ABC Launches Full Episode Streaming

Cjattwood writes "ABC.com has launched their free online episode streaming service earlier today. Shows available include Lost and Alias among others, and are available to watch for free, albeit with ads and commercials. It works pretty well so far, although no Linux support yet as it requires Flash 8." The first episode of Lost on there is a clip show. You can skip around to a segment of the show, but are forced through a commercial before you play. The quality is approximately what you would expect from flash video.

Flash 8

[zentagonist]

... When IS linux going to get Flash 8 anyway? Lack of it has been limiting my web-browsing ability for a little while now. Just curious. I saw this earlier today and really wanted to try it out. :-/

With ad's?

[PitaBred]

With ad is? Or did the submitter mean "ads", as in more than one ad? We live in a world where text is becoming more and more ubiquitous... why are people so lazy about it?

Flash the new video standard

[iammaxus]

Is anyone else surprised at how Flash has become the new standard for video distribution? Google Video, YouTube, etc all use Flash for displaying video, mainly, i think, to reach the widest segment of the population. I wonder if Macromedia itself ever predicted that Flash's wide availability would become its selling point for streaming video. I think this is a bad trend because it is hiding more and more of the content from the browser. I would have liked to see W3C specify some formats and controls for video that browsers should support. Instead, multimedia on the web is taking browsers towards just being an extra frame around a Flash frame. W3C: We all like focus on the semantic web stuff, but you gotta get with times and get multimedia standardized too. SVG is just a small step in that direction.

Re:Apple iTunes store lawsuit?

[saddino]

Apple is likely aware of it, and probably not concerned a whit:

The versions on iTMS are pay once, own forever (not streaming).
The versions on iTMS are ad free.

For $1.99, I'd rather get Lost on iTMS and pipe it to my TV from my iPod.

Ehh....not too bad..

[daivzhavue]

Sure its Windows only. Sure its US only. But it works for the target population.

May 1st to June 30?

[j2crux]

Is this a trial period? Or did I miss the disclaimer?

Re:Quality

[Bastian]

I'll grant, my computer is three years old so it's not state-of-the-art, but it's certainly not ancient, and it was a pretty decent machine when I got it. Flash video sucks something fierce on it. I honestly don't care too much about the picture quality. What gets me is that for whatever reason the player is so inefficient that I can't keep the audio even remotely synced up. After playing something for about 30 seconds the video will trail the audio a good three or four seconds. Maybe when the player starts dropping frames to keep up I'll be interested in anything that uses Flash Video, but not before.

Flash Video Quality

[Nazmun]

What the hell is that supposed to mean? The summary could have at least mentioned the codec used or the bit rate.

Re:Damn

[Saeger]

"Only viewers within the United States can watch these full length episodes."

Or anyone with a list of US-based proxies, heh.

Yeah - if you don't mind the higher latency (double the hops), waste of bandwidth, and setup hassle. lawl. I can see you've never tried streaming through some random non-logging proxy, or through Tor. Sure you can use it to streamrip a copy, but why bother at that point? Just torrent it.

here's how they handle the ads

[mbius]

I fired up LOST just to see how they'd handle the advertising...first 30-second Tylenol plug is 9 minutes in. Then you click to keep watching.

The blue stripes on the progress bar tell you where the commercials are. The others are at 15:25, 24:15 (in a 43 minute program, and you aren't goosed with another one at the end!). You can seek anywhere that's been "unlocked."

Having to click "resume show" after every commercial is a feature I'd like to see "LOST." By clicking in unlocked sections, you can watch all 3 commercials in succession , then have an uninterrupted show.

You aren't forced to sit through more than 30 seconds of an ad if it runs over.
Compared to the 7-min-on, 3-off network standard, it's kind of pleasant. And seeking *works*, seamlessly, in contrast to what I've come to expect with flash video.

Already been done...

[ImaLamer]

The device/application(s) is (are) called:

BetaMAX
VCR
TiVO
DVR
MythTV
BeyondTV
...
GBPVR

These are free shows that are broadcast throughout the world unencrypted, why would you want to record the Flash version? This is getting ridiculous. Only on slashdot do you read about people who steal free shit.

I'm not surpised at all

[calstraycat]

Is anyone else surprised at how Flash has become the new standard for video distribution?

For ten years MS, Apple and Real have been fighting to make their proprietary streaming solutions the default for the internet. They have failed and I'm glad.

I'm no fan of Flash, but I'm sick to death of having to have all three of these media players installed. I'm sick of having to update them all time. I'm sick of browser plugins that don't work. I'm sick of content that will only work with WMP on Windows. I'm sick of having to "choose a player" when I visit a site, asking my connection speed, asking me to register for premium content and on and on.

And I'm not alone. You're average user doesn't want to and often doesn't know how to download, update and install this stuff. They don't know what number to type when it asks them about connection speed. Content providers are sick of it, too. They are inundated with constant complaints and support emails from people who can't see the video. So, the said "screw you Apple, screw you MS, screw you Real, were gonna use Flash".

And the kids love it. They type "YouTube" into Yahoo search and click the Play button on their favorite video. No fuss. No muss. Nothing to download. Instant gratification. The kids don't give two shits about the quality. It's simple and it works.

That's why Flash is the new standard in video streaming.