it either, right? Basically this is only the ability to watch it on your PC, with commercials.