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Television Media Networking

Adult Swim To Offer Streaming Video Option 231

Posted by Zonk from the it-seems-today-that-all-you-see-is-violence-in-movies-and-sex-on-tv dept.
Julio Capote wrote to mention a press release making the rounds stating that Adult Swim will be allowing viewers to watch shows via streaming video. From the article: "Starting Sept. 16, AdultSwim.com will offer full-length episodes of these and other programs in an initiative Cartoon Network is calling Friday Night Fix. Each week between 11 p.m.-6 a.m. ET, a selection of current and fan-requested shows will be available for free viewing. There also will be previews of episodes scheduled to debut the next Sunday" The official Williams Street announcement is also available.
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Adult Swim To Offer Streaming Video Option More

Adult Swim To Offer Streaming Video Option

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  • Cool! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FlyByPC ( 841016 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @10:46PM (#13524173) Homepage
    Cartoons are a lot more interesting (and more intellectually stimulating) than most of what's on TV these days.

    • Re:Cool! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by 13bPower ( 869223 )
      not ALL cartoons...

      • Unleash the Karma Whores (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        In the forest of nerds find the red "Karma Whore" materia which summons all nearby Slashdotters for a 48-hour long beat-about-the-bush-and-then-beat-the-bush festival.

      • Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Deruwyn ( 913783 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @12:03AM (#13524500) Journal
        There are some situations where writers/producers/animators/whateverguys are better able to portray what they see in their head using cartoons and animated series. Some stories should just not be portrayed using Real Living People(tm). One very good example is the animated series Undergrads. There are lots of movies and tv shows about college life out there. Some are very good(ie Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds, American Pie etc.); but they all have this feeling of cheesyness to them that I can never shake off. You know what I mean. Most of these films about College life are usually marketed towards the 1.0-2.0 GPA average crowd who spend all their time Fucking Off like the characters in these movies. Apparently none of these people ever had to spend 150 hours working on a complier assignment that was worth 5% like a lot os us. Fuckers. College is about so much more than drinking and sex. Infact, since I was Canadian AND good looking the drinking+sex parts were the easiest!!! Getting to the point; these movies never seem to cover it all. College is about growing up and finding your place in the world. Inspirational shizznit. Like learning how to do your own Dam! Laundry and cooking. Those are the single most important things I learned there. But They are never covered. Then one day I was busy reminising about College so I flipped on this show called Undergrads. Within minites I am slobbering all over the floor; desiring more after watching the ending credits. Here ends my rant. Laterz to all you Gimpies out there :p
    • I first thought it's a porn channel..
      I'm not interested then.. heh.

  • as Master Shake would say (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09, 2005 @10:46PM (#13524174)
    Everyone please, bow your heads, and pretend to be serious.
  • ...who has to foot the cost of the bandwidth bill.
    • AOL.

      But seriously, what format is this stream going to be in? I'd hate for it to be in Windows Media, since only Windows can stream that well (WiMP for OS X sucks).

    • both or none (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "I wouldn't want to be the one... ...who has to foot the cost of the bandwidth bill."

      Even if it is the same one who gets the advertising check?

  • welcome (Score:5, Funny)

    by 42Penguins ( 861511 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @10:48PM (#13524189)
    ...our new robot chicken overlords?
  • I guess I don't need to do any online games on friday night anyway. [sniff]

  • What is Adult Swim? (Score:4, Funny)

    by pwnage ( 856708 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @10:52PM (#13524206)
    Is it some kind of water-fetish pr0n channel? Chicks in swimcaps and such?
    • Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has a good write-up on Adult Swim.

      The phrase itself actually originates from a call at community pools. Basically, the lifeguards would shout "Adult Swim" to remove the kids and the adults would have their own predetermined time to swim. Cartoon Network used this same concept in the selection that originally aired 2 September 2001 (thanks, Wiki!).

    • And to top it off: three guys hanging out in a neighbor's pool. And by 'guys' I mean a box of fries, a milkshake, and a meatball.

  • Streaming video? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by suitepotato ( 863945 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @10:52PM (#13524207)
    Yeah, they have obviously missed the fact that much of their content could be done start to finish in Flash starting with Aqua Teen Hunger Force. For much of their lineup, 30fps video is massive overkill. Heck, some of it could be sent out as a flip-book without losing anything and quite possibly improving on it.

    • Re:Streaming video? (Score:5, Informative)

      by teknomage1 ( 854522 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @10:57PM (#13524232) Homepage
      Actually, it is done in flash, then exported to video. My friend "animates" Harvey Birdman. Flash is the future of low budget 2d animation for sure. A couple o fshows on Nickolodeon are done in flash as well.

      • Re:Streaming video? (Score:5, Informative)

        by ErichTheWebGuy ( 745925 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @12:27AM (#13524559) Homepage
        If I'm not mistaken, Mucha Lucha, Teen Titans, Kids Next Door, and several other "mainstream" cartoon network shows are produced in Flash as well.
      • I wonder, is usage of Flash inversely proportional to the quality of the show? I remember how in the early 90s cartoons were actually GOOD. Disney Afternoon was top-notch animated entertainment. Today's cartoons are basically either really dumb action fests with irrelevant storylines or Internet humor-style comedies made for college students. Either way, most of them look incredibly cheap (hooray Flash!).

        Where is this generation's Duck Tales? Gargoyles? Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers? The non-anime version
        • Agreed. The only thing on Adult Swim that doesn't make me want to shoot my TV is Cowboy Bebop.
          Which of course is outstanding.
        • I remember how in the early 90s cartoons were actually GOOD. Disney Afternoon was top-notch animated entertainment.

          Have you considered that in the early 90s you were 10-15 years younger than you are now?

          It's possible that the quality of cartoons has plummeted. But it's just as likely that all that's happened is that your tastes have matured, so you no longer like new kids' shows, but the old stuff still looks golden because nostalgia has kicked in.
          • Yeah, I had considered that, especially after trying to watch the original Transformers again.

            Then I started watching DuckTales again, and guess what? Still as interesting and absorbing today as back then. Either the show was actually good, or I haven't matured much... hmmm, posting about cartoons on /. ... :(

      • Re:Streaming video? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by ultranova ( 717540 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @03:39AM (#13525108)

        Actually, it is done in flash, then exported to video. My friend "animates" Harvey Birdman. Flash is the future of low budget 2d animation for sure. A couple o fshows on Nickolodeon are done in flash as well.

        I've tried to do animation using SVG and Inkscape, but that has turned out to be a truly horrendous task. It's a pity, really - the format itself seems well-suited for animation, apart from some oddities (like storing path control points in a string rather than XML tags of their own). Having an infinite resolution in both time and space (the animation is time-key-based, so you can interpolate as many frames as wanted between keypoints, and of course vector graphics can be scaled freely) is a very nice feature...

        Any change that we'll be seeing open-source SVG animation tools ?

    • Yeah, they have obviously missed the fact that much of their content could be done start to finish in Flash starting with Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

      Does Macromedia have a live, realtime streaming software for Flash? Does Macromedia have a program that will automatically convert (preferably in realtime) from video to Flash? No? Guess it's not a very good option for this task, then.

      Besides, modern video codecs are very effecient at encoding animation to very low bitrates. They could be streaming cartoons at 1

      • Does Macromedia have a live, realtime streaming software for Flash? Does Macromedia have a program that will automatically convert (preferably in realtime) from video to Flash? No? Guess it's not a very good option for this task, then.

        No streaming video I've seen has ever managed to play without skipping, so I'd have to conclude that non-streaming, download-and-watch video would propably be the best option for this task.

        I look forward to hearing your explanation as to how a flip book could POSSIBLY b

  • For free! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by camelmix ( 880071 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @10:53PM (#13524213)
    I wonder what the networks and programmers will think of this? I mean it's not that big but are commericals included too :D

  • Big Nets pay attention (Score:5, Insightful)

    by divisivemind ( 888140 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @11:03PM (#13524256)
    With DVRs nearing commonplace (especially in /. circles), Big networks take heed. We aren't watching your commercials. Provide an online streaming service on-demand with all previous episodes of a show, place ads in the stream, and your in the money. Cartoon network is showing some progressive thinking here and I applaud the initiative.
    • Or sell subscriptions and rip out the ads.

      • Re:Big Nets pay attention (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Darth_brooks ( 180756 ) <.clipper377. .at. .gmail.com.> on Friday September 09, 2005 @11:44PM (#13524422) Homepage
        They tried that. Subscription based TV without the ads. They called it "Cable."

        Once people started paying, in came the ads. There's still the rare quasi-commercial free station (HBO & Showtime, whose only commercials are the ones for their own programming between airings), but the rest of the TV landscape is littered with commericals. Hell, there's shrinking shows to fit in an extra 15 or 30 second commercial.

        I love it when my buddies try and tell me how great XM is "cause there aren't any commercials!" Yeah, just wait. I pay to see too many commercials as it is.

        • Re:Big Nets pay attention (Score:4, Informative)

          by Mr2001 ( 90979 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @12:38AM (#13524585) Homepage Journal
          I love it when my buddies try and tell me how great XM is "cause there aren't any commercials!" Yeah, just wait.

          Actually, XM had commercials on most music stations when it started out. Sirius came on the scene with commercial-free music, and XM had to drop their commercials to stay competitive.
          • Right, and when one goes bankrupt, or buys out the other one, the commercials will come flying back.
          • XM still does have some commercials on some stations... one of the comedy ones springs to mind. My dad was bitching about it, but I'd never noticed 'cuz the ones I listen do don't have them.
            • Sirius has commercials on their talk and news stations. Some of them are feeds from other networks (CNN, Fox, NPR, etc.) and even on the ones produced by Sirius, the live hosts need to take a break once in a while.

              The commercial breaks are shorter than on FM radio.. but on some of the streams, they feel twice as long because the commercials are just so bad. Most of them are public service announcements or ads for dietary supplements and investment scams. I'd rather hear elevator music.
              • I agree. You don't notice commercials sucking so much on TV, but listening to CNN or Fox on XM or Sirius really stinks, too many long, bad commercials.

                I would pay to have just music during the breaks. Anything but that crap they push.

      • Or sell subscriptions and rip out the ads.

        Or run a portal channel, where upcoming artists can show their shows for a (small) fee, and you collect statistics on how many people watch them. This, then, allows those artists to go to other networks and say "look, this many people watch my show", helping them sell their shows to big networks. So basically, it would operate as a point of entry service.

        For this to be profitable, you need to get overhead very low, and be able to show a lot of different shows

  • This is perfect for... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Orinthe ( 680210 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @11:04PM (#13524260) Homepage
    This is perfect for me and my roommate--we are college students with our own apartment, and can't afford to get even basic cable service ($52.95/mo?!). We have netflix instead, which is fine for me since I don't watch TV anyway, but she misses her Adult Swim. Internet is a necessity, though, so we have 5Mbps downstream cable internet (more than enough for streaming video). Now we can get the one thing we were missing out on--free and legal!

    Thank you, Cartoon Network!
    • I agree this is great for me for similar reasons. Does anyone know if you have to have a cable subscription to view these? The articles don't say.

    • Re:This is perfect for... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @07:15AM (#13525550)
      This is perfect for me and my roommate--we are college students with our own apartment...she misses her Adult Swim.

      Clearly you made up this story to troll for karma. Any real slashdothead with a collage-age female roomate would not be so worried about tv cartoons when the distraction of sex is so readily available. If you aren't able to distract her from the tv, you just need to learn how to properly catch and eat beaver.

      Same thing holds if you are both girls, in fact, it goes double and requires a webcam.

  • Hmm - I hope they put in some anime (Score:4, Insightful)

    by starseeker ( 141897 ) * on Friday September 09, 2005 @11:10PM (#13524285) Homepage
    as well as the more comedy oriented shows. I can't get into most of the comedy Adult Swim offerings (but then I don't really care even for Family Guy, sans Stewie - Futurama is about they only comedy I really go for) but I do enjoy a lot of their anime shows. I wonder if their contracts for distribution of anime limit what they can do here? Given how many episodes Inuyasha has I would have thought it would be a prime candidate to offer streams of - if you miss an episode it can be a looooong time before it repeats. BigO I would like to see return (although I did crack and get the DVDs for that one). Cowboy Bebop is an obvious one except I expect they know everyone will tune in to see it anyway (but for goodness sake get it out of the 1:30am timeslot! Even geeks sleep eventually.)

    All in all, I must say I have been very pleasantly surprised by Adult Swim - it has definitely broadened my ideas about cartoons - they really AREN'T just for kids. I suppose that's obvious to this crowd, but I didn't know much about anime...

    So anyway, hat's off to Adult Swim for daring to try something new and different in the US. Keep 'em coming!

  • Sneaky (Score:5, Informative)

    by spoonboy42 ( 146048 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @11:12PM (#13524290)
    I recall watching [adult swim] just this last week and seeing a bump (if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's clear you don't watch AS) listing things that definitely WON'T be coming to Adult Swim in the future. One of those things listed was free streaming video on Friday nights. I only wish I could remember what some of the other items on that list were, as it seems the people at Williams Street are pulling another sneaky maneuver like they did with their famous "Aqua Teen Cancellation".
    • it seems the people at Williams Street are pulling another sneaky maneuver like they did with their famous "Aqua Teen Cancellation".
      I wish that the Sealab 2021 cancellation had been a famous sneaky maneuver and the ATHF cancellation was real.
  • Does that mean is STARTS Friday the 26th and most of the stream time would actually happen really early on Saturday the 27th? In other words, can I get off work at 5:00 PM on Friday, come home and get sloshed, then watch cartoons from 11 PM until I pass out (instead of coding)?

    Just wanted to make sure I'm reading TFA correctly, as I've already fulfilled up to the "get sloshed" part of my Friday night plan and I don't know what to put into iCal, as I am going to forget this news in *whispers* seven days */

  • Supernatural Pilot/Premier is online! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @11:15PM (#13524302) Homepage Journal
    Also, Supernatural [yahoo.com] pilot/series premier is already online before its debut on TV (9/13/2005). I had troubles with it in Mozilla v1.7.11 (e.g., controls don't work).

    I really like this ideas of TV shows online.

  • Adult Swim? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Tony Hoyle ( 11698 )
    Water based porn???

    Count me in!

  • I dun bwoke it! (Score:4, Funny)

    by BrynM ( 217883 ) * on Friday September 09, 2005 @11:22PM (#13524329) Homepage Journal
    From the Robot Chicken/Adult Swim error page:
    ERROR

    Please be advised that you almost broke the Internet. Trying to get somewhere? Use the navigation at the top of the page. If you're still having problems, update your browser or your version of Flash. Just stop whatever it is that got you here because it's seriously freaking us out.
    Apparently the Robot Chicken Download Page [adultswim.com] is not quite working... Nice to know they let their geeks get a laugh too at least.

  • Recognize it for what it is (Score:4, Insightful)

    by citking ( 551907 ) <jay.citking@net> on Friday September 09, 2005 @11:29PM (#13524359) Homepage
    CN is doing a huge thing here for their fans. I think it's great that they are doing this for their fans. Just goes to show that some great ideas DO, in fact, make it to reality.

    Adult Swim is (arguably) the best thing that CN is noted for, and by doing this they are making themselves a wider audience. Good for business, good for fans. Good job guys!

  • please be quicktime (Score:3)

    by illtron ( 722358 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @11:31PM (#13524373) Homepage Journal
    ...or anything that's not WMV or Real. I can't tell you how fucking pissed I am when I can't even view CNN's video online using Firefox and Windows. I have no clue what the problem is. Plugin loads, but video doesn't play. Fucking fuck crap.
    • Windows Media Player 9 (ugh) actually plays rather nicely with Mozilla. For Real and Quicktime, try Real Alternative and Quicktime Alternative [hccnet.nl]. They both work very well.
    • Oh please, *none* of those three! Why doesn't anyone apart from P2P'ers use XviD/DivX with MP3 sound? Is it just the stigma? No, instead we have to put up with crappy Real/WM/QT video and sound. In fact, why don't they go with H.264/MPEG-4 AVC [wikipedia.org]? It's the future of broadcast television and offers amazing compression. I've just started playing around with x264 [videolan.org], and it blows away even XviD! And it will only get better with time. I'm sure the commercial developers have already got a better H.264 implementation.

  • Hmm... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Cyno01 ( 573917 )
    Adult swim episodes on the internet? Well, uhm... *cough*

  • why not tonight?? (Score:3, Funny)

    by ManifestDestiny ( 817446 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @12:42AM (#13524596)
    Damnit... i really could have used my daily dose of adult swim tonight. i need my aqua teen. what is a poor stoner to do?
  • Why are they only streaming this stuff between 11 and 6?

    How about streaming it at other times so people who can't watch at night might actually see it?

    I work the graveyard shift (fewer managers, no traffic, more pay, etc) so I'm not home when this stuff is on.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @01:42AM (#13524766)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • there's what cable operators pay to carry us. If we broadcast our material online, whether or not we charge, we've devalued the product.

      Why not allow the cable companies to provide the content to their Cable Internet Customers? I.e. - "Log into your Comcast account to access Comcast TV Online" ? And there's your content.

      Problem solved yes?

  • TV and Video Online (Score:4, Informative)

    by rinkjustice ( 24156 ) <rinkjustice&NO_SPAMrocketmail,com> on Saturday September 10, 2005 @02:13AM (#13524867) Homepage Journal
    I don't have a tv, nor do I want one, but every now and then I want to flake out to some non-interactive entertainment. Here are the sites I've found for free tv and video on the web (that I can remember at 1:48 a.m.)

    http://edition.cnn.com/ [cnn.com] -News fix

    http://www.homestarrunner.com/toons.html [homestarrunner.com] -Not tv or video per se, but strongbad email flash animations are a hoot and close enough

    http://tv.yahoo.com/feature/supernatural.html [yahoo.com] -The show Supernatural online, although I haven't watched it yet. Featured on /.

    http://www.atomfilms.com/ [atomfilms.com] -Everybody knows this one; marginally good

    http://video.freevideoblog.com/ [freevideoblog.com] -Alot of crap, the odd good video

    http://video.google.com/ [google.com] -Random

    http://www.ifilm.com/ [ifilm.com] -See also atomfilms

    http://www.newgrounds.com/ [newgrounds.com] -Way cool, homepage worthy!

    http://tv.reuters.com/ [reuters.com] - more news video than cnn

    http://www.rocketboom.com/vlog [rocketboom.com] - ???, Profit! Actually, I don't know what to say

    http://portal.omroep.nl/uitzendinggemist/ [omroep.nl] -Dutch TV up the wazoo

    http://mediahopper.com/portal.htm [mediahopper.com] -1041 tv stations from all over the world listed and ready to watch (as far as I can tell)

    http://video.search.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com] -Stuff n' things

    http://www.youtube.com/ [youtube.com] -People upload and share their videos online... you've been warned!

    I should add everything here is "family friendly", as far as I'm aware: no porn, uberviolence or gratuitous advertising (if I've somehow overlooked something, I apologise).
  • Just out of cuiousity, is ADV Films somehow pulling the strings on this one? Look at the clues:

    1. ADV suddenly hands over the keys to their flagship anime series (Evangelion) after years of refusing to license the series to any network that would modify the contents (censoring) or show ads mid-episode. (Barring the ADV-sponsered "Giant Robot Week" Cartoon Network ran a couple years ago.)

    2. ADV would have a major interest in seeing something like this work as a way to promote their Anime Network thing they'v
  • I took an online survey (for pay) sometime last semester for Cartoon Network where they demoed a streaing video service.

    It was high quality audio and video. Worked fine in the survey, anfd I liked it and let them know.

    Glad they decided to go ahead with it.

    Of course when you take such surveys you technically arent allowed to talk about them, but I think its ok now.

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