ABC.com debuts high-def player

Cory Bergman July 24th, 2007

As promised, ABC.com has launched its high-definition video player in beta — the first for a network TV site. It includes a single episode each of Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty to get you started before the new fall season. ABC.com says there are a few system recommendations including a “late model, fast computer,” screen resolution of 1300×770 and minimum bandwidth of 2 Mbps. Screen grab from Grey’s Anatomy inside the full-screen player…

I gave it a swing on my home DSL connection — which is not 2 Mbps — and the video stuttered frequently, but the quality was excellent. (Anyone else try it on a higher-speed connection?) You may remember ABC.com won an Emmy for the first player they built, and this new addition just reaffirms the site’s technological leadership in video playback.

Adds ChickenEye in comments: “I have a 10 Mbps Cable connection and a Core 2 MacBook Pro. It’s gorgeous and stutter free (and the little HD bandwidth meter on the bottom right lights up at full quality - which you’re not quite at in your screenshot). Definitely a sign of things to come!”

21 Comments Add your own

1. chickeneye | July 24th, 2007 at 10:57 pm

I have a 10 Mbps Cable connection and a Core 2 MacBook Pro. It’s gorgeous and stutter free (and the little HD bandwidth meter on the bottom right lights up at full quality - which you’re not quite at in your screenshot). Definitely a sign of things to come!
2. Dan | July 25th, 2007 at 1:03 am

Can you let it completely download the show, then save it to watch later? Their SD viewer would not let you do that.
I’d still set through the spots, I just wanted the option
of watching it on an airplane.

Dan
3. Darrien | July 25th, 2007 at 2:26 am

I don’t know all the technical details, but the quality upgrade for me on my 22 inch widescreen @ 1600 x 10xx is minimal. (10 Mbps Cable)
4. Media Glutton | July 25th, 2007 at 4:59 am

This is fantastic! It starts out a little fuzzy but then, when it moves to HD, the difference is very noticeable. Any word when they’ll move the rest of their HD programming to this quality?
5. mike | July 25th, 2007 at 5:15 am

Memo to ABC affiliates: You better be plannig an exit strategy for primetime. Won’t happen overnight but those rating points are going to keep getting smaller especially for those affluent demos.
6. JoeMo | July 25th, 2007 at 6:42 am

Too bad I won’t be able to watch it to tell you what I think since I am against having to install some proprietary plug in to view video.
7. Anon | July 25th, 2007 at 9:16 am

I have never been able to get ABC.com’s videos to work on my computer. Oh well, I don’t watch any of their lack of quality shows anyways.
8. Rocker | July 25th, 2007 at 9:16 am

JoeMo: How’s your face doing now that you’ve cut off your nose? We’re not talking about some schmuck’s YouTube video here…you want to watch a show in HiDef, I really don’t think it’s asking all that much. That plug-in (takes about 5 seconds) is not some spyware…it’s absolutely integral to how the video is delivered. Maybe you don’t really want to see it. That’s fine…just thought you were sounding a little dogmatic.
9. Ben | July 25th, 2007 at 12:38 pm

Wow its amazing how far internet video has came. It seems like Adobe Flash player has also came a long way I cant beleave there are still sites out there that havnent upgraded from Flash 7 to Flash 9. As you can see from the video above Flash 9 is the best video player out there and its all because of the video codec they use VP6 or VP7 from ON2 tech.
10. Chris | July 25th, 2007 at 1:02 pm

I can’t even get ABC’s current player to play stutter-free. Visually, the interface is pretty cool, but trying to watch the video is unbearable…, even at the mini-size! Several emails to tech support haven’t solved the problem either. Do you think it’s because I work on a Mac, or because I’m an ABC employee?!
11. chickeneye | July 25th, 2007 at 1:10 pm

Ben, that’s not Flash video. There’s no way Flash can deliver full-screen HD quality video. I think their video is being delivered using a technology called Move and it’s just being presented in a sexy Flash app.
12. JoeMo | July 25th, 2007 at 2:25 pm

@Rocker - im pretty sure that its not actually “HiDef” and im doing just fine watching my video elsewhere that doesn’t require me to install plugins. I’m also pretty sure that its not an “integral” part of delivering video; to me making viewers install this that or the other thing feels alienating to me.

@chickeneye - actually, you can encode HD content into flash, I played around around with encoding flv’s at 1080p, took a while and almost didn’t play on my desktop.
13. chickeneye | July 25th, 2007 at 4:00 pm

JoeMo, that was my point. Sure you can do it, but you really can’t.
14. John B. | July 25th, 2007 at 10:28 pm

The Player is up and running, there are no known problems to be worked out at this time. Upgrades will always be added later. You must have a fast computer with cash enabled.
Enjoy
15. Mike | July 26th, 2007 at 4:37 am

Why cant we in europe get what you can get over there, life is not fair sometime..
16. w shaffer | August 28th, 2007 at 7:41 am

why would you do something that requires this? many of us will not install something that is not properly described . what effect does this have on my system security? do i need to modify my existing firewall, what ports does it use? what are the bandwidth requirements?

guess i will enjoy tnt.
17. John V. | September 27th, 2007 at 6:57 pm

ABC uses a plug-in you don’t currently have. It will give you stunning video quality, full-screen and mini-mode. We could go on,… “but it gets technical and boring from here.”

What an intentional insult to anyone’s intelligence.

Either explain what it is we are being asked to download and install or forget it. I’m not that desperate to watch a stupid TV show, no matter what the gimmick or latest stupid fad is.
18. Kat | January 31st, 2008 at 9:34 am

As many are saying, I resent being told to download a plug-in while being told, in essence, to shut up and ignore security for my machine. Especially ditto John V’s 9/27/07 and W Shaffer’s 8/07 - Wow! ABC is sure being unresponsive. I’d write them but they make you register to be able to email. Guess they don’t want to bother with us!?!
19. jgriffith | February 8th, 2008 at 9:42 pm

I can’t get it to play in any browser without stuttering either. What a shame. I loved this show and watched the last season online. Why are we so obsessed with upgrading stuff that you can’t go a year without your purchased software/platform becoming obsolete?

If someone tried to sell you a car, but said “In six months, the engine will stop and you’ll have to buy the upgrade or it won’t work. Then a few months after that it will stop again and you’ll have to buy the upgrade…,” would you buy the car?
20. Anomalyzer | February 13th, 2008 at 8:31 pm

So I miss last week’s episode of Lost, first in two seasons, and decide to try to catch up on abc.com. First thing I get to is ABC’s version of a Homeland Security page. “You must install our software, so that we are in control and can monitor you. And we’ll insult you while you do our bidding, by telling you that you would not understand what we are installing.” It’s nice to see I’m not the only one not blindly obeying. A search for security issues got me here.

Not only am I not installing the viewer, they just Lost me as a viewer. The show is hard enough to follow if you see them all. Miss a week, and you’re Lost. And the insider info one can supposedly get in on by jumping through some hoops on line and/or having an American Express card was irritating, too. It’s the last straw. The camel has spoken. B’ bye, ABC.
21. SuperMario | March 19th, 2008 at 6:17 pm

Wow, that’s kind of ridiculous. Swearing off a show because you don’t like the method that the network has chosen to distribute the episodes FOR FREE on the internet?

Talk about an overreaction. I’ve watched the episodes in HD with no security issues or problems. The quality is really fantastic.