In the advertising-space race to get full episodes online, Global TV (one of the bigger media companies in Canada) just launched their new video player with a series of promotional bumpers on TV. From the URLs of the RSS feeds (e.g. http://canwest.a.mms.mavenapps.net:80/feeds/) it looks like they purchased Media Services from Maven Networks.

Positive aspects of the player

the 4 last episodes of “Heroes” and “Survivor” online

everything is Flash Video so it actually runs on my Mac

RSS feeds of almost everything

one pre-roll ad before every clip (8 min segment) is reasonable

Negative aspects of the player

shows like “House” and “Prison Break” just have recaps online

buggy (see screenshot below - it froze that way)

no full screen (just 2X)

Flash animation effects just make it hard to navigate

I’ve seen way worse players, so I guess that makes it okay. It can deliver video at a reasonable quality, so all they really need is some more content. They have some high-profile U.S. shows I wouldn’t mind catching up on if I’m too lazy to download the torrents. But I still don’t think a TV station has nailed the episodes-on-the-web experience. Hopefully we’ll have some better offerings from the other big broadcasters in the next few months

Thanks for laying down the gauntlet, Global. I’ll see you soon