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yellow5 said:
Especially when my display is larger & of a higher quality than my TV!
Too bad the quality of the iTunes TV shows suck. At least if you try to watch them on anything other then a tiny iPod screen.
 
arn said:
this makes sense to me. I think all pilot episodes should be free. You want to hook viewers. I recently saw the pilot of Love Monkey, which I liked and told my friends to watch it... but there wasn't an easy way for people to watch the pilot if they missed it.

(Love Monkey, btw, has now been canceled after 3 episodes, which makes little sense)

Clever show. Considering the ratings of shows like "Scrubs" and "Arrested Development" (cancelled) clever humor is apparently a fatal flaw.

I hope iTunes becomes a destination for smaller shows that may not draw big enough ratings to get full season orders but have enough appeal to work online. Apple is in a fantastic position to present shows developed specifically for online distribution.

Now about that set-top box...
 
ehurtley said:
So the individual download links work fine, but the 'GET SEASON' button is broken.

As for the ESPN ads? They're not that funny... (Oh well, they're free. I've got every other free iTunes download...)

These are the bad ones too, with all the new, lame-duck anchors. What I want to see are the old ones with Craig Kilbourne, like "Defense wins championships......."

Would I pay for those, of course not, but they should be up. Anything on TV should be FREE on iTunes. I am holding firm on that.
 
New today...

Not a whole lot added, but I'm glad to see new shows popping up every Tuesday now.

* "America's Funnies Home Videos": 13 episodes. Not exactly sure if this is the current season; the release date says 2001.

* "Conviction" pilot, music video and behind-the-scenes clip. Free. Online-only content like behind-the-scenes, deleted scenes, webisodes, etc., are a great way to drive interest in a show, particularly if it has the cache of being exclusive. More please.

* "Late Night with Conan O'Brien": Some new clips, but still no new episodes. He's on hiatus fo the Olympics, so maybe this is an indication that daily episodes are coming in March or April.

* Monk Celebrity Playlist: I like these character-written lists. Michael and Dwight from "The Office" have done really funny ones. (Looks like the this actually posted last week, but I just noticed it today.)

I'm still holding out hope that the Jerry Bruckheimer celebrity playlist a few weeks ago means the "CSI" franchise and other new titles are coming soon. Apple is also starting to feature more Celebrity Playlists from actors, so it's looking very TV all the way around.
 
yellow5 said:
This is because they update the store around 12:00-1:00 AM Tuesday morning Eastern Time.

So the content is just being added and it usually takes a while before the whole store is updated.

EDIT: I just noticed the ESPN SportsCenter Ads are now FREE.. They have been available, but they cost $1.99

Check em out.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTVSeason?id=120606257
no they have always been free, i downloaded all of them over a week ago.
 
I was going to mention the ESPN ads have been free for a while - although when I first downladed them, they only had three up there. But that's OT.

My only disappointment with this being free is that it looks like crap. I'm sorry but I'm sick of another legal drama. I get enough of that crap at school. I can't even take L&O anymore...ugh....I know that if I can't say anything nice, I shouldn't say anything....but I really am annoyed by this.

On a broader note, I agree thoroughly with arn's comments - letting out the pilot for free would be a brilliant move. Without trying, I can think of a couple shows that I really wasn't that interested in, but after watching the pilot on DVD, I would have loved to watch the season on the air (Firefly and Lost).
 
arn said:
this makes sense to me. I think all pilot episodes should be free. You want to hook viewers. I recently saw the pilot of Love Monkey, which I liked and told my friends to watch it... but there wasn't an easy way for people to watch the pilot if they missed it.

(Love Monkey, btw, has now been canceled after 3 episodes, which makes little sense)
I totally agree with arn. Love Monkey is the one show I also got hooked on after seeing the pilot. I am sort of sad to see it go as it really promoted new artists as well.
 
The Joy of Censorship

Maybe I am imagining things, or maybe he wishes to not have his name displayed, but in the episode descriptions the name "Dick Wolf" is edited to "D**k Wolf."

Is his name really that obscene?
 
velocityofjack said:
Maybe I am imagining things, or maybe he wishes to not have his name displayed, but in the episode descriptions the name "Dick Wolf" is edited to "D**k Wolf."

Is his name really that obscene?

haha ... I was just going through this forum to see if anyone else picked that up! I'm downloading the show now ... hopefully its worth the bandwidth! :)
 
nbs2 said:
My only disappointment with this being free is that it looks like crap. I'm sorry but I'm sick of another legal drama. I get enough of that crap at school. I can't even take L&O anymore...ugh....I know that if I can't say anything nice, I shouldn't say anything....but I really am annoyed by this.

I thought this WAS Law and Order, given the lead character/actress was a carryover from L&O:SVU....
 
arn said:
this makes sense to me. I think all pilot episodes should be free. You want to hook viewers. I recently saw the pilot of Love Monkey, which I liked and told my friends to watch it... but there wasn't an easy way for people to watch the pilot if they missed it.

(Love Monkey, btw, has now been canceled after 3 episodes, which makes little sense)
I didn't know that show had been cancelled. I happened to catch it and told a bunch of my friends to watch it too. I know a few of them started watching it.

And by the way, I can't believe that they cancel that show, but throwing out a free episode of How I Met Your Mother actually boosted ratings. IMHO that is one of the more overhyped shows of this season. Seems a little too predictable for me. Plus overall, it's not funny enough to overcome the predictability.

EDIT: And Arrested Development has been cancelled? Where's the humanity? Ok, I know it's only a tv show, but it's a darn funny one and extremely too clever for network television. Maybe another network will pick it up and give it a fighting chance.

EDIT: Wait. I can't find any confirmation that Arrested Development has been cancelled. Does someone know something that I don't? Please share.
 
Porchland said:
Clever show. Considering the ratings of shows like "Scrubs" and "Arrested Development" (cancelled) clever humor is apparently a fatal flaw.
QUOTE]


Yeah, clever humor is apparently lost on the American masses. Anyone remember Sports Night?

My theory on Scrubs is the Soprano theory. Network programming moves the show around so much that people loose track. I think it's great that Scrubs was off the schedule for a while since we got to see two new episodes a week for a while.

I think the success of clever shows like Nothern Exposure is the exception. These days, the show really has to be a hit right away to avoid cancellation. The networks don't give a show time to develop and build an audience. In the current market, a show like The X-Files would have been cancelled at mid-season and the network would have lost millions in the long run.
 
Stewie said:
Too bad the quality of the iTunes TV shows suck. At least if you try to watch them on anything other then a tiny iPod screen.

Have you actually tried watching them on anything other than an iPod screen? I have only downloaded three videos - two BSG and one music video - but all three look good on my 20" iMac at full screen.

Are they great? No, but certainly watchable and to my wife, an average viewer non-perfectionist in terms of video quality, thinks they are close to what she sees when we watch DVD's on it.
 
The song from the series

For more freebies ... go to the EXCELLENT website of Gabe Dixon

www.gabedixonband.com

I was amazed when I saw his latest album completely free for download.

It's the theme song for this new show

It's called "All Will be Well"

We should try to support artists who choose this path of distribution.
 
I watch the ones I have downloaded in a window on my Powerbook while my fiance and I are laying in bed. Are they perfect? No. But they are very watchable.:)
 
velocityofjack said:
Maybe I am imagining things, or maybe he wishes to not have his name displayed, but in the episode descriptions the name "Dick Wolf" is edited to "D**k Wolf."

Is his name really that obscene?

Hehehehehehehe, Dick, people like dick :D
 
Pilot Ratings

Here is where Apple and the TV industry should move next. The TV industry makes many pilot episodes and shows them to a selected audience for review. As we know, they aren't very accurate.

Put all the pilot episodes on iTunes for free. When users rate the pilots, the rating is sent back to Apple. Apple compiles the rating statistics and sells that data back to the TV network. Now the TV network has feedback from hundreds of thousands, not just a few people. Those watch the pilots will be more likely to purchase future episodes.

Everyone wins! People get free TV shows, Apple gets money from the TV industry and from future downloads, and the TV industry gets market analysis from a huge demographic base.
 
Super Dave said:
Don't forget Monk! Apple's free episode of Monk was what got me hooked on the series!

David:cool:
Um, I'm not good at catching stuff...that free episode still up? :eek:
Sry, OT.... so, anyways, I think it would be great to have all the pilots free. I just downloaded this one, although I have never before watched any shows of this genre....
 
So the comments in the description area of the making of files say "D**k Wolf" um, why can't they say Dick.
 
Thats cool - watching pilot episodes is always fun.

Google Video similarly offered this, if you went to video.google.com/chris, you used to be able to see the pilot episode of Chris Rock's show, Everybody Hates Chris...
 
dotdotdot said:
Thats cool - watching pilot episodes is always fun.

Yeah, once upon a time I was a 'client' of a marketing company that would send random things to me to test or review. One thing was the pilot episode of an ensemble sitcom. I panned it. It had an obnoxious pop theme song, stupid humor, awful laugh track.

It was called 'Friends'.

Oh well, that shows my opinion of pop culture. (The funny thing was it was a self-erasing video tape. It had a small magnet that the tape passed by as it played, erasing it, so you couldn't rewind and re-watch any part of it...)
 
Curses!

I was hoping to pitch "Conviction", with O.J. Simpson as a globetrotting born again evangelist preacher traveling the world's golf courses in search of evil corporate criminals, with nothing but a bible in his hand.

And also a very sharp knife in the other hand.
 
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