Feb 11, 2009 10:02 AM | 5 Comments

Adam Turner fears hell may have frozen over after the Nine Network released high-quality copies of Underbelly 2 online the very night it screened on television.

The Nine Network has truly embraced the concept of "Catch-up" television, putting the first episode of Underbelly 2 online this week only minutes after it finished screening in Western Australia.

We're not talking about shoddy, YouTube-style low-res clips - we're talking about the entire episodes as XviD files, with the first double ep weighing in at 1.1GB.

As if that wasn't amazing enough, Nine even used the "S" word - share. According to the Underbelly 2 website; "You can also copy and share each episode or even distribute the files via file-sharing applications, such as Bit Torrent."

Yes, that's right, Nine *wants* you to upload Underbelly 2!

Of course there is a slight catch. The file is DRM-protected and you have to install Nine's HIRO video CODEC (available for Windows Media Player on Windows or Quicktime on Mac).

You can view and copy the files as many times as you like, but they'll stop working once the season finishes airing and Nine is ready to cash in on DVD sales.

That sounds to me like a surprisingly reasonable offer from Nine. It's not trying to foist a proprietary player on you. It's not forcing you to stream it from the web or watch a low-res version. It's not enforcing draconian restrictions on how many copies you can make or how many times you can watch it.

It's not trying to sell you something. Watch it when you like, as many times as you like, until the DVD goes on sale. Sounds fair.

Of course there are some people who are going to pirate stuff no matter what, and in the two hours it took me to pull down the official version from Nine I could have downloaded it from BitTorrent or Usenet.

Underbelly 2 slaughtered the competition when it screened on Monday night, blowing away the other networks to rate as Australia's highest rating television launch ever.

It's an honour the first Underbelly was denied after an injunction was slapped on screening the series in Victoria. As a result, many Victorians watched it on pirate DVDs or internet downloads long before it screened on Melbourne television.

With the runaway success of Underbelly 2, you'd think a pig-headed, old world media giant like Nine could stick its head in the sand and convince itself that it didn't need the internet.

Instead Nine seems to have learned from the past and embraced the internet, following on from the X-rated viral Underbelly 2 trailer that was leaked to the net but Nine denies any knowledge of.

Rubbish. It was a marketing masterstroke and it's a shame the person who thought of it can't stand up and take the credit. I salute you.

The other networks should take notice of Nine's approach to Underbelly 2. Here's a true story to illustrate my point. Last week my friend Thomas got his tech-savvy son to download an illegal copy of Seven's top series Packed to the Rafters, because he screwed up when trying to to tape it.

It was the first episode of the new series and, if Thomas missed it, he might not have bothered to keep watching. Seven didn't offer him a legit alternative so he turned to illegal file-sharing.

I know plenty of people who started off file-sharing this way, and now that Thomas has got a taste of it I'm sure he'll go back for more. He's not a bad person, he doesn't want to cheat anyone or steal anything, he just wants a chance to catch up on something he missed.

All the networks are starting to dabble in catch-up TV (noticeably the ABC), but I'd say Nine's effort with Underbelly 2 is a major turning point for the commercial networks.

The really ironic thing is that my stupid TiVO only recorded the first 90 minutes of Monday night's Underbelly 2 two hour premiere. I still can't figure out how this happened.

It seems as if the TiVo EPG was wrong, only listing the first hour, and I told it to add 30 minutes of padding so I got a 90 minute recording. Still, if this was the case, all TiVo owners would have missed it and I can't find people complaining about it online. It seems the exact same thing happened to at least one EPGStream users, so maybe it was an EPG problem.

Sure illegal file-sharing could always come to my rescue, but at least now there's also a legit way to catch up on your favourite shows when disaster strikes.

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TheRAWPrAwN Feb 11, 2009 3:37 PM	I agree that CH9 deserves a standing ovation for its efforts in embracing technology and couldnt think of a more legitimate way of distribution. 9/10 ;) Very Impressed!
Dinks-c Feb 11, 2009 7:12 PM	Adam sounds like the Tivo is as bi-polar as the VMC Home theatre:)
Adam Turner Feb 11, 2009 8:48 PM	@Dinks-c yeah, that was a weird one, it's the first time the TiVo has dome something flaky like that and it was shaken my faith in it a little
Ben Sand Feb 11, 2009 11:06 PM	Since when are Windows Media Player and QuickTime not proprietary players? I've got a Mac laptop, but my PC with the decent sized screen is Linux only.
hangman Feb 12, 2009 11:47 AM	Neither way is legal. XviD is licensed GPL and it is a breach of the GPL to bundle GPL software with non GPL software in the same installer. So use HIRO and you are violating Xvid's copyright. Download the BiA or FoV releases and you are violation Nine's copyright.