NBC Direct: TV When You Want, Sorta

The Peacock network finally launched its NBC Direct downloading site, which features a handful of TV episodes that you can download for free—but you must watch them within seven days, the ads aren't skippable, and you can't transfer shows to a portable device or a set-top box. That's one too many caveats for me.

NBC Direct is, of course, the network's latest stab at online video since it broke off contract talk with Apple in August. Late last month, NBC and Fox launched a private beta for Hulu.com, a would-be YouTube competitor that offers streaming episodes of NBC and Fox shoes; now comes NBC Direct, which lets you download selected NBC shows for free—albeit with some onerous restrictions, including commercials that you can't skip.

The NBC Direct service went live over the weekend, and I've been giving it a try for the past couple of days. The site isn't exactly a click-and-watch service like Hulu; once you get to the main page, you're asked to download a series of components to Internet Explorer (no Mac support for now), a process that took about five minutes. Once that was all set, I picked a show to download (choices include "30 Rock," "Life," "The Office," "Bionic Woman," "Friday Night Lights," and "Heroes"—I'm guessing more shows will go live in the near future) and the NBC Direct application launched, which features an in-line viewing window and tabs for selecting and managing your shows. I picked the latest episode of "Life"; the download was finished relatively quickly, I'd say in less than five minutes (your mileage will vary, of course, depending on your Net connection).

Something funny happened on the way to watching my show, however. I clicked Play, and sat through my first 30-second commercial (for Bertolli pasta), but before the show proper could begin, I got an error—turns out I had to upgrade some components in Windows Media Player. I surfed to a Microsoft support page and clicked Upgrade, and I was set in under a minute. Still, annoying that I had to tinker with Windows Media Player updates.

Anyway, I finally got the episode working, and it looked pretty good; a click in the NBC Direct app launched the full-screen mode, and the image looked relatively clean and sharp, especially compared to the pixelated images on Hulu, and the stereo soundtrack was impressively aggressive.

So yes, the actual video looks and sounds nice, and I like the option to subscribe so that new episodes download automatically. But then the restrictions kick in: downloaded episodes are good for only seven days, after which time the license expires and you're left with a useless file. No Mac support, and you can't even play the episode on your portable media player or on a set-top box (NBC says portable player support is on its to-do list). And to add insult to injury, you still have to sit through ads—just four or five 30-second ads in the episode I watched, although presumably there could be more if advertiser interest picks up.

NBC is promising extras like commentary tracks on selected episodes, and the ability to transfer a show to a PlaysForSure-compatible player would be most welcome, but the seven-day viewing limit on top of nonskippable commercials makes for a bitter pill. Remove the expiration date, and maybe we'd have something here. That said, I think I'd rather just pay the $1.99 to download a commercial-free, watch-as-long-as-you-want episode from Amazon Unbox.

What's your take? You willing to deal with a seven-day viewing window and commercials for free video downloads?