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45 Comments
- Play, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's streaming video. Alert the media!! :|
- tito13kfm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"From TFA: "Looking for "The Fugitive?" Didn't get enough "Eight Is Enough?" Would you like to "Welcome Back, Kotter" one more time?"
What the he!! are these shows? Like the old adage goes - 'you get what ya pay for!'."
You are kidding, right? Darn kids and your rap music! Even if you have never seen these shows, you have had to have heard of them. Family guy has done spoofs on both Welcome back kotter, and Eight is Enough. And there was a freaking movie made from the show The Fugitive!
If they release Beverly Hillbillies, Sanford and Son, All in the family, and Green Acres like this then I will be in heaven! - felchdonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm sure there will be a host of problems with this service at the beginning - I'll be interested to see what sort of spy-action the AOL version of Kontiki starts doing on your system, for example - but this is a great step for the majors to take.
A free on-demand television service, running on a peer-to-peer network? I'll watch two minutes of commercials per half hour for that.
I hope this is the beginning of a real on-demand future for television. I can't wait for the day when every show ever aired is on-demand, searchable and (mostly) free. The network shows can go up with an ad-supported version or you can pay $.50 per half hour, and the premium stuff like HBO and Showtime series could be pay-per-episode. No more money for the cable companies, no more paying for channels and shows you never watch... I'm there! - rmccabe916, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This sounds great! More "Pinky and the Brain!"
- Sabarok, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think it's a great start. 2 minutes of commercials for every 30 minutes is not pay-per-view. pay-per-view has no commercials in it, because you have paid to view it.
Compare this to normal cable.
With cable, you're paying a fixed amount of actual dollars every month. If you don't pay, you get absolutely nothing. With this, you pay nothing, it's totally free. If you decide not to pay your $0.00, you still get to keep watching it.
With cable, after having paid for it, you still have to sludge through 8 minutes of commercials every half hour, and you can't fast word passed the commercials as you watch it, unless you record it and watch it after. With this, you get far fewer commercials, and you still can't fast forward past commercials, but because it's free, you're not allowed to record it at all.
With normal TV, you have to look up the exact time a show comes on. If you miss it by an hour, too bad. With the equipment and planning, you can tape a show in advance, and watch it later. With this, it sounds like shows are chosen monthly, rather than every half hour, so all you need is to be in the right month to watch what you want when you want. There may be a delay for the download, but again, it's totally free. The only cost is if you have a monthly quota for downloading, but there's nothing Time Warner can do about that.
I think for a free service, the disadvantages are totally reasonable. If you want to own the content and have more control, there's the DVD. Though not as cheap as Itunes, this type of content has always been more expensive than music.
A quick check on amazon:
Firefly DVD is $2.10 / episode
Sopranos Season 2 is $5 / episode
DS9 Season 1 is $5.85 / episode
Though the DVDs do come with lots of extra content, most people buy it for the episodes (and you can't buy them without the extra content for a lower price)
So the question is, how much are people willing to spend / episode. The more you're willing to pay, the more you will get for your money. This new service is also a great way to sample shows free. I for one never got to see most of the babylon 5 series because it simply wasn't on the air where I was. Yeah, it has a lot of drawbacks, but what do you expect from something totally free? - roguepirate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I wonder if you have to be an AOL subscriber, which means this would be an effort to gain back users. If not, then this would be bad-ass (if implemented correctly)
- xjeffx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is a great idea that I've been hoping somebody would do for a long time! Maybe they'll release the episodes that are being cut from Arrested Development :)
- felchdonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Guess I didn't RT whole FA, either. I hope this doesn't mean I'll be halfway through Chico and the Man, just to have it get pulled out from under me...
- northwichweb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Not available in the UK, though :-(
- FunHeadlines, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You may like watching Chico, but Warner will still act like The Man. Can you save these episodes to the media of your choice? Nope, it's pay-per-view, with the pay part being handled by being forced to sit through commercials. I'm not into pay-per-view. I want to pay my bucks for the episodes I want, and then own what I paid for. Own it, save it, privately remix it if I want to.
Wake me up when that happens. In other words, when the media companies wake up to the iTunes model more fully. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0call me when they release the invaders
- zander106, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Whoops, remind me to RTFA:
"The company will offer a changing selection of several hundred episodes each month, rather than providing continuous access to all the episodes in a series, Mr. Frankel said, so as not to cannibalize potential DVD sales of old TV shows."
That's not ideal, but also not so different from existing offerings I've seen like HBO's On Demand on Time Warner Cable. It still suggests that I could watch all of The Fugitive from start to finish over several months. - Dgen_X, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0hopefully the 2 minutes of commercials will be broken up to fit the same two commercial slot per half hour setup that most tv shows have
putting a 2 minute commercial block in the middle of a show just wouldn't make sense... - jaffo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hopefully you won't be required to use IE to get to the site and view TV shows.
They aren't *quite* embracing the future of distribution just yet - I don't believe they will be there until all of their content is available all of the time - not this BS where things are only viewable for a month or so.
It is a step in the right direction. Seems like they are testing the waters... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I have to agree with tito13kfm. Many of these shows are the foundation of television today. If you go back far enough, you'd see that everything you like was inspired by something that you wouldn't like today. At a minimum, having these shows available for historical purposes is a step in the right direction.
- GolfDude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0fewer commericals mean shows can be aired unedited (as in no forced fade outs or commericals or speed ups at wrong locations of the show)
- t1c52002, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It is open to anyone at aol.com in 2006. you do not thank god need to be a subsciber to watch.
- dougieb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I never really though of how much cheaper it would be if they sold shows with ads in them. That would bring the prices down significantly.
Here's another story about this: http://www.gadgetell.com/entry/97 - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I wonder if they'll include the old Warner Bros. cartoons from the 50s through the 70s? Those were the best.
- felchdonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Looking for "The Fugitive?" Didn't get enough "Eight Is Enough?" Would you like to "Welcome Back, Kotter" one more time?" What the he!! are these shows?"
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Wow. I knew our children were getting stupider every year, but I had no idea they were even stupid about TELEVISION. I grew up with TV in the '80s, but I still knew about shows from the '50s and '60s like Beverly Hillbillies, Dragnet, Leave it to Beaver, I Love Lucy, Green Acres, etc.
I guess some people can't handle anything that doesn't come with CG explosions and/or fart jokes. - RodeoRobot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's cool thet they're releasing the Babylon 5 series. It's a great show. Too bad it's just streaming, and no download.
AOL Press Release: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/051114/20051114005575.html?.v=1 - TheVetos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0...and so it begins
- Flyngwalrus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0FINALLY!
- juu801, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's a lot better than suing people.
- compu73rg33k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I wish all the TV companies would just say "You're allowed to trade the shows on p2p networks, bt, etc."
- shagybones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I should part my favorite tidbit of knowledge I learned in a college classroom
"When you watch TV with commercials you are the whore and the TV networks are the Pimp"
Think about it and you will understand. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Finally episodes of Welcome Back Kotter will be available for on demoand viewing. I hope this service pans out.
- Angel00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This sounds promising. Alot better than trying to release it on DVD and charge alot of money. I'll be waiting to see what they offer. Hopefully some of my old favorites :).
- xofc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Can't wait for animaniacs... talk about a show that shouldn't have been canceled.
- danmanx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Guys, this is amazing news. We're talking about getting every show of the ones listed *FOR FREE*. Hopefully, we'll be able to view them offline also. Two Mins of commercials; you know what? I don't find that objectionable at all.
This is fantastic news. LEGAL TV shows to watch for nothing. Who knows? Maybe they'll let you even save them also.
I would rather have a service like this than have cable. I have a feeling this is going to be a hit. I mean, come on, they are showing Perfect Strangers! I love that show. I'm hope they add more WB shows to the list that are a bit newer for my generation. - starpage85, on 06/18/2008, -0/+0Here's another site that offers free online tv
http://www.tvweb360.com - doxtorray, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ooh, Cannon??
- diehard2k5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Sounds like an awesome concept. I'm sure these will be windows media files streamed through an mms:// or rtsp:// server with DRM though, I suspect that after it comes out, someone will be able to crack the DRM.
- Quintessence, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It is free. I cannot argue with that.
- terafunker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"It is open to anyone at aol.com in 2006"
Anyone else suspicious about aol.com's relationship with Time Warner is the near future? - Utile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0>I wonder if this will cannibalize DVD sales?
I don't think so. The cost to make a digital copy of a show and distribute it on the Internet is _much lower_ than the cost to produce and distribute a DVD of the same content. So Warner Brothers may not have any plans to release some of these series on DVD, but can justify the much lower cost of making them available online. Also, there may be some viewers who want to watch a particular episode of a show, but are not interested in purchasing and owning a whole season's worth of shows.
Another point: many are referring to the shows as being available "for free." They are not. What is happening is that advertisers are paying for your time and attention to the commercials (which cannot be skipped, as the article makes a point of mentioning); in exchange, you get to view the program.
Because Warner Brothers plans to make different shows available every month, it is obvious they are testing the waters. As pointed out by other people commenting on this article, what consumers really want is:
1) shows with no commercial interruptions
2) access to any show, any time, playable anywhere (PC, TV, cell phone, etc.)
In addition, some--though not all--viewers want to own a copy of the show.
Until these conditions exist, the content providers will likely not be able to attract a large number of viewers. - diehard2k5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Quote:
I wish all the TV companies would just say "You're allowed to trade the shows on p2p networks, bt, etc."
Well, thats a wish that never is going to happen. Television companies are very protective of their copyrights, and the more people downloading the shows off of bitTorrent, to them, makes them think that less people are actually watching the show on TV. If less people watch it on TV, the ratings will go down, advertisers will not want to put ads on the shows, (Remember, more viewers means a wider audience for the advertising = more people buying crap like George Foreman grills.).
If the TV companies would just take the hint, and release these shows with ads, completely downloadable and such, it would be perfect.
That's probably not going to happen though. - Eccohawk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ah, it sounds close to perfection...now if i can just find a way to keep that post it note on the monitor so it covers up 'AOL', i'm all good.
- jfox00, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0From TFA: "Looking for "The Fugitive?" Didn't get enough "Eight Is Enough?" Would you like to "Welcome Back, Kotter" one more time?"
What the he!! are these shows? Like the old adage goes - 'you get what ya pay for!'. - dragondaw, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0too old. don't really care for the "classics" aka "crap". release some new stuff. Get with the times!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I support anything that provides me content on demand via the internet. I hope Kevin was right when he said that blockbuster will be dead in 5 years. There is no reason to have the middlemen around anymore
http://plueballs.libsyn.com/ - kaemaril, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Why do I get the feeling this won't be Linux-friendly ...
- zander106, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0This is a neat idea. I wonder if this will cannibalize DVD sales? Or it seems that these are series they may never have released on DVD anyway. Or they are figuring that people will pay a premium for higher quality DVD with extra content.
In any case, I think all the major media companies should take the same step and open up their archives for free. They can only make more money doing so, and while there are costs to distribution, if they can build a solid infrastructure early that can scale up easily to handle more content then this could have real potential for delivering current or recent shows as well.
Sure, a lot of this old stuff will be crap. But I never got around to watching Babylon 5, so I'd probably check that out. - zodiacal, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0but can i play them on my modded xbox?
- jeffreym, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Thank intelligent design!
http://celestial-reasoning.blogspot.com/
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