Filed under: iTS, Multimedia, Video, iTunes
Lost, Desperate Houswives will be free on the web
Disney announced
today that it will make episodes of both Lost and Desperate Housewives available for free via the web,
starting in June. The files will feature "chapters" to let users quickly jump ahead in the episode, though
not past the embedded commercials. The article merely says that the shows will be available "...on the
internet," which sounds like they mean outside of the iTMS. Both Lost and Desperate
Housewives have been big sellers for Apple, so this seems like an odd move for Disney (they are calling the project
a two month experiment). I can't imagine that the shows will be available for free via the web while they're still
$1.99US in the iTMS, so we'll see what happens. Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
frank patrick said 3:07PM on 4-10-2006
$1.99 without commercials, free with commercials
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Michael said 3:12PM on 4-10-2006
1.99 for a commercial free version, free for a commercial version makes money either way.
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ronn said 3:29PM on 4-10-2006
Commercial-free or not, why would anyone buy another episode?
Aside: Make this a true blog: Allow navigation to prior and next entries available immediately. Hate going back to the home page when a single click should do.
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Brian Baute said 3:35PM on 4-10-2006
Sounds like it's free streaming episodes, not free downloadable episodes. That makes a big difference.
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Reid Bode said 3:39PM on 4-10-2006
I'm guessing it'll be like the March Madness content was: online streaming you can only watch on the computer. So, no portability.
And the only way you could watch on a TV would be hooking up the computer to it.
If you want to take it with you, $1.99.
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narco said 3:50PM on 4-10-2006
I'm assuming that if this is available outside of iTunes, then they'll probably enable it to where you can't skip the commercials, or they'll put the commercials in banner-form on the bottom of the screen.
I think it's a good move because anyone will download something for free and the advertisers probably are aware of this.
Fishes,
narco.
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arkowi said 3:54PM on 4-10-2006
ronn,
two words, tabbed browsing.
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Quicksilver801 said 4:03PM on 4-10-2006
i can kinda see where they are comming from. Lost and DH are shows if you havent been watchign it for awhile then you dont know whats going on. This hooks people into the shows then they will purchase the newest one on itunes or watch it on the TV each week. Pretty smart imo but they will soon cut it off the internet after ur hooked. Remeber Jobs has a big say in Disney now also (pixar deal) i doubt the board will want to piss off their highest shareholder.
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bt said 4:05PM on 4-10-2006
Okay, but to prevent you from skipping through commercials, they would likely need a custom video player that knows not to scrub past the embedded commercials. (Unless they're bannered along the bottom, as mentioned above.) This also says to me that these videos will not be easily playable on the iPod without conversion. Isn't iPod playback the main draw of buying videos from the iTMS?
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Jabbar said 4:07PM on 4-10-2006
ronn-
you can also click on recent posts. or get an rss reader.
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Todd said 4:11PM on 4-10-2006
The Reuters article makes NO mention of what streaming file format Disney plans on using. QuickTime Streaming Server? Real? Microsoft? Jobs on the Disney board aside, I'm wondering if these shows will be viewable on Mac OS X. Naturally it would be pretty stupid if they weren't.
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kg said 5:00PM on 4-10-2006
I've read elsewhere that you won't be able to skip the commercials. This tells me, as bt says, that it's a custom player. It's probably Flash-based to be universal. That's good for Mac users, and hopefully given enough bandwidth, Flash video quality doesn't have to suck mightily (unless all submissions to YouTube and Google Video started out that way).
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Reynor said 6:02PM on 4-10-2006
bt- i download 'em to watch on my TV via my mini. i hardly ever watch em on my iPod.
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Thomas said 6:07PM on 4-10-2006
It's a great idea. I hope they are not just 'web based' as I'd buy a video iPod if I could add TV for free!! So what, there is commercials. That's time to feed the cats, get food or go to the bathroom. Excellent idea! I just hope they don't make them flash and low-bandwidth.
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Phillip said 6:30PM on 4-10-2006
Most likely streamed episodes that only stay on their site for a week or something similar.
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Reg said 7:56PM on 4-10-2006
Given that for a nominal one hour program there are only 43 mins of content, wasting 17 mins of my life watching something I don't want to see is easily worth $1.99.
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db said 9:54PM on 4-10-2006
Um guys- it's called "summer" - it happens when it gets hot outside and most networks start running reruns of popular shows. If they were trying this in-season I would be startled, but this is just a longevity thing to keep the interest ball in the air.
Chances are they will do iTunes as well as pre-packed streaming. Or just the latter stacked with commercials.
Either way, they aren't going to harm the cash cow during milking season.
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starwxrwx said 2:35AM on 4-11-2006
another site had deets - its flash streaming
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jaysee said 7:37AM on 4-11-2006
For all the people dissing this, I'm assuming you're in the US. For those of us not in the states (or another country that offers ITMS video) this is fantastic!
In Australia we've only just started Lost and Desperate Housewives seasons 2 and Alias season 5 has been cancelled. This will give me the oportunity to legally and for free watch the shows - much sooner than they come out here. We don't have the option of ad-free and paying money so this is always good.
I just hope they don't come up with a way to block all but US computers although I can't see how they would - the only way ITMS manages is by requiring you have a US credit card which obviously wouldn't be an issue here.
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