http://tvnzondemand.co.nz


The web site looks really good.

I'm curious to see the quality (they say shows are hi-def!) tonight and what internet providers are going to offer (unlimited TVNZ on demand access packages would be good).

Also, it would be interesting to see if TVNZ or Telecom have plans on selling hardware media streamers, like BTvision.

It looks good... Except that the link to "Register and receive 10 PlayPoints" goes to a page that explains what are PlayPoints but don't actually have a registration form. There isn't actually a registration form anywhere to be found!

And the download manager is a worthless piece of software. It opens a popup window to start the download then another one for the download itself. Now, if you close the first window it close the download manager - even though the download is still active but then you don't have any visual clue of the status.

Could be much better, really...

I haven't tried (still at work ;-)
but maybe you could tell what browsers you're using.
I'm planning to try with Firefox 2 and Opera 9 (I hate IE7, so slow)

A good thing is that they provide RSS feeds from the beginning, something popular sites like Stuff are not doing yet (hopeless, isn't it)

Internet Explorer 7 (Windows Vista) here.

I just hope reviewing the 7 day DRM limit is something they could look at removing. I'd prefer to be limited to a single device and have unlimited plays. It would be interesting to know exactly why they have only chosen to allow 7 days of usage.

Where are you seeing that on the site? I note some of them say the files are 'high quality and high resolution' but I would seriously doubt they are HD. I have trouble believing that TVNZ are filming their content in HD right now. I am interested to know whether the downloads are in 16:9 or 4:3 though... anyone know?

Steve

What a pain... You enter your user name/password when you try to first play a download. And that's where you can setup your account as well. By reading the FAQs I had the impression you could setup the account on the site itself.

Anyway... After downloading 300MB I will create an account... Also the password must be eight characters, no more, no less. How stupid.

On the bright side you get 20 PlayPoints on registration, not only ten! And the program I dowload was 4:3.

Hmmm thats disappointing. Was it a newish programme though that you might expect to be in 16:9 or what it something from the archive that could only ever be in 4:3?

Ok, now that I am back from my coffee, I've created an account and took a couple of screenshots - some comments in my blog.

Looking at the shows listing then there not actually much in the way of decent programmes since its only kiwi made stuff.

great site, but one issue here I can reproduce on all my PCs
anything I view which displays a short advertisment first only displays the advertisment and won't load the actual content - ie it just sits on the last frame of the advertisment
Using Firefox 2 and Flash 9 - no problems with Youtube, soapbox or etc

Site works fine for me, but as for content...

I actually think the site is quite good, finally we can see all that local content free of charge and commercial free.

But that superb free local image experience is marred by the purchase system for the international DRM frezied international idiots...it was very nasty, Java loads some verisign thing and then a second pop-up window which then craps out, why not just have the drm infested file for download via a simple link then you just buy the licence to play it for WMP?

Almost all the locally produced stuff is free and in high quality Flash video format,
4:3 aka 640 x 480, 512Kb video, 128Kb audio, The video is of very nice quality and is currently making a great addition to my hard drive ;-)