NBC Direct offering HD Downloads of Shows

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For Windows only, NBC is offering an application that runs in the background and can download and watch shows offline. It works with Firefox or Internet Explorer, and contains both ads and restricted use, ensuring you can’t copy the files or transfer them to your mobile device.

Now, DRM annoys us, but ultimately, we understand it on any service offered free. We hate it on services we pay for. The software also has some downsides. By installing it, you agree to be added to the NBC P2P(Peer-to-Peer) network. So other NBC Direct users will be downloading files from your computer as you download from theirs…essentially the same system BitTorrent uses.

We object to this, as from what we’ve read, it gives NBC too much control over your connection speed. We like the idea of being able to download a file and play it, eliminating the buffer issues that plague so many of these sites. But in an ideal universe, we’d prefer digital rights management implemented in the following manner.

You download a video file. If it is to be done by P2P, a P2P client can be used. Or direct download can be offered. The DRM is in the player. The file is impossible to decode without a locked player that requires an internet connection to work to get a decryption key. And the key can be cached along with the ads to work for a certain number of hours without an internet connection. We haven’t thought out the details of how this might work, but this is similar to some schemes used before. It would also allow copying to any computer that had the player installed. We’ll leave it up to the content providers to consider this. Furthermore, if they build this player on a platform offered on Flash or Silverlight, both of which have or will soon have Linux support and already have Mac support, they can ensure the same piece of software will work on any system.

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