NBC Universal has announced that it will move all of its new 2007-2008 programming to the Amazon Unbox digital service.
This comes on the heels of the peacock network’s announcement last week that it would stop providing its TV entries on the highly popular Apple iTunes downloading service.
Amazon.com Inc. and NBC Universal said that episodes of programs such as “The Office” and “Heroes” are currently available for $1.99 on Unbox, and that new episodes will be added to the site they day after they air. Customers will be able to buy an entire season of a show at once. For this coming season’s lineup up new SF offerings, NBC and Amazon will offer free downloads of the pilot episodes of “Bionic Woman” and “Chuck” beginning starting September 10, 2007.
Does Amazon Unbox still use Windows DRM? That DRM scheme has been cracked. Apple’s video DRM has yet to be cracked. There goes NBC’s argument about Apple’s anti-piracy efforts. As long as I can get better encoded TV show on bittorent, I’ll never pay for a TV show.
(Eddieta said)
“Does Amazon Unbox still use Windows DRM? That DRM scheme has been cracked.”
I don’t think NBC cares about Microsoft’s hacked DRM. They probably assume piracy of NBC’s shows will remain at about the same level as before. They just don’t want to share revenue with Apple. Of course, now they have to share revenue with Amazon.
My main concern is with the quality of the product and the restrictions of the DRM. If the quality on Unbox is not better then what I can get on Bit Torrent or if the DRM scheme is overly restrictive why would I go with NBC’s Unbox solution?
Also, what happened to Hulu.com? Just a week a ago it was announced that was where NBC would offer it’s new shows. What’s the matter, can’t these guys make up there minds?
Unbox doesn’t work with Macs, does it? Not only that, but their service doesn’t work with DirecTV TiVo units either.
Netflix’s “watch it now” feature doesn’t work with Macs either.
WTF? Don’t they realize that people with iPods are highly likely to use Macs? Or is that part of the whole problem?
They are so damaging my calm…