Filed under: Video, Internet Tools
ABC launches free streaming experiment
Starting today through June 30th, ABC is experimenting with streaming some of their primetime shows on the web, for free. Now, you will have to watch ads (though you do that when you watch these shows on TV, so that isn't a deal breaker for me) and you'll have to watch them on your computer.
The good news for Mac users? ABC is streaming these shows via Flash video, so we can actually watch them on our Macs (as long as you have Flash 8 installed, of course).
Update: I failed to mention that this is USA only.
Thanks, Dave Zatz.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
zx said 11:12AM on 5-01-2006
US only...i tried to use google translation but it didn't work.
Reply
Joe said 11:12AM on 5-01-2006
I can't view them since I'm in Canada... What's the deal? I hope this changes...
Reply
Marc-Siebren said 11:18AM on 5-01-2006
only from within the USA... you might have mentioned that quite important limitation in the article... unless, of course, you only aim for readers in the USA ;-)
Reply
Eric said 11:18AM on 5-01-2006
where can i find a high speed (paid) proxy... ?
maybe i should just go to the states for my postgraduate studies.
Reply
alex said 11:18AM on 5-01-2006
use a US proxy to access the site.
Reply
John said 11:27AM on 5-01-2006
I'm very impressed with the quality and speed of this. And the commercials aren't that bad. I like that it gives you a countdown til when the show is back on. I was watching last weeks Alias. Good stuff, ABC. And gotta love that it works on the Mac and makes great use of Flash video.
Reply
zx said 11:29AM on 5-01-2006
got it... http://www.ghacks.net/2006/05/01/howto-watch-abc-tv-streams-outside-the-usa/
Reply
Alasdair Allan said 12:14PM on 5-01-2006
I actually have slight more sympathy with this not working outside the US than I did when it turned out that you couldn't download the episodes from iTunes. That said, I don't have that much sympathy. In fact, it's really rather annoying...
Reply
Josh Delsman said 12:50PM on 5-01-2006
Well, maybe it's me, but this is supremely busted in Safari. Firefox, too. What's up?
Reply
KG said 1:04PM on 5-01-2006
Seems like a no brainer for a network to do this; you get ad hits when your site is visited and then commercial hits when the shows are viewed. Not sure how great this is for consumers though. I for one don't want to sit and stream video on my computer; will either DVR it and catch hi def on my TV or download from iTunes to watch when travelling. But free is free so I imagine the response will be decent.
Reply
Noel said 2:28PM on 5-01-2006
Totally impressed with the quality! Even glad it sits on a black screen. They really could have flubbed this with animated banner ads all over, but they did it right.
I love it, but my only beef: I'm on a cable IP, but ABC detected too slow of a connection so couldn't take advantage of full screen.
#9/Josh: It worked great for me in Safari 2.0.3/OS 10.4.5.
-N
Reply
mathmonkey said 2:53PM on 5-01-2006
Looks good. Great for us parents. Any idea how to get this to fullscreen?
Reply
Bootes said 4:26PM on 5-01-2006
Eric give me a way to contact you, I might have what you need.
Reply
Eric said 5:38PM on 5-06-2006
Bootes mail me at thesaint@logriver.com cheers
Reply
JJ said 5:43PM on 7-26-2006
What happened with this experiment? I know it was supposed to be limited, but I can't find it anywhere and I've never been able to access it. I was looking forward to catching some missed episodes on my computer.
Reply