By Rob Pegoraro
Thursday, October 4, 2007
For years, the Internet has been cutting into my television consumption. Now, though, it's made me halfway literate about the new TV season.
That's not because I've been plucking video downloads from BitTorrent or some other file-sharing system. I haven't spent $50 on a batch of shows from Apple's iTunes store, either.
Instead, the credit goes to the networks themselves, which have put copies of many of the current season's shows on their Web sites.
A click on the "full episodes" or "on demand" links there lets you check out this season's fare -- see if "Dirty Sexy Money" lives up to the hype and find out if "Family Guy" still has it -- as long as you don't mind a few short, unskippable, ads along the way.
That's almost the same bargain that the networks have offered television viewers for decades. But none tried to replicate it online until last year.
Now ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and the CW -- but not PBS -- provide free Web streaming of most of their shows. You just need a broadband connection, a new Web browser (Firefox or Internet Explorer on a PC, Firefox or Safari on a Mac) and the patience, in a few cases, to install a new browser plug-in, with easy-to-follow steps.
They also share some fairly mediocre video quality. Few of these Web copies will be mistaken for high-definition television.
Nor do these sites provide downloads to view on an iPod or another computer. You can take your TV with you only if your laptop has a wireless data card.
But in this context, crummy-to-adequate, online-only video is fine. We're talking TV sitcoms and dramas, most of which aren't entertainment for the ages.
Consider the alternatives if you miss a show: You can pay $1.99 at iTunes for a download you probably won't watch twice, ask your co-workers whether they have a tape or DVD to lend, or put concerns about legality on pause while you look up the show on a file-sharing site.
But although the networks "air" their shows online in similar ways, they don't succeed equally.
NBC makes it as painless as possible to watch a show. Its site did not require any extra software, since it relies on the Flash plug-in installed on most computers. (CBS and the CW also refrain from requiring extra programs.)
NBC also splits each show into DVD-style chapters, which helps when skipping ahead to part of an episode. And though most of the 14 shows offered online feature only this year's episodes -- as is the case at other networks -- NBC provides every episode of "Friday Night Lights," from last year's pilot to this week's season premiere.
NBC, however, replicates the worst of traditional TV ads: Over an hour-long episode, I was treated to six commercial breaks, all featuring the same two sponsors and most repeating the same ads.
Fox presents 15 shows online and requires installing a "Move Media Player" plug-in. Fox's site had glitches, stalling on an old Windows laptop and sometimes failing to get back to the show after commercials.
Both Fox and NBC will also offer their shows on a new site called Hulu later this year.
The CW offers 10 shows online.
ABC had the first good streaming video of its shows last year. It now offers high-definition versions of some of the 16 series offered online -- if you have the required 2 megabit-per-second connection.
But although ABC uses the same Move plug-in as Fox, its site required me to reinstall that software to watch anything.
ABC has the least intrusive, most effective advertising. Here, an hour-long show can come with only four commercials from the same sponsor. These aren't 30-second spots copied from TV; they're interactive, Web-only presentations. You might even remember who bought these ads -- which, as much as you might hate being a tool of corporate America, is necessary for free online TV to stick around.
CBS provides Web copies of 21 of its shows online with a minimum of commercial interruption. Its site, however, exhibited playback hiccups like Fox's, and its video quality was a little suspect at times.
CBS is also providing full-length copies of its shows on a new service called Joost, which launched in a test version on Monday. Cable shows from CBS's corporate cousin, Viacom, such as MTV's "The Hills," can also be seen on Joost.
Joost, run by developers of the Skype Internet-phone service, requires you to download and run a separate program. Like Skype, it uses a bit of your bandwidth to improve service for other users.
Joost presents a flashy but simple on-screen grid of video sources, including CBS shows, but also such other seemingly random content as Nicaraguan baseball games and Indian music videos.
The interesting part about Joost is not its interface, however, but the fact that a major American network is willing to experiment with such a new distribution mechanism.
That's quite a contrast with the movie studios, which continue to offer some of the least attractive, least flexible online viewing options imaginable. It's hard to believe that the networks and the studios are in the same business.
Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro atrobp@washpost.com. Read more athttp://blog.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/
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