Inbound Thinking

Last night it took two and a half hours to watch LOST. The show is 45 minutes long. The extra hour and a half was spent coping with the utter disaster that ABC calls a video player. It got me thinking about internet video, and how backward the system is today.

For me, there are four ways to consume LOST: I can watch it when it airs on Tuesday night; I can watch it on ABC’s website the following day; I can download it from iTunes; or I can download it from a torrent. I don’t have a DVR so that’s not an option, although I wish it were. I could also probably watch the video on Ninja Video but I’d rather not deal with that site.

Watching the show when it airs is not always possible, this past week I was at a Red Sox game and in future weeks I’ve got other plans, so throw out the when-it-airs option. That leaves watching it on ABC.com or downloading it. I like being able to watch video without planning ahead, so the streaming option is preferable. But after the awful experience of using the ABC video player I’m not sure I ever want to use it again. There were so many bugs I was in shock. How does a big, rich company like ABC put out such a piece of crap? Probably as a way to drive more viewers to live TV where they have better monetization. I had to re-start the video no less than 10 times, each time trying to get back to where I left off and having to watch 30-second commercials just for the permission to skip ahead: ridiculous, I’m not doing that again.

So, by process of elimination, I’m left with downloading the show. I don’t mind paying to download and I’ve bought video on iTunes before. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work. Apple definitely takes my money, but they botch the download. I’ve tried regular and hi-def video and in each case the download gets “corrupted” and needs to start again. I have to manually wipe out the partial download and start over; not fun when you’re downloading two gigabytes. After two days of attempted downloading I gave up and asked for my money back. Apple refunded me and also explained that this is a problem that happens all the time! I’m shocked that a company as successful as Apple and a store as profitable as iTunes can not reliably deliver the content they sell.

So what’s left? Downloading a torrent. Torrents are available, easy to find, fast and reliable. I can download video via torrent faster than I can from iTunes.

Why is internet video so backwards? I’m willing to pay, I’m willing to sit through commercials, hell, I’m willing to fill out a form with my contact info if you just let me watch the video reliably. The technology that is winning the video game is the underground, illegal source. The companies backed by real money and a professional development team can’t deliver as well as a small network of amateurs with video capture and ffmpeg.

It’s tough to feel bad for the video providers getting undercut by illegal downloads when their technology is so poor. They’ve got the power to win this war, but they have to get their distribution to work better than the illicit channel.