NBC: Free, Full Episodes Of 'The Office' And '30 Rock' For iPhones

Michael Learmonth | May 7, 2008 4:59 PM

office.jpgNBC's animus toward iTunes is well-documented. But the corporate rivalry between Apple (AAPL) and NBC U doesn't extend to the iPhone, apparently.

NBC is streaming full episodes of "The Office" and "30 Rock" to the iPhone in unprotected Quicktime format. Without advertising. Go figure.

To get there, go to nbc.com on an iPhone (or presumably, an iPod touch). Scroll past Howie Mandel and Sam Waterston, and NBC invites you to "WATCH FULL EPISODES!"

Be warned: the quality is pretty bad and our borrowed iPhone froze twice.

But the mere presence of NBC content on the iPhone is counterintuitive. Keep in mind that Hulu, which distributes NBC content outside of NBC.com-owned sites, streams in Flash, which is not supported by the iPhone.

We're calling NBC to get clarity on this, which seems to go against at least two of CEO Jeff Zucker's objectives: protect shows from piracy and stick it to Steve Jobs' Apple.

See Also: Microsoft's Zune Adds NBC Shows, Other Features; Still Unable To Combat Fierce Apathy

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13 Comments

Wow, looks terrible on the iPhone. Very cool of NBC to experiment with QuickTime streams (and a nice iPhone version of their website that I wasn't aware of), but the quality of the video stream is atrocious.
Michael Learmonth said:
Agreed. Pretty much unwatchable on the iPhone I borrowed.
Perhaps this is NBC's new way of preventing piracy? Stream videos in unprotected QT format, but make them absolutely unwatchable?
Dan Frommer said:
Ha!
Tom said:
The reason they suck is they're using 3gp, this isn't iPhone format this is just 'cell phone' format. You can grab the dl's from here:

http://m.nbc.com/iphone/fullepisodes.shtml

Poor move.
Fabio said:
Obviously it doesn't work outside US :-(
Tom said:
The reason they suck is they're using 3gp, this isn't iPhone format this is just 'cell phone' format. You can grab the dl's from here:

http://m.nbc.com/iphone/fullepisodes.shtml
http://m.nbc.com/iphone/fullepisodepages/38_1.shtml

Poor move.

here's an example clip, which wasn't too hard to get to:
http://video.starcutusa.com/preview/NBC/45d0030d_142641_8473671_231.3gp

It fails hard even on a pc.
Tom said:
The reason they suck is they're using 3gp, this isn't iPhone format this is just 'cell phone' format. You can grab the dl's from here:

http://m.nbc.com/iphone/fullepisodes.shtml
http://m.nbc.com/iphone/fullepisodepages/38_1.shtml

Poor move.

here's an example clip, which wasn't too hard to get to:
http://video.starcutusa.com/preview/NBC/45d0030d_142641_8473671_231.3gp

It fails hard even on a pc.
Tom said:
Damn thing, saying my captcha didn't work and it obviously did.
Ahh... 3GP... man, I forgot all about that craptastic format. It also explains why the audio wasn't even synched up to the video. Thanks for the info Tom.
AdamC said:
Most of NBC shows are available on the web for free and I wonder why they have DRMed them.
Try ovguide.com, most of the shows are available there (for those who have broadband).
Rick said:
Sorry, but as long as this is US-only (like the Hulu embed telling me "f*** off you filthy foreigner"), the only correct headline is:

"NBC stimulates global piracy. Again."
PDE said:
This is great, but did you see the news today that you can now stream live or recorded TV (any video for that matter) to the IPhone or ITouch?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/08/iphone_orb_native/

This is the wave of the future!

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