NBC's "The Office" Sucks... so does Piracy

[Aeson]

At least "The Office" does online.

http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/video/episodes.shtml

Every time I try to watch it hiccups every 3-5 seconds (for a few seconds each time). So I try to pause it to allow it to buffer since I do have a slow connection. Then when trying to unpause, it locks up the browser (Firefox or IE) for about a minute and then just starts doing the same thing. If I'm lucky. Other times it just locks up and I have to end the process manually.

Why no low-bandwidth resolutions? Does everyone on mid-range DSL or slower connections just not matter anymore?

I guess the "no buffering" scheme (it does seem to buffer a few seconds at a time) is some sort of anti-piracy measure? Not like this is doing anything to stop those who upload the episodes to YouTube or wherever else. As always Piracy and anti-Piracy only screws law abiding consumers.

The kicker is I can watch the ads just fine most of the time. I don't think I have a right to watch "The Office" online... but I do have a right to not be duped into spending 10 minutes watching adds while hoping to get their player to work right. This is 2007 and virtually every idiot with a website has streaming video that works... and NBC can't figure it out?

[snoopy369]

Why would they care if people "pirate" video that they show freely? I mean, i'm sure they want the ads, but ... if they make it easy to watch, people will; if they make it hard to watch, it will be pirated. I think even NBC understands that.

What they probably don't understand is having stable servers They probably put more money in the ad serving servers, as their stability is probably reported to the ad clients, than to their tv serving servers...

[Aeson]

No... it's definitely some sort of anti-piracy scheme. Of course it won't work, but it's enough to screw it up for me...

Clear your browser cache before visiting the site. It will cache the ad FLV (I just watched it again with a FLV viewer), but the player is somehow circumventing the creation of a cached FLV file for the episode. This is where the instability comes from. You can't pause and let it preload, because it's not preloading in any meaningful way. Also the process to deny the caching, or to delete it as it happens, is almost surely what is locking up the browser.

The only purpose for not caching the FLV is to keep people from easily saving the stream out of their browser cache. The other things it "accomplishes" is to require an extra process to destroy/hide/incrimentally delete/or whatever they're doing with the cache file, and of course increasing server traffic by requiring the re-download of any already viewed portions.

[SlowwHand]

Should I help out? Say the word. I'm here to serve.

[snoopy369]

That makes no sense, though. Just release the video at 320x200. Nobody would bother to pirate that when it's pathetically easy to obtain HD resolutions or anywhere in between... OR JUST WATCH IT FREE ON NBC.COM ... sigh ...

Isn't NBC one of the companies behind the new ... something or another ... internet tv site? I forget what it's called, isn't open yet but will be in a few months or so I think. I'm really helpful here I know.

Hopefully this site either way will use a better technology

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Should I help out? Say the word. I'm here to serve.

No, Aeson wants it Faster, not Slowwer. Sorry ...

[SlowwHand]

That was a low blow. I mean to tell you.

Wait until I get my parts bought. Yeah.

[Aeson]

Here's a site which does work... wonder if it's legit? (the mncast.com links will buffer properly)

http://www.sidereel.com/The_Office

[Aeson]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
That was a low blow. I mean to tell you.

Wait until I get my parts bought. Yeah.

Sadly your new computer won't help my connection speed at all.

"I'm here to serve."





puns

[SlowwHand]

I have all the time that's left to me. I'll do with it what I will. Like I said, lemme know.

[Q Classic]

I'm not going to register for a drm-crippled service. I'm sticking with bittorrent.

[Pekka]

"Why no low-bandwidth resolutions? Does everyone on mid-range DSL or slower connections just not matter anymore?"

That's right, they don't matter. It's a sign of "not mattering anymore". You need to update your connection, so you can be a normal human being again.

Good folks providing you a service, I mean we can't expect them to cater everyone who can't be normal humans. It's like we'd need to hire 40 Chinese smart guys to be a human cable, shouting 1s and 0s between the provider and you. THen we need someone in the provider end to turn the data into binary for the Chinese guys, then at your end we need someone who translates the binary and explains it to an artist who starts sketching everything so you can see what happens. Now that is extremely difficult, and you'd be complainign your ass off with the "lagging" and bad crop. I'm sorry Aeson, but when the provider end is like NYSE times infinity, some 1s and 0s are bound to get mixed up because there's like a million dudes shouting the same thing, and sometimes the cables get mixed up, so you might get little jumps in time. SOooo sorry!

You're lucky to be alive with your DSL.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
That was a low blow. I mean to tell you.

Wait until I get my parts bought. Yeah.