The MSN video player goes live on Thursday offering over a thousand hours of classic TV from Peep Show to Around the World in Eighty Days.
Resident Beehive TV critic Mike TV gives you a sneak preview of the first serious iPlayer competitor…
In essence this is Dave! for the computer literate. If you’re looking for something new, use the iPlayer, a torrent site, or become a screenwriter – there’s nothing for you here.
It looks quite a lot like the BBC’s setup, but immediately you notice it doesn’t say ‘7 days left to watch the show’ anywhere … you mean I can watch the whole series, here and now?
Indeed, that’s exactly what you can do – you have to sit through an advert for 30 seconds at the start (which in several cases stuttered a bit, but I was on a Mac) but soon you’re up to your eyes in Ultimate Force (or whatever you choose – good programmes are available too.)
You have to periodically watch another ad, and they annoyingly kick in when you try and forward wind to your favourite bit – but hey, it’s free and it’s legal … and largely it seems to work.
The shows run smoothly (using Microsoft Silver light technology) and automatically adjust their quality to suit your internet connection speed – optimising your viewing experience and ensuring Balls of Steel is just as unfunny the second, third and fourth time around.
Content-wise, the categories are clearly marked – comedy, documentary, drama, entertainment and sci-fi lead you to lists of shows, which are rather limited at the moment, but we’re promised the catalogue will soon grow.
There’s some great stuff available – Peep Show (series one and two), the best two series of Bottom, Big Train, The Young Ones, The league of Gentlemen and a personal favourite of Mike’s, the brilliantly silly Banzai.
It’s not all comedy though; the drama section has Shameless, This Life, Hustle and Bodies – not to mention the thirty odd classic episodes of Doctor Who. A few entertainment shows like 8 out of 10 Cats, Wife Swap, Mock the Week and Derren Brown make the cut too.
The big question remains though, when is this going to be on my telly?
BBC iPlayer is already available through Freesat and Cable – and that’s where we want on demand TV – on our TV, not on our computer.
If this is really to be a success and seriously compete with iPlayer, Microsoft has to get it out of the office and onto the telly … until then … Mike’s sticking with Sky+.
