ABC Full Episode Streaming is Live… and it’s Spectacular
Seinfeld fans will note the Teri Hatcher reference in the title of this post, but I just tried out ABC’s full-episode streaming video service which launched a few minutes ago (around 2am this morning), and it is indeed quite nice.
Lost, Desperate Housewives, Alias, and Commander in Chief. They are all available online now if you live in the U.S. — free of charge. This isn’t some B-reel lineup of shows starving for attention. These are ABC’s most popular programs, and now thanks to Disney Brass, the ABC team in Burbank, and the Disney Internet Group in both Seattle and North Hollywood, they are viewable on any computer with a broadband connection. No more PVR-induced BitTorrenting for me… at least with ABC shows.
I have a special regard for this product because it was the last project I worked on before leaving Disney to start Newsvine. My work was in the proof-of-concept phase and the final product doesn’t share a single line of code or element of design, but I still feel an affinity for what has been accomplished here. I think it’s really, really great.
Some items of importance:
- This service is fully cross-browser and cross-platform. No Internet Explorer/Windows Media mess to worry about. I’m so glad Flash video won out in the end, and although Steve Jobs had nothing to do with it, I’m sure he’s happy that these shows look and work great on Macs.
- This is perhaps the nicest looking Flash video I’ve ever seen. Not only are the video dimensions nice and large, but the picture is extremely clear and not choppy at all. You can tell a lot of work went into the encoding and delivery process. It’s also interesting to note that this is 400k and 700k Flash streaming and not progressive download. Progressive download has been a lot more common than streaming in the past and it’s nice to see such a great example of true broadband Flash streaming in action.
- As great as this service is from a design and engineering standpoint, what’s been accomplished here from a licensing standpoint is just as significant. Disney has wanted to stream television shows for several years now. I remember working on early prototypes a few years ago, but the problem back then was that internet rights had never been negotiated into the deals of the network’s most popular shows. This wasn’t specific to ABC but to all major networks including NBC, Fox, and CBS. Most people think that when a show like Desperate Housewives airs on ABC, the network has full ownership of it. That is not the case. They generally have rights to do certain things with it (viz. air it on TV, sell it on DVD, etc), but only recently have networks begun including internet distribution rights in these deals. It looks like we’re finally starting to see the fruits of these new licensing terms, and it’s a great great thing.
- My only complaint here is the lack of ability to pop the video full screen. I remember talking to Macromedia about this awhile back but can’t remember what their answer was with regards to whether or not they’d ever be able to build this functionality into the Flash plug-in.
- Actually, I have one other complaint and that is that the video is not available internationally, but hey, you have to crawl before you can walk.
So head on over to ABC.com and check this thing out for yourself. I’m sure it’s just the beginning of a lot more video-related initiatives to come at Disney. Big ups to everyone over there and to all the peeps in the Seattle office!
One more thing: I believe this is officially a “trial service” which will run until June 30th. Hopefully it will do well and continue on long after that.
That’s great that it’s in flash.
Overall this is an interesting strategy by ABC.
It seems I got banned, accessing the website from Japan. sigh.. It displays “Only viewers within the United States can watch these full-length episodes.” and no links to the videos.
I am really disappointed that it’s not an internationalized site. It looks great and from the screenshots I can see the effort you speak of. Sadly I can also understand the licensing and broadcasting issues (not being broadcast at the same time all over the world, we in the UK are always at least a season behind the US).
I hope this whole country by country, us and you, time zone dependent rubbish is annihilated soon, but that’s a whole different blog post.
I’ve been excited about this ever since I heard of it. However, a while after I found out that it will only be available in the US… Naturally, this has to be the initial step, but you should know that the situation in Europe is getting ridiculous…
Take Prison Break as example. In March, mid-season, a break was announced (caused by licensing reasons, of course), and it will resume in September!!!
Basically, what this means is that everyone who didn’t knew how to do it before start to try to learn how BitTorrent works, since they think it’s outrageous to wait six months for a season of a series to continue. The ones who don’t swear that they won’t ever watch that series again…
I mean, Internet is international (duh) so to only offer something like this on a national scale, in the long run, is suicide. However, I love the idea and I hope it really works out! Unfortunately, me living in Sweden, I can’t test it… :-|
Very cool, and of course totally unavailable to me in Australia. Then again, of these series’ three are currently being screened here (Lost, Desperate Housewives and Commander-In-Chief), albeit significantly behind the US and the other isn’t even on the radar.
That is damn impressive. The quality is great, and it starts playing immediately.
And the fact that they’re launching with sponsors (third party Universal Pictures ones no less) is really promising for the idea of time shifting TV content over the web.
DIG rocks the house when it comes to Flash video content.
Hey Mike, Foxnews.com of all places actually does full screen Flash video. Now, its not chromeless, its just a browser window set to the size of your screen but its basically the same effect. If you weren’t afraid of hiding ‘the X’ from your users you could simply size the window a bit larger than screen res and position accordingly to fake full-screen chromeless Flash video.
Just search for open proxies list and use one that resides in US. That got me in just fine. Seems like the country detection is done only on web server side, not on streaming server.
Looks good to me as well.
Fellowship Church has been utilizing streaming flash for about six months now at a quality just shy of 700k. Before this Disney stuff, its one of the best quality video on the web that I’ve seen. Details on how they worked it found here.
Any guess how long it takes the other networks to launch their streaming video services?
Like I said in your post on bittorrent, as long as they refuse to release TV-series and movies internationally, at the same time (or hell, one day later so that the US crowds still get the scoop, I could live with that), I’ll be downloading these things because I just refuse to wait 6 to 12 months for them.
Doesn’t generally keep me from buying the DVD’s though — I don’t keep the eps after downloading (no space and no interest in the low-quality versions anyway) but it’s getting a bit ridiculous when a show takes 1,5 years between finishing in the States and releasing on DVD in the Netherlands.
This is awesome, I will probably stop pirating LOST every week now. :)
containing it to the USA makes sense for rights purposes.. luckily a proxy server works nicely :)
I was really excited when I heard a couple of weeks ago that ABC was going to put their TV shows up on their website. I currently live in the UK and the only way I can keep up with my Lost watching is by paying to download each episode off of iTunes. Now I’m disappointed to see that the videos off of ABC’s website are only available in the USA.
I guess I can watch them online when I get back to the States. Oh wait, when I go back I just watch them on TV again!
Sounds like excellent news!
What about full-viewport? That must surely be possible…
This is a pretty cool idea – but is unfortunately of no use to me. I’m not actually caught up with Lost (Jeff will be pleased to hear that my wife caved and queued season 1 with Netflix) and the only episode that you can watch appears to be the most recent episode.
I just wish Apple would strike a deal that would allow for higher quality content from iTunes. I’d love to purchase an HD quality version of any past episode to watch on my TV.
Thanks for pointing this out…a pretty slick service. I hope that the timeframe of the trial is not an indicator that they are planning to charge for it after June 30.
If they really want to bring in viewers, it seems like it would be good to offer all shows from this season, so that viewers who are trying to catch up on Lost, etc. can pick it up. This would only create more ‘addicts’ to the shows.
I’m with John- do they have past episodes hidden anywhere? The current episode of Lost does a good job of bringing people up to speed (I wonder if they intentionally used it as the first web broadcast), but I’d like to view at least the rest of the season, if not earlier seasons. It seems to me that it wouldn’t be very difficult for them to do it, and they get the same ad money whether I’m watching a two year old episode or a brand new episode. Am I missing anything?
I agree Jo-Pete, my old job didn’t allow me to catch Lost. My new job does so I watched all of season 1 on DVD and thought I would be able to catch up using the service but alas that is not to be :/
Very, very interesting. A couple of points/questions:
1. What affect will this have on ‘current episode’ sales of iTunes shows? I imagine the shows will still sell quite well on iTunes, but I also imagine the sales within 24/48 hours of availability on iTunes will drop. I’m basing this on the idea that people will watch a missed episode via ABC.com, but will still purchase via iTunes if missed over a week/two weeks.
2. With Google starting to clamp down on bandwidth usage (their analytics service), I’m surprised to see ABC launch such a bandwidth-hog service. Are we back to the days of ‘bandwidth for everyone! ?’
3. How soon before someone with a beefed system starts screengrabbing? Will a torrent search return ‘lost epx.somegroup.xd.abc-capture.blah?’
4. I’m surprised to be comment #20 and the first to mention ‘download/save-as?’ I appreciate the reasons why not, but I’m surprised nobody has commented on that.
5. I drool at the interface, but still wait for a news-magazine archive (20/20, dateline, 60 mins, etc.) that would broadcast streams in matching quality with a search/sort interface. Maybe I should look more into the Overdrive stuff MTV has been doing. That seems to be a pretty slick way to search/sort clips. Still, I’d like to see some archives of old news stories – even from a research aspect (if a student was doing a study on “Straight Edge” for example, they would return 20/20 reports and possibly even download a branded clip – with license agreement of course).
PS: I did a taste-test over the weekend (based on the Coca-Cola Blak & Gatorade post). Let’s not ever mention Coca-Cola Blak again – please. Ever.
Super stuff. Anybody (Mike?) know what product was used to encode the video?
Dave: Already in the works, I’m sure. No idea when it will be widespread though.
Akaxaxa: Yeah, full-viewport is generally possible, but it’s just not the same as popping into full-screen mode in, say, Quicktime, or even WMV.
John and Jo-Pete: Yep, I believe they will eventually offer all episodes. Right now, it’s just the last few, apparently.
Chad: Streaming Flash is extremely hard to capture. It wouldn’t even be worth trying, really. It’s much easier to grab the picture right off of a cable or satellite box as is being done with all illegal torrents right now. Also, there is no “download/save as” with Flash. Also, regarding Coke Blak, yeah, I didn’t realize it was Diet until I was done with the bottle. Boo.
Alias: No idea how the encoding was done. I’ll ask.
Channel 4 in the UK have launched Lost season one on demand at http://www.channel4.com/ – this time it’s only for UK viewers though.
was there ever any thought about using quicktime/H.264,
also a high-quality cross-platform codec offering?
Flash 8 video is already a a high-quality cross-platform codec offering.
QuickTime/H.264 would have been less accessible and less seamless.
Estimates are that Flash 8 is already on many more PC’s than QuickTime.
Good work Danny!
Shaun, or others, do you have a link to a proxy which works with the ABC site? So that others outside the USA may watch these episodes? Thanks.
Great service! The video quality is excellent and I love the interface.
I do wish we could get full screen…but this is more than enough to keep my happy. I also hope the trial period is extended and/or changed to a regular feature.
I think some of the navigation needs work. I knew that the full season of Alias was available but took me a few minutes to figure out how to access them. I’d also like to see all of the shows offer their full seasons…but I’m greedy like that.
I was actually looking at CBS’s online TV offerings on their new “online only” network Innertube, and from what I can tell, they do completely fullscreen viewing… even on Mac. Although the quality does worsen, but with ABC’s amazing quality, they could probably get it full screen…
Whoops… I just went back to Innertube, and they use RealPlayer or WMP for the video… NOT Flash (although the rest of the interface is Flash). I guess that’s how they get the fullscreen abilities… and the not-so-great quality (?)
Hey Mike,
I just blogged about this great post, and about the vibrant discussion. For what it’s worth, I just finished my stint on the NYWIFT board of directors that gave Anne Sweeney a MUSE award last year –and in her speech she made a big point about how important overseas markets were to her. One of her close friends from early in her career is Linda Kahn, who runs international sales for scholastic –and aside from their friendship, I know Sweeney gained a tremendous amount of insight from Kahn about how critical the international market is for american media companies. So to those who are frustrated with the ABC.com launch, I say: stay tuned!
Hey guys. Does anyone know anything about spoofing your ip address so people outside of the US can watch the episodes on ABC’s website? Would be very appreciative of any info please. Thanks in advance, Ben
I wasn’t able to view more than this weeks episode. Could someone please tell me why.
Yeah, I was excited about it too…
until I realized it wasn’t international. I don’t understand why people in Canada can’t watch it. I’m with Ben, we need a hacker, because I need my lost fix. The suspence is KILLING me.
Oh my…..I`m from Germany so I can`t watch it to -.- !
Are there realy no “cheats” to watch it ?
Cool interface; was it a disney implementation, or did some else write it for them ?
Andy: It was a joint effort by the ABC.com team, the Walt Disney Internet Group, and the excellent interactive design and development firm, Schematic.
I’m in France cant watch it ? cant we do anything to watch the episodes ?
to the fellow europeans: you can try it with open proxies (google them). but it’s not that easy. the bittorrent solution still works best .. I heard …
Very interesting. My company has been working with Flash comm/media. server since I started working with them, Jan 2005. We have been seeing some issues pop up now with Flash 8 movies. Getting some stuttering and bandwidth issues (although we do bandwidth detection and serve up accordingly). I’m wondering how they are handling it? We dont have any problems with simple small swf’s that just call out the media server. Its when we do large flash presentations that has other elements like menus ect (calls out to other movies) and the streaming video that we have stuttering and sync issues. we’ve tried squeezing the streaming videos down to smaller sizes, but doesnt seem to help.
THIS IS BULL SHIT ! – i missed last weeks’ episode but i am unable to watch the webcast show because i live in CANADA !!!
I’m not happy that I can’t view any of the episodes because I’m in Canada…so typical.
If you international people have friends at US universities some schools offer a remote desktop connection so students can access programs from their home computers. By browsing the internet through the remote desktop server an on-campus ip address will be generated, this should work for viewing the episodes. Try nerds in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Computer Science, etc. they should know about any remote desktop setup their school has and whether it will accept international connections.
ABC Takes The Cake!
I’ve been following ABC’s full-length episode streaming since they launched the trial service and I have to say that not only was the programming I viewed top-notch (I’m a big fan of the Commander in Chief series now!) but they did an excellent job integrating their ads into the content. No major banner ad disasters, cool and hip commercials built-in to the screen using flash technology interest viewers and don’t block you from reaching the gold of your ABC online experience…watching the show!
The technology that powers ABC’s Full-length streaming is definitely worth being excited about! Thank heaven for flash video, and the time the engineering teams at ABC spent making sure that the presentation of each show would be smooth and rich — not choppy and distorted.
I have definitely been telling friends and family, and while most of them have had a chance to view an episode or two online, a couple friends missed the cut off date. If you too missed the chance to check out the full length episode streaming… don’t forget to give the good folks at ABC your email address by visiting the following page: http://abc.go.com/fes/index.html – They’ll send you an email that tells you when the service is online again (this fall).
MediaJosh— Silicon Valley California
Do you possibly know why I wouldn’t be able to get the video to run on my Mac?
Does anybody know why lost is being replaced w/ a diff. show? I missed 3 weeks of lost!
how can i watch missed episodes of lost thru live streaming in India?
Big fat criticism in region-blocking of these transmissions is that tv discussion pages on rest of the web allows us to find out what happened to a show in other parts of the world before we see it. This obviously ruins many very good shows which viewers outside the host country may then watch but in less numbers with less regularity given the fact that the story-line from a season earlier is in full-circulation all over the web. The networks legitimate streams will therefore always be vulnarable, moral arguments notwithstanding, to dodgy P2P TV, torrents and filesharing.
Is there any way to access these shows internationally? Most live streams have some exception for US military abroad, but I can’t find one on ABC’s website.
I am in the Middle East and I would really like to be able to watch these shows online. Will ABC offer a military exception like everyone else?
Sounds like this full episode streaming is great. Unfortunately everytime I try to launch it the episode viewer opens but then reports an error message saying the episodes are temporarily unavailable and try again later. Flash 8 is installed. Its carried on all week, so it would seem to be a problem at my end. Anyone got any ideas to help?
Thanks, Philip
hey philip,
i have the same problem, no idea why…
Same problem as yours…. but i’m not in the us. I use a us proxy. Maybe that’s the problem?
Maybe a service like this would work:
http://www.the-cloak.com/Cloaked/+cfg=32/http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing
can’t try cuz i’m at work
Good Try with
http://www.the-cloak.com/Cloaked/+cfg=32/http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing
unfortunatly comes up with “Invalid Catalouge Data”
Got similar results with proxy program “Ghost Surf” with that it apparently couldn’t connect to the servers.
Still trying to crack it !!
I’m in the U.S., not using a proxy, have Flash 8, and have the exact same problem under both Firefox and IE. What a great idea, wish it would bloody well work.
Unfortunately, I missed the first episode of season 3, so I settled in to watch it on the ABC website. It worked great, but froze up at minute 41 of the 44 min episode. I tried reloading the show, but I just couldn’t get the last 3 minutes. Does anyone know it iTunes will be offering season 3 anytime soon?
I was able to watch lost season 2on abc.com but season 3 still doesnt seem to work from Ireland!!!! anyone found out any new proxies to try that will work?
i found a proxy site that got far in, i managed to click on the ‘Lost’ premire, but i got to the video player then said i cant watch it cos im not in US :(
try http://www.ProxyLizard.com that got me far in, see you can any better.
erm if you type http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing into google and clicked on the cached thing you can click on lost but then when it gets to the next page it says your not in the us so if i can “cached” the next page i think i might be able to do it
Where I can see the full episode of lost, I mean the first episode of the thirth season of Lost… please I need some help, I’m not from USA… MMM that’s all, thanks for read…
Yes But everytime i always get Errror: Episodes are temporarily unavailable, Please try again at another time. what does that mean. can you do something about that? is it normal? did anyone get that answer yet?
Does anyone have the answer to Michael. i have the same problem
gives the first 2 episodes and can view in UK:
http://tvlinks.50webs.com/Lost_links.html#Lost_3
enjoy
Hey Jodi, absolutly fantastic!! Wow amazing, it works yey :D and what a great start to the season.
But be careful how this info is shared anyone visiting to much word gets around and the site that shows this may be shut down, which no one wants :(
But for those who want to watch it enjoy :D brill!!
Errror: Episodes are temporarily unavailable, Please try again at another time
doesnt anyone else get that? why doesnt it work with me
are there more shops like that Jodi?
I think you mean sites
I am having a lot of probs with the episode viewer this weekend. It keeps stopping and then won’t come back…sometimes it just pauses the show and others it will say “Loading” forever. It has done it on 2 show this weekend…think they are having server or network issues. It’s really annoying. I have waited ALL week to watch Grey’s and now I have to wait 30 more mintues and download it onto iTunes…ergh!
I am also getting “Episodes not available…”. I’m up to date with latest Firefox, flash, Java, wmp, real player, everything. Plays home page videos but when hit launch the player won’t load.
http://www.watch.lost is up to date (ep3).. bit of tedious faffing about but i just watched ep3 (from uk)…
Yeah, I keep getting errors that I don’t have 500kbps (or 850 kbps)…when i have a lot more than that. Something is def wrong w/ their site’s bandwidth
In order to get the full episodes, you need to make sure you chnage your clock’s computer to US time zone and put the US time. I am in the US using a European computer and it would not work….until i changed the clock
I meant change your computer’s clock to US time zone and it’ll work..
Wow fred that does work thanks alot!!!
Well, unless I’d used this European PC here in the states, I don’t think I would have figured it out. When I realized my US PC was working fine it clearly wasn’t an IP problem but something else….what else could it be?
I am in canada and used Anonymizer and finally got in. Had to turn on the anon. surfing, then turn it off at a certain point, then turn in back on…kept getting those error messages but now it is working. Not sure it’s because of what I did or if it’s just working again on their end, but it’s playing now with the anon. surfing ON.
good luck! Play around and it should work.
Ok – I really think they have a bandwidth problem. I get to watch about a minute of the program and then it either freezes (usually leaving a very funny face on whichever actor is on screen, which is humorous for all of a second) or it says “loading” but nothing loads. This is soooooooo annoying. Sure, I can download Grey’s on iTunes, but I can’t with six degrees. This is almost worse than never having it at all, because now I know what I am missing out on.
Hello, why dont you just give up and watch episodes of alot of shows and greys, i cant give you the site but go to google do this shearch .tvlinks.com then click on the first one which will be a bog thing but then shearch the place where they talk about .tvlinks.com and click on it and then you will have a lot of shows. i cant tell you because then people will find out about it and so on…
freeze……freeze……..freeeze……Loading……Loading……Loading…….freeze……….Oh, wait, it’s Playing!! nooo nooo nooo!!! Froze again!! Yeah, sometimes I wish they never even put up this service. This is damn annoying!! But, I keep watching!!! Please ABC, check your bandwith issues!
I think giving birth is easier than trying to watch one of these episodes! My God, I’ve just spent over two hours trying to watch a 40:00 minute show. Besides the constant freezing, endless load times and Streaming Server Error messages, it’s actually pretty cool.
Does anyone know why TV links has gone down? it had the first 3 episodes of lost on plus loads of other series.
Same as Mark, why is the links site down, its a real bum :(
Thanks to Fred and Medulla!
Here in Asia I found the problem as everyone mentioned. Then I set my PC to US EST time zone with Anonymizer turned on. It worked immediately. The only 2 problems left is the bandwidth causing clog sometimes esp. when setting screen to big and failure to view full screen. Still, this awesome. One again thank you for sharing advice!
try to get to tvlinks through the forum. that works.they changed the address from 50webs to something else.
I had the same problem (outside US, after changing proxies) – episode error. I changed the time zone in windows, and it works….
How do I find anonymizer?
I am using pacific time and its not working?
I am currently in France and trying to watch epsiode 4, but I constently get “Episodes not available”. Can someone in the US check if its working for him ?
Im getting invalid ad data:
This episode cannot be viewed because advertisments are currently unavailable.
HEY! Everyone who is having troubles with the Streaming ads, I just figured it out…
Okay I just built my system and am excited to tell you the key to this, I just built my new computer, started from scratch and I forgot to download AVI File Codecs!
I was having the error “Service unavailable becasuse adds cant be streamed” (Something along the lines of that) and I just downloaded DivX along with the web codecs and NOW IT WORKS!
go to http://www.divx.com its free, you download it all, get the codecs and go!
Now if youd excuse me I have to watch lost ;)
PS: Email me at ATForce@hotmail.com if you have any questions with the downloads and such
Fred ,thank you!!!
I can watch ABC full episodes from Japan with changing TimeZone to US .
OK – I’m totally lost! The changing timezones thing doesnt work for Canadians (or at least for me). What can I do?
Hmm yah I have been fiddling around with different proxies etc lol but no such luck. I did bring up the episodes at one point but then when I hovered over the episodes and clicked, nothing happened. :(
Any suggestions?
Hey Guys
1) To find Anonymizer, go to http://www.download.com and seach for then. I found and have it installed,
Now I am working to have the second message, about advertisement, off.
Just to you know, I am on Brazil.
For the last 3 weeks I have been getting the “Invalid Ad Data” error. Previously I was able to watch the episodes but even then ads did not show up.
I have tried:
– re-installing flash player
-downloading divx and updating codecs on all media players
– changing time zones
Nothing works!! Help!
p.s. I live in the US and as far as I know all the parts to my computer are from the US (although it was built)
i changed my time zone too but still i get the ” only viewers in the US can watch these episodes.” in in NC! can anyone help me please? thank you!
I think that ABC and Walt Disney are stupid for this latest service. Why the hell would you offer something when you clearly are not capable of supporting the bandwidth. I suppose we should all think they are consumer conscious and marketing genius because they post flash based streaming video that does little more than freeze and load. ABC sucks for this!
i get the display “only viewers within the united states can watch this” when i LIVE in the united states
i tried everything: US proxy, changed timezone. used to watch it back in may – it worked back then with a simple proxy change. anyway, need a little demo for my job. i am a media consultant in europe. can s.b. maybe make a little screen capture for me to show how it works (avi or wmv) 2 minutes is enough. and maybe please include a part were you try to skip the ads. (i remember when you tried to switch within the episode, the ads were shown automatically, so one was unable to skip… has it changed snice may?) please mail it to elancer@hotmail.de or post an anonymous download link… Reaaaaally appreciate! :-) Thanks brazzo
http://www.tvfreeload.com check it out
I was able to watch episodes – no problem, with the ads – for several weeks. The past 2 weeks, however, I’ve been getting “invalid ad data: the episode cannot be viewed because the advertisements are currently unavailable.” I downloaded the DivX, restarted my computer, and the problem remains.
Does anyone have a solution??
Has anyone been able to watch any episodes recently (Dec 2006)? I’m thinking the problem is with abc.com, not my computer.
They could have changed the formats on ABC.com ill check it out but I have almost all video Codecs installed so it would be nearly impossible for me do a check.
Hi you guys,
You all seem very savvy about this. I’ve been trying to watch these episodes online for a while now. I’m in the US. I just bought my computer. I have the latest version of Flash, my pop-up blocker is disabled for the site, but I am still not able to watch the episodes. Any words of advice would be greatly appreciated!
Look at my post about DivX player, your new comp prolly didnt come with the Codecs… Look for my post and Download DivX
i was just wondering why people who live in canada can’t watch this also. and if their is any way I can watch these shows anywhere else? even though i live in canada pleeeeese help!!!!!!!
I watched it last night in the UK with no problem, but for today morning is just for who lives in the US …… is that possable to watch it at night-time in europe????????? or wath happend ?:(
I still get ‘episodes are temporarily unavailable’ error!!
The proxy thing worked, with and without changing my computer time. I wonder are the episodes unavailable or is there still something wrong with my settings??
This LOST fan would be very greatfull!!
i live in canada also and about a week ago i was able to watch the abc shows but just yesterday i tried and it gave me the message “only viewers in the US can watch these full length epesodes” !!!!!! i cant beleive that! i was wondering if anyone knows of anywhere else to watch those shows or even just GREYS ANATOMY that would be wonderfull!!! (and be able to watch them in Canada) i would be very thankfull!!!!!
just go here for all those people http://www.tv-links.co.uk/
from the UK,
the proxy things is working fine, but just on the mornings (GMT) because that is night-time at the USA :)
IF U from Europe do not even try watch it at night-time(GMT), and if “no ad”, do not give up just they run out of ads …. :D keep trying :)
got the proxy from here http://www.proxy4free.com/page1.html
now, just waiting for the sundays :D:D:D:D
You have to chande the proxy or IP address in your LAN settings, find an american free proxy that is annoy. to watch ABC online Grey’s Anatomy. If u find a good one please tell.
Ya I have a question. I click the Launch Now button and it will load to 90% and stop then I try to exit out it freezes then shuts down all the windows I have open at the time.. What do I do? Please reply by emailing me at Swimmer239@aim.com
I am having the exact same problems as Allie, something else I have noticed which might help clue someone in on what the problem might be is the weather.com site will not load up either. As far as I know these are the only 2 sites I am having problems with. (I have tested out quite a few other ones.)
I have tried turning off all computer safeguards added both abc, and weather to my trusted sites list, and still nothing seems to be working.
Any help on this would be great.
Thanks,
Sean
Allie and Sean, r u both using proxy from free list?
when i had the same problem or i left it to load ages – hours after being stuck on 90% or i changed the proxy because not all proxies are good :( keep trying or there is still a torrent :)
some proxy… http://www.publicproxyservers.com/page1.html
Thanks for the response ps!
I don’t know what was wrong, but everything started working again yesterday for no reason what-so-ever. (My wife was using it when I was at work and she doesn’t change anything on the computer.) go figure.
Sooo maybe it was a comcast thing? Oh well, it is working again. Hopefully Allie had the same thing happen.
Fred! I think i love you.
O… and, try using Hide My IP, and then just change the time zone on you computer. it worked for me.
I got a US proxy and I tried changing the time zone and when I went to ABC I still got error unavailable. Can anybody help please?? Thanks!!!
Hello friends,
I continue to have trouble as I live in the US with a new computer, the latest version of Flash player, DivX player and codecs, and no pop-up blocker! Still no ABC video! What could be the problem, and how might I fix it?
Can anyone be of help?
Why can’t you broadcast this site to Canadians? I missed the episode of What About Brian but wasn’t mad cuz I thought I could watch it on here?! Well i just found out I cant????! why cant u broadcast to canada? come on we watch this channel too.
I’m a major Grey’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives fan. And my tv broke down ): I was recommended to go to ABC, but its “US” only. Boo them.
Why can’t they broadcast it to Canada as well? We’re right beside the US! Isn’t there any way that we could change it so they think that we’re broadcasting from the US ? >.
go to http://www.tv-links.co.uk/ i think they have desperate housewives
then go to like youtube or dailymotions.com and all those sites for greys anatomy. do something like this greys anatomy s2 ep4 i dont know where there at in that show. or look in the forum of http://www.tv-links.co.uk/
Mike,
the link http://www.tv-links.co.uk/ isn’t working anymore on desperate housewives. the video removed because the content reported to be in violation of the terms of use…….
i started to have problems with the proxy too, i ment,i have problem to fine any working one :(
so go back to bittorrent, then…….
is anyone know a working proxy?????????x
Here is a completely offbeat question…
Is there a way to watch these through a PC game such as the hugely popular Second Life?
Reason I ask… there are ppl in game who have created “tvs”, virtual tvs to be placed in virtual houses where ppl can watch streaming or prerecorded video. In game we already have the capability to stream internet radio on land owned by a particular avatar (person), but I have not seen anything significant for TV. Right now it is limited to whatever is being offered in say for example the shoutcast medium. This is all well and good, but what if say someone can watch “Lost” on a virtual tv (which from my understanding can handle just about any url put into it). Would it be possible to do this with ABC’s new offering?
Bear in mind I will be experimenting ingame with this on my own. If it works this would revolutionize virtual living, which seems to be the next big thing as it is!
Drew B
Hello PS,
Well if its not on the http://www.tv-links.co.uk/ then its in the forum. Go to the forum and search Desperate housewives. and then there should be one that say new links. but whatever, if not you should go to dailymotions or youtube, and search for disparate housewives s2 ep4 or whatever. i can assure you you can find all. you could tell me which one you want and i could send you the link.
For example i just searched for desperate housewives and here are the last episodes (13)
go to http://forums.tv-links.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=2933&hl=desperate+housewives
the first link doesnt work episode 12 but the 13 does. Just search it took me 3 seconds to find that. so ok have fun.
with anonymizer and changing time zones i passed the US distriction but every ep i choose it says ” Invaild ad data ” how the hell can i fix that kind of problome lol
i used foxy proxy and it works sometimes till i get to either the pop up viewer or the 90% problem some people were having, that is if i even find a proxy that works. and i tried anonymizers but i usually get javascript problems on both ie and firefox. any suggestions on a good proxy or proxy list or how to fix the anonymizer problem?
hi. im studying abroad in the uk right now, and it kills me that i cant watch greys anatomy.
can someone explain to me how to change my IP address so that i can use the abc.com features. anonymizer works, but i dont have $30 to dowload it. otherwise id just get the eps off itunes! email me at lamanning1@gmail.com if you can help.
thanks!
my problem is the same as expressed in the comment above. if anyone can help please give me a little assistance as well. thanks. djenewein@apu.edu
Hi, when I change my ip address it won’t let me connect to the internet. Could anyone explain how to do this please? I’m using a Mac (Firefox and Safari). Thanks!
hi i guess they know about the ip and its not working anymore, i guess it worked, but ive tried anonymizers, ip hiders, the webpage http://www.cantbustme.com, and i get the temporarily unavailable, what do you think
YOU ALL ARE GETTTING SO ANOYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GO TO DAMN tv-links.co.uk if they dont have you show because dailymotions youtube whatever removed then look for it. it gets updated.
Try this–> http://www.veoh.com
CHANGE YOUR TIME ZONE FOR AN AMERICAN CITY!!! I can’t beleive I haven’t tried it before… It WORKS!
Whenever I click to view an episode it give me “invalid ad data.” Stating that advertisements are not available at this time. Is this something wrong with my set up or just the site?
Thanks!
mia , just keep trying untill you pick up an ad…. no worries :)
Ok people. I just figured out how to fix the problem with the advertisement message that some people are getting when trying to view episodes on the ABC website. You have probably been getting the “this episode cannot be viewed because the advertisements are currently unavailable….” error message. Here is what you should do to fix this problem…it is actually very simple.
1. Click on the “Tools” button in your browser…it should be on the top right of the browser.
2. You should get a drop down menu.
3. Select “Preferences” or “IE7pro Preferences” depending on the internet explorer version you have.
4. Now select the “Ad Filter” option from the left menu list.
5. Uncheck the “Enable Ad filter”
6. Then click “OK”
Now you can enjoy watching the episodes.
If all the above didn’t work for you, then just download the “Firefox” browser at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/ and watch the episodes using that browser.
Good Luck people….
I’m using http://www.afreeproxy.com but I only get as far as invalid catalogue data, what do you do to get past this one?
Well I did a fresh walktrough on my blog, for those of you guys that want to take a new start…
hi laurent great aportation, the only thing is that idont know why isnt working, im in mexico, an i have tried proxies and port numbers and it doesnt work, i have tried proxify.com, antbustme.com, hidemyass.com and nothing, when i try proxify it gives me the message that is temporarily unavailable, try later. ive changed my time zone.
any idea
thanx
Have you tried the one I have included in my article?
as a matter of fact i have tried, i dont know what im doing wrong, with the transparent proxies tells me that its only for…viewers, ive cleaned my cookies, change tme zone, do you really ca do it now a days.
thanx for the response
WATCH ABC SHOWS OUTSIDE THE U.S
Hi all,
I was hesitant to put this up here first, as I’d hate to let ABC know, but I just can’t keep it a secret, that would be selfish.
Get an anonymizer, as suggested previously. I have one called “Anonymizer” (Clever I know.) Scroll down to the bottom of this link to download. (It should have your current location now)
http://www.ip-adress.com/
After downloading, click on the above link again and it you can see the new location. (It changes daily, yesterday it said ‘anonymous’, today I’m apparently in California if anyone asks.) CHANGE YOUR COMPUTER CLOCK TO THAT TIME ZONE! When I first downloaded, I got the “Episodes Temporarily Unavailable” message. I tried Fred’s suggestion of changing the time zone and I am now all caught up with Grey’ Anatomy! If your IP address does not give a location, try just picking a U.S. time zone, however I am not sure if it will work then. You may have to wait until the next day to see if it gives you a location. But that combo works! Happy viewing!
Alright guys and girls I’m from little old New Zealand and I’ve finally got ABC’s Player to work and here is what I did.
First of all start by using Firefox and get the plugin called FoxyProxy from here
https://addons.mozilla.org/addon.php?id=2464
Once you have that all setup then start looking for a proxy that will work, the best proxy list site I found was this one http://www.samair.ru/proxy/type-01.htm
The proxies are arranged in order of location so just browse to the U.S. sites and start looking they start at about page 18.
Now there will be alot of proxies with the port number like 3124 or 3127 or 3128. I found that most of these just don’t work so look for ones that have the port numbers like 80 or 8888 or 8080.
Then once you find some you’ll first want to check that they work using this site
http://www.samair.ru/proxy-checker/index.php
If they say Bad Proxy or Timeout then they are probably offline. Look for the ones that say Elite as they tend to work best. Then click on the FoxyProxy label at the bottom of Firefox and select Add New Proxy. Give it a name then click the Proxy Details Tab. Type in the Ip Address and the Port Number and tick to use the Proxy for all protocols. Click Ok. Then Ok Again.
Now Right click your FoxyProxy label at the bottom again and pick Use Proxy (What ever you named your proxy previously) for all URL’s.
Now try browsing to this site
http://www.ip-adress.com/
If it brings up the map of where your IP is located then we should be in business. If no Google Earth map shows up you’ll have to look for another proxy.
Next you will have to Change your Time Zone on your computer to which ever Time Zone is closet to the place on the Google Earth Map of your IP.
Lastly you should be able to open the abc.com page at this address.
http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing#
Please let me know if you have any problems. I will check back on this site in a couple of days.
problem with that… i did all you said but with the foxyproxy it said “you did not enter a Whitelisted URL pattern.
any help?
Sorry about that G to put something in the whitelist its under the patterns tab when you are at the point of entering the proxy you found.
Sorry about that G to put something in the whitelist its under the patterns tab when you are at the point of entering the proxy you found.
what do i put in the whitelist?
becasue everything i put i says it not right…
Sorry man just put something like http://dynamic* all it wants is a website with a * in it.
Iv’e done everything you said but i go on http://www.ip-adress.com/, and i still say’s my IP adress is in the UK…
crazy
Down the bottom what does FoxyProxy say.
If it says Disabled then you need to Right Click on it and select
Use Proxy “Test” (or whatever you called it) for all URLs and try again.
Otherwise try a different proxy.
o.k it works now it says my IP adress is in Brooklyn/America…
changed my time zone to “Eastern Time (US and Canada) is that right?
so i changed it to that and still says you are not in america, so you cannot watch..
Ok sometimes the first proxy you pick won’t work. When you went to the http://www.ip-adress.com/ page did the Google map actually come up. If it didn’t then the proxy you’ve picked will be blocking Java or something like that. Also make sure that the proxy you pick isn’t one from the Planetlab or CoDeeN network because those will never work. Just keep trying different Proxies until you get one that works.
Also I have found that if you can successfully find a Transparent Proxy you should get a better speed because I think that they just mask your IP but the data is transfered as normal.
trying lots of IP adresses, but still none of them work, what’s your IP adress if you don’t mind?
Ok People try this one. Its a transparent Proxy so there should be no problems with bandwidth.
Ip 216.163.188.40
Port 80
still no use, this one says the IP adress is located in the UK,
i’am so stuck..
That is so strange, if you right click on FoxyProxy which option has the Dot next to it.
the one which I made, i called it “new”.
Well that sux man I don’t know why mine would say that I’m in the U.S. but yours wouldn’t. Have you actually tried opening up the ABC site.
IP adress says i’am in New York, when i’am really in England; so that worked…
What would i have to put for my TimeZone for New York?
Pacific time (US and Cadana)?
if not, what would it be>
and also it say’s
“in order to see this media, please download Macromedia Flash Player”
I’ve downloaded Flash player but it’s still not finding it though all of my proxey’s..
I watch my ABC shows on this stream every week. I am so busy that i never have time to stop and watch my shows- im always getting up and running around the house. I love that i can curl up when i have nothing to do one night when i can relax and spend the time to watch my favorite shows. Its just like having dvr except i dont have to record it!!
wonderful
http://www.peekvid.com/
on this u can find a movies and tv things us and uk too :)
u can DL with this from it :) http://dlthis.com
enjoy it :D
Man… from Chile to England… just look up for a proxy that says anonymous… other are transparents.. the problem is that those servers sends your ip location to the page
enjoy lost!!
I am confused…. over xmas time you can watch full episodes in Canada…. and then out of no where it stopped??? What the hell?? I would love to watch ABC full episodes online up in canada!!!!
Sooo I did everything Synpmasta said to do and it still says that I cannot view it only if im in the states… im from canada…. I have a Seatle ip adress and kept my time zone to the same since I am in the same time zone as seatle… still notta????
You have to make sure the city in your Time Zone preferences is american, otherwise it won’t work…
There is a guide on ebay.co.uk which tells you everything you need to know, just search for WATCH TOP US SHOWS.
I noticed a while back that brightcove.com has true full-screen with their flash video player. I hope ABC gets on top of that.
Well I think I cracked this one! Works fine with me and I live in finland so sorry for bad english. Gyes you just need to change your clock to the usa time and set a high speed proxy to your brownser. And lost starts….
It seems ABC changed their player… I haven’t been able to access any video since then, so you are telling me that this still works?
I cannot get Flash Player to load for 3 days. I have uninstalled and reinstalled. I use Mozilla Firefox. Any ideas?
Thanks much Snypmasta for the excellent guide. Had to try about 20 Ip addresses but FINALLY got one that worked!! ABC changed tehir player but you can still use the old one (theres a link for it by the launch new player button).
So i used a proxy site. i’m stuck in france. i managed to get around the page that says im not in the US. then it gave me a page that said i didnt have a java script enabled browser (which i do, its updated and i tried both ie and firefox). and when i block scripts. i just get the page…with no message.
anyone else having this prob?
i live in the us but am getting the message that “viewers outside the US cannot view these full length episodes.” What gives?
Here’s how i watched lost from the UK.
1. Download Anonymizer Trial.
2. Download Opera Web Browser.
3. change Time and Date to US Central.
4. Go to http://ll.static.abc.com/streaming/move/00030000/static.html?pth=&aff= or http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/popup?pl=mv in Opera.
anyone else get the constant error message about “invalid ad data”? It’s basically saying that the episode can’t be played at that time because the ads are not available and to try another episode. But it’s not just ONE episode, it’s all of them, any show. It happens more often that not. VERY frustrating when the whole idea is that you can watch it anytime online. I reported the problem THREE times to abc’s “feedback” button… no response, no change. I’m pretty PO’d.
ROZ, try this….
“…Nameer writes:
Ok people. I just figured out how to fix the problem with the advertisement message that some people are getting when trying to view episodes on the ABC website. You have probably been getting the “this episode cannot be viewed because the advertisements are currently unavailable….” error message. Here is what you should do to fix this problem…it is actually very simple.
1. Click on the “Tools” button in your browser…it should be on the top right of the browser.
2. You should get a drop down menu.
3. Select “Preferences” or “IE7pro Preferences” depending on the internet explorer version you have.
4. Now select the “Ad Filter” option from the left menu list.
5. Uncheck the “Enable Ad filter”
6. Then click “OK”
Now you can enjoy watching the episodes.
If all the above didn’t work for you, then just download the “Firefox” browser at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/ and watch the episodes using that browser.
Good Luck people….
# February 24, 2007 06:27 AM…”
I have Mozilla/Firefox, and I still am receiving Ad Data Errors.
I’m in Canada and was looking for a way to view videos on US sites such as ABC.com. I was having no luck until I found this web page:
http://21st.blogspot.com/2007/05/how-to-watch-abc-nbc-fox-and-cbs-tv.html
Hotspot Shield and SecureIX both worked, but I would recommend Hotspot Shield because of better throughput which you’ll need for video.
Also, like mentioned in the article, don’t intall the toolbar. And after install, open Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and stop AFController.exe from running. It’s not necessary. And delete the entry in the Registry that makes it start at:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
Oops, I meant don’t INSTALL the toolbar, but I’m sure you all figured that out.
By the way, Hotspot Shield worked awesome. SecureIX didn’t have enough bandwidth to keep the video from stopping and buffering occasionally, but with Hotspot Shield, a one-hour video that I was watching didn’t stop once.
Watching the ABC.com video was a little CPU intensive on my laptop, but that’s most likely because I don’t have the best video card.
Good luck everyone and happy viewing! :)
I found a great site, not only just for LOST but many. http://www.quicksilverscreen.com
Hi,
Ok, first, it does not allow me to use the old player. It only gives me the option to download and launch the new player they have. So I downloaded whatever I needed to download. The screen opens up and then everything freezes and I have to force mozilla to shut. Any thoughts?
Thanks..
I too am having a problem with the new player. It keeps telling me to restart my browser after the upgrade is loaded but nothing happens. I’ve sent several requests for help but I haven’t received a response yet. I’d rather watch on the old smaller view player than not be able to watch the shows at all. Any suggestons on how to get past this restart the browser message?
I can’t get ABC’s new video player to work anymore with Hotspot Shield in either IE or Firefox. :(
Not sure if it has something to do with the upgrade they did to make the player work with IE7 and Vista. Probably.
At least I can still use Hotspot Shield to allow me to watch streaming full episode video at NBC.com and CBS.com.
I had no trouble watching ABC.com with the old player. I am doing so from Mexico, using a WIFI hookup to a local server. If i try to go directly through Yahoo on the server, I get the “not available out of US” notice. but if I sign on to my AOL account, from USA, I could watch without problems. However, since the new player has been launched, I can access everything but the actual video, I can watch the commercials, select shows, and look at toolbar informing me of the minutes of the show, the breaks, everything, except the actual show does not appear on a black screen. I updated my Adobe Flash media, but still no picture or sound. any suggestions. Thanks
I have the same problems with some of you guys. Since I downloaded the new player, the shows I wanted to watch won’t play anymore. The commercials play, but I can’t understand why it just says “Loading”, yet the show never plays at all.. Last view I had was Saturday night, and since last night, I can no longer view the episodes of the show I watch…. PLease help….. abc.com doesn’t give an answer………..
I have the same problem with the new ABC player. No video or Sound. No Show, only Loading…Sent email to them, but haven’t received any response yet.
well i think it stinks – i’ve been trying to use it for a week and it just loops in circles back to the test clip – there are no links to start an episode of anything and abc refuses to respond to any requests for assistance. at least the old player worked. i had no trouble at all last weekend.
Worse, the old player worked everywhere flash works. This one only works on Mac/Windows versions ABC has spent the time to support. The advantage of sticking with (admittedly, only de-facto in this case) standards is that compatibility is already dealt with.
Also, they’re forcing you to install some random piece of software that they say is innocent. Rember when Sony decided that you had to install their software before listening to their CDs? I can only hope that this isn’t the first step towards requiring “TPM” drm hardware on your computer to be allowed to consume content.
What garbage. I tried their demanding Windows XP crap, and it bombed compared to the old Flash viewer. Morons all. Well, not exactly morons, but not triple digit IQ’s either.
I end up in a loop the new player never launches. When are they going to have a solution, atleast put up the old version link again.
I would love to try the player but can not get passed a successful launch player test. How do you select a show and episode? I am in the USA so I should not be blocked.
They fixed it!!! I can view the episodes now.
It WAS fixed. Now it is back to looping on the test screen again. How frustrating.
Good job screwing up a good thing, ABC!
The fix above worked perfectly and it took less than a minute. I was able to view the episodes without a problem.
So what exactly do I need to do to get this new ABC player working? The one one worked fine. Now I hit “run” twice like it says– it starts to install then just stops. and nothing. its REALLY getting annoying.
Well, mine is working perfectly now.
the Hotspot program worked wonders. thanks!!
I just read the article’s title and got a big laugh. It says ABC streaming is “spectacular”. Obviously these people haven’t used ABC’s streaming much. The streaming is barely watchable at best, nonexistent at worst. I have all the requirements and a very fast, stable Internet connection and the experience is horrible. The problem seems to be that ABC didn’t purchase enough bandwidth and/or doesn’t have multiple servers in strategic locations around the country and world. I’m an old hand at the Internet and I’ve come to realize that when old broadcasting companies try to implement new technology, it takes them a while to actually get it right. Youtube is a prime example of how streaming should be done. The streaming is rarely bad and the quality is average. With the money ABC has, there is no excuse for their service to be so poor.
John
I hadn’t tried the ABC streaming video in ages what with it being summer and all, but I just tried it with Hotspot Shield and it works again. Not sure if ABC made some changes or Hotspot did, but all is right with the world. Now I can watch from Canada. :)
L’avenir de la télévision passe par l’Internet
L’Internet va-t-il devenir un nouveau canal de distribution pour les chaînes de télévision, au même titre que l’hertzien, le câble, le satellite, le mobile et la TV par ADSL ? Aux Etats-Unis, avec le printemps, on assiste à l’éclosion d�…
Hey Hugh
Except this is a US TV station who was the first to develop streaming kinda-HD, it is streaming a whole set of shows, all of which were written and developed in the US, and chances are you are watching it on an operating system, browser software and hardware all developed in the US.
If you’ve got a problem with that, then go develop your own programs, your own software your own OS’s and your own streaming technology in your own brilliant country. But stop whining and get off your backside and do something creative instead. The world doesn’t owe you anything you know.
Hello everyone!
First question: Is it possible to watch the ABC shows now?
I’ve been watching the shows before the summer but when i tested again for a couple of days ago it only says:
Episodes are temporarily unavailable. Please try again another time.
I’m using hotspot shield and/or Ultrasurf in Firefox/Internet Explorer.
Does anyone know anything about it? Aaargh.
I just tried the new ABC streaming video. Used it a lot last year with very few issues. So I downloaded the new player. No problem on the install. (I’m on vista business and IE7). However the show I watched was so choppy (start/stop, overlaying audio), that it was almost unwatchable. I have a great internet broadband connection too. I turned off as much of my computer resources as possible, just shy of turning off Norton, and still no improvement. Tried mini-screen up through full screen… same issue. anyone getting a smooth video/audio connection with the new player??
Has anyone been able to get the ABC shows using Hotspot (I’m from Canada) or a proxy this week? I’ve been working evenings and want to see the premiere’s.
I can’t tell if they haven’t posted them or if it is hotspot not letting me…
Thanks!
Thanks to Fred !!
I’m French and I use ultrasurf to watch videos on ABC, ans i forgot to change my clock to US time zone.
Now it works very well, thank you !
I was getting to watch the ABC shows but all of a sudden I’m getting an error message stating that “The player requires a JavaScript-enabled browser” and for me use a Java-Script-enabled browser. Well my IE7 is still setup the same and the java-script is enabled. I tried Netscape and the same thing and it’s Java-Script is enabled also.
Any ideas how to correct this?
Yeah i changed my time also, and it works! thnx fred!
I’m also using ultrasurf! it worked flawless at cbs.com where i watch csi.
i keep getting the “error! episodes temporarily unavailable” message so many others got. i switched the time zone from european to US, i’m in the US now, on a US computer. i have all the latest versions of everything and high bandwidth. why did changing time zones not work for me? any other suggestions? i’d really appreciate any help. thanks guys!
I just found out that the Ad Blocker within my Nortons Firewall was causing my java-script problem. Once I turned off the Ad Blocker it worked fine. I’m using just the IE7 Pop-Up Blocker now.
Dex.
I tried to view the abc video player, but nothing shows up when I click Full epidsodes. Theres no pop up box or video screen. I just see a white outline of a box on the original page and a list of non-linked shows that can be viewed. I have no idea if im supposed to download something, or instal a new program on my computer. There is no error message, or anything for that matter! I need Help!!!
Olivia,
Try doing what I did in my response above. It may not work but then again it may. You have to down load the Full Episode Player but you have to get past your first problem before ABC will give you access to the player.
Dex.
After reading all of thises wonderful accolades i have to wonder why there were continual stops in the playing of the Gray’s Anatomy program. Was just like it was the old style of video where it had to continually reload (and I am not talking about the sessions where we got the 30 second breaks) but throughout the entire show.
Do I need to change any settings on my cache? (even though it seems like nothing was being loaded into cache). Are there other settings I need to look at? Very frustrating to watch and to loose some of the audio and video while it was reloading.
Good tip with the anonymizer program and ip-adress.com. I am testing their Hide my ip Program
It works fantastic.
I had the same problem as Olivia and I went in and turned off my ad blocker and pop-up blocker in Norton and it worked great. Thanks so muxh Dex!!!!
Olivia and Dex:
I had the exact same problem, where nothing at all would show up at abc’s full episode page except unlinked show names. I also kept getting the error message ‘you either don’t have the lasted flash player or have javascript disabled’ on youtube for several videos, even though I knew that I had things set up right. All I did was to turn off my ad blocker and both sites now work perfectly.
Dex, thank you so much for fixing a problem that has been frustrating me for over a week.
Seriously.
Do any of you have any trouble getting all the season 3 episodes? Only about 75% show up in the player, as if there isn’t room to display them all and there is no option to use arrows to scroll and view more. Anyone else have this problem or know what it might be?
Holy crrrap! After trying everything in creation, from downloading Firefox to downloading Windows Safari, disabling everything within Norton EXCEPT the stupid ad blocker and popup blocker, I tried what Dex suggested and lo and behold, ABC’s player is back in business! Thank you soooo much!
Hello everyone!
First question: Is it possible to watch the ABC shows now?
I’ve been watching the shows before the summer but when i tested again for a couple of days ago it only says:
Episodes are temporarily unavailable. Please try again another time.
I’m using hotspot shield and/or Ultrasurf in Firefox/Internet Explorer.
Does anyone know anything about it? Aaargh.
Well, it works for me now. I’m using Firefox and IE6 again. I’m located in good old Staten Island, NY in the US (in case you’re not from here)
fred… u r my hero!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For those people habitually getting the “episodes not available” problem yet are in the U.S…. try disabling your antivirus/firewall/anti-spyware stuff. I tried all sorts of settings to no avail and finally just uninstalled my Computer Associates protective crap… and VOILA! EPISODES!
Kara
You didn’t have to uninstall it just turn off your ad blocker. That’s all I did.
Dex.
Em
Glad I could help!!!
Dex.
hey ive disabled my firewall and everything i can think of but im still getting the Episodes are temporarily unavailable what should i do?
Check your date/ time settings. I had this problem as well because the timezone was set to a non-us zone. CHanged it and everything works again…
HELP…tried to play LOST’s last episode on both IE and Firefox versions of the player. The player downloads fine, the ads play fine, but when then episode starts, the sound is perfect but the video is all “tinny”, with very few colors displaying (basically impossible to really see anything). I watch videos all the time on this “puter…no other net-based video or any of my DVDs produce this result…only the ABC player. Tried it on my other brand new ‘puter and the ad plays, but on that one, the video never starts. To make matters worse, I try to report it to ABC and after I fill out the complaint page and hit send, it just tells me “the site is too busy to process your request. Please try again later.” …for the last few hours!!!Had the same problem 6 months ago and gave up after not being able to report the problem then either. What could possibly be wrong? Anyone have any clues?
ps, only what u need are firefox and realplayer …. :) (got link to dl them on the page)
I am trying to use abc streams outside the U.S. and it does not seem to be working, I changed the IP address and the time zone def. says New York, does anyone know how to go around the system for MAC?
Is anyone else getting the “javascript: void(0)” error on the full episode window? The weird thing is the player worked fine a week ago. The pictures dont load and the links so work. I’ve tried turning off my firewall and anti-virus. Nothing…
Please Help!
I can’t get this to work well on my old computer. There are lots of we rather poor and somewhat disabled folks who cannot afford much more than a good computer and broadband. I do not see why they cannot have 2 levels of service as most providers do – usually one for broadband and one for dialup. In this case, one for those who cannot afford to get a fast computer, and by fast, probably 1.5 or 2 GHz might work. I gather the reason is they are going after the young money and those interested in ABC programs, which, although garbage, is better than the other garbage. I’m fussy about which garbage I watch. By garbage, I mean the acting is second rate at best and the scripts are soap operaish.
whenever I try to use this new hd streamer it doesn’t work. I click on the “launch the player button”, and nothing happens [on full episodes on the abc website]. I’m very upset because I keep clicking it and nothing happens. What might be wrong??
From France: ultrasurf+changing time zone worked great for me
People from outside the USA should be blocked access to view because it is the USA advertising companies paying for site. If you are outside the USA then you are not relevant to the advertising, thus stealing you thieves that are trying to bypass the block.
Hey! I get the same problem with ABC Full Episode JAVA VOID. What in the world does that mean? Tried disabling Norton, NOTHING happens clicked on everything only thing that will pop up is the daym HELP button which DOES NOT HELP!!! Someone email me on how to make it work!!! Thank you :)
If anyone has figured out what to do about the javascript:void(0) on abc full episode player, PLEASE let me know what to do to do fix it.
Finally able to view my favorites – after successfully contacting ABC techsupp & being advised as follows:
“If you are having trouble downloading or installing the player, you may use the links below to download and install the player directly. Please select the link appropriate to your operating system and web browser.”
PC – Firefox – http://mvnet.xlontech.net/qm/move/07074006/MoveMediaPlayer_win_mozilla_07074039.exe
PC – Internet Explorer – http://mvnet.xlontech.net/qm/move/07074006/MoveMediaPlayer_07074039.exe
MAC – Safari and Firefox – http://mvnet.xlontech.net/qm/move/07074006/qmpsetup_mac_mozilla_07074032.dmg
“After the file has downloaded, double-click or run it to install the player. If you are having trouble upgrading the player software from a previous installation, uninstalling the software from your system and then reinstalling from the website should resolve the issue.
Please note the system requirements listed on the player FAQ page. The ABC Full Episodes Player does not support dialup connections or AOL Explorer. You must be able to download at broadband (Cable, DSL or T1+) speeds and use Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox to view the content on this website. Additionally, the player supports only Internet Explorer 6+ and Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.0+ for Windows and Safari 1.3.2+ and Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.0+ for Mac OS X. Please view the webpage using one of these supported browsers and operating systems.
The ABC HD content has higher hardware and bandwidth requirements, in addition to the requirements listed for standard playback. These requirements are noted when you select the HD channel in the player interface.
If you experience playback problems with either video or audio, please try to change the player video settings to correct the problem by opening in your browser http://movenetworks.com/support/renderer.html
If you experience problems with slow or choppy video playback, please ensure that you meet or exceed the stated system requirements, including those pertaining to your internet connection speed. If you are unsure of your internet connection speed, please visit http://speedtest.net/ to perform a bandwidth test. Your connection must report that you are able to download at 300kbps or better to view the streaming content without problems. Additionally, disabling any anti-virus or internet security software which you may have running while viewing the website may afford you a more enjoyable playback experience, as this will free up more system resources for the best possible video playback.”
Sorry ’bout the length…hope it helps all who haven’t been able to watch favorite episodes. ZR
I’ve been trying to watch full episodes streamed on abc.com. Up until last week it worked perfectly. Now, every time I click on the link it spins for a while and then tells me the server has taken too long to respond. This has been going on since Sunday and is happening with both firefox and explorer. Usually all I can get to the home page but then all the other pages time out. Even the FAQ page… so I can’t find any way to get help. The video streaming was working perfectly until last week. I don’t have any problems with nbc or fox. Anybody else having these problems? Any ideas on how I can fix it?
ZR, thank you SO MUCH for posting that. I have been trying to get the abc ep player to work for months.
I am very grateful! AND just in time for LOST!!!
Cia,
I have also recently had the same problems with abc.com. I have not done anything differently either. Abc.com has worked fine up until a few weeks ago. Is there something I need to install. I’m not sure what is going on. My boyfriend and I have the same laptop and his work and mine doesn’t???
Any suggestions are greatly welcomed!
I miss my shows… :(
Kristie:
I discovered it was a problem with my router. I was getting some websites (fox and nbc) to stream perfectly but ABC wouldn’t let me. But, when I unplugged my connection from my router and plugged it directly into my computer it was working fine. I think ABD’s website it sending too much information for the router to handle so it was timing out. If you are accessing abc to stream shows through a router you might want to trying plugging directly into your computer and see if that works. If you’re not using a router to access abc.com then I’m afraid I’m out of suggestions.
Good Luck
i used hide my ip and changed my time settings and it worked great from the uk
Cia,
Thank you so much. I didn’t even think about the routher. I unplugged it and plugged it back in. Now abc.com is working great!
Thanks again! I appreciate your response!!
:)
ok, this is getting frustrating.
Live in UK, and got the “cannot be viewed outside Us” thing. so used “Hotspot Shield” and then got the “episodes temp unavailable” so changed the time setting to US on windows and got through to the player. Then selected the lost episode but got the “adverts” error message so turned of ad blocking and it started loading.
The first advert came on and played fine but then when it goes back to the player the black screen just says “loading….” I can click on each of the segments of the programme and the relevant adverts play ok but cannot get the actual programme to play. I’ve left it for a long time but still just says “loading…”. So close yet so far and I’m close to giving up but can’t do without LOST! Any ideas of how to get over this (hopefully) final hurdle????
i installed hotspot shield and in 2 mins i was watching conan obrien.
Flash video was the right choice here.
– Shelon Padmore
I noticed a few other people getting the error message “Episodes are temporarily unavailable” and at the bottom of my screen I see javascript:void(0). Has anyone figured out the reason for this? I’ve messed around with all my firewall / pop-up blocker stuff.
Lost is my ABSOLUTE favorite show and it’s killing me to miss the episodes!
I am having the same problem: “Episodes are temporarily unavailable, please try again at another time.” This happens for any show on ABC, not just LOST. I’ve tried everything I can think of and can’t get it to work! I’m watching from US, so there shouldn’t be a problem there…
Both Kristie and I resolved this problem by unplugging the router and plugging the connection directly into the computer. Now, It works perfectly. If you have a router that may be the problem. Try unplugging it and watching directly a couple times. Now it’s working fine even through the router. I think ABC’s website was trying to put too much info in through the router and it was timing out. It just needed a reboost.
You can watch the video internationally if you simply change your proxy settings and use a “fake” American proxy. ABC will stream to the new “American” proxy, that how ever conveniently, is located on your computer…hehe…just a little trick. Google how to surf the web with total privacy, or how to hide behind another proxy, or how to use a different proxy…all of these questions will eventually lead you to the same answer. Change a proxy. Download from ABC.
Enjoy!
Cia,
Thanks for the suggestion but it didn’t work. I’ve tried plugging straight it, turning off all firewalls and safety options on internet explorer, turning off windows firewall, and running a different internet browser and still: “Episodes are temporarily unavailable, please try again at another time.” None worked. Please, if anyone knows how to fix this problem let me know. Thanks.
Ryan,
I tried plugging in directly and I got the same results as you. “Episodes are temporarily unavailable”. I can watch Fox episodes fine, I can even watch the news on ABC, just not the full episodes.
PLEASE HELP!!!!!
Same problem as Paul, although rarely I don’t have this problem and the shows play:
Living outside US
Using Hotspot shield
changed time zone
Plays adverts, then black screen just says “loading….” I can click on each of the segments of the programme and the relevant adverts play ok but cannot get the actual programme to play.
Ginnie,
I ended up buying them off iTunes. What a waste of $4 for two missed episodes! I hope you have better luck…
Rylan
***** If you have the AD DATA PROBLEM READ ME *********
***** If you have the AD DATA PROBLEM READ ME *********
***** If you have the AD DATA PROBLEM READ ME *********
***** If you have the AD DATA PROBLEM READ ME *********
I FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT….
you need to disable the ad blocker on your browser to watch the videos. This makes sense. If you block the ads they wont show the episode.
For example I had to turn off my ANTIVIRUS and my BROWSER AD blocker on maxthon to watch. If you have soemthing like google toolbar that blocks ad or ANY PROGRAM that BLOCKS ADS TURN IT OFF!
This is great stuff. I can get most of these episodes at home,but i work at nights and i can watch this on my laptop at work. The video quality is excellent.
ok so for the people who all this didnt work for !!!!! heres how i got it to work for me enjoy :)
1. Download hotspot Shield
2. Press connect when installed
3. when connected go on to http://www.ip-adress.com/ if it works it should say u are from Brooklyn or sum where in america then a map should pop up.
4. Go on to dynamic.abc.go.com and click Lost season 1 , 2 ,3 or 4 and see if it loads up.
5. if it loads up click on the video u want to watch and u will see an 13sec advert after its finished on the hotspot shield (that should be in the tray icon at the bottom right) right click it and disconect
5 click go at the top when u want to see the episode when the adverts finnished and BOOM ure Watching Seasons on LOST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
p.s. i live in Uk and runnign windows vista when installing Hotspot Shild click u want to instal the drivers when the window message pops up!!!
i hope this worked for you if it didnt msn me at Kisspsyco@hotmail.co.uk
Enjoy :)
SOz bout this but also u need to downlaod a firefox adon called foxy proxy and find a transparent us ip adress once u have this on as well as hotspot shield it will work hopefully.
I’m having the same problem with the javascript:void(0). Anyone figure out a fix?
Hey people!
Do as above, but when the episode comes up “Loading…”,
Right click the green shield in system tray, and click “Disconnect”.
This allows the episode to stream at your connection speed,
And!,
You don’t need to watch the ads!
email me with queries @ jammy1193@hotmail.co.uk
-Jamie
Oh, and you may need to reconnect to select another episode,
I have watched Season 1 and am on the first episode of Season 2!
Currently streaming @ 1581kb/s up here in Scotland (:
ok so i have 8mb broadband and a gaming spec computer!!!!! i try and watch lost when i get back from school thats 3:55 i try and watch lost however i get a rubbish streaming rate!!!! even though i have good connection and computer. however at night time in england i seem to get 1596kbps for some strange reason it gets to be like this around 10- 12 oclock dunno why any body help me out?
p.s. Jamie how do u make it work on your computer plz may u walk me through the steps of how u got ABC lost series to work online as well as a Proxy ip address you use to bypass when u click to watch bit thanks.
Hey, Do you have msn?
id rather talk on that
-jamie
Hey,
I’d rather talk on msn,
-Jamie
Oh, my msn is jammy1193@hotmail.co.uk
-Jamie
not working!!!
Hi i’ve done this and had no luck. It still says episodes are unavailable. Help!
I have been using this for about 3 weeks now without any problems. I really appreciate this. Im on the road a lot as i said last month
Hi, I have hooked up my tv to my computer and can watch tv shows from abc but when I try to watch nbc or cbs there is only video not audio. Everything is ok on the computer ( sound and video) but not on the tv. Does anyone know what the problem could be. I have am using XP home.
Thanks
THANKS!!! I was getting the invalid ad data error. I had tried everything from changing the preferences to downloading codecs and such and then read the answer here. I had a separate ad manager in my security program that I didn’t even know was enabled. I disabled it and now I can watch!!!!
About the Javascript error, select the show, scroll the page down, select Watch Now. Another window opens with the player. I too was having the same problem with a screen resolution of 1024×768, the Watch Now button was off screen, it wasn’t until I scrolled the window and found the Watch button that everything worked. 1280×1024 shows the whole page as ABC intended it.
Hi! I have been watching episodes from abc.com for a month without problems (from Switzerland), but it suddenly just stopped working. Whenever I try to start an episode I get this ‘Error. Episodes are temporarily unavailable. Please try again.’ And of course, trying again hasn’t really chanced anything. I’ve found a proxy from the US, I have a Hotspot Shield and I remembered to disable my antivirus thingy. Is there anything I might be doing wrong? pls help
same is happening to me… Let me know how to solve this issue! thanks
Chiara
This stupid website totally started my computer running very slow…I hate it and won’t/can’t use it. Too bad people wont realize this until th ey click into it. I NEED IT REMOVED>>>HOW CAN I DO THIS???????
Once again I’m having trouble streaming abc.com. It seems every time they have premiers my streaming stops working. Now everytime I try to click on a episode to stream it says “The player encountered an error. Please try again later. [error code: parser] Any ideas on how to fix this? It’s been over a week now.
those that live in Canada can stream from CTV’s website as it hast it instead of abc.
The irony is, I can’t view the videos, and I LIVE IN THE USA.
#$%^&@(!
Meanwhile, my cousin in another country can see it just fine.
I cannot get past the commercials on ABC.com. The countdown numbers show for a second and then disappear. I’ve watched at least 15 commercials and there is no way to access the show afterwards. Some episodes I can and others I can’t. This has to be their problem, right?