NBC Direct, Take Two, Out for Testing

NBC is opening a trial of the new version of its web VOD software NBC Direct, which now incorporates the download-speeding assistance of peer-to-peer startup Pando. The network sent out an email to beta testers inviting them to check out free episodes of The Office in 720p HD video (the better to see every single muscle contortion involved in John Krasinski’s facial expressions, from the privacy of your own laptop!). I tried to give the software a whirl tonight, but despite my best efforts to upgrade, restart, agree, continue, login, trouble-shoot and force-quit, it just wasn’t happening.

Here’s part of the missive:

We’d like to invite you to test drive the latest beta of NBC Direct; now with support for 720p HD video. PCs only for now (Mac support coming soon) and the majority of MS OS flavors are supported: XP, Vista (all grades) and even Media Center. Follow the steps below to download the installer and register the player.

Series available at launch (in the U.S. only) are 30 Rock, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Office and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

The first version of NBC Direct, which came out way back in November, was a bear to install and ended up using obnoxious proportions of PC resources. Our advice then and now is to try Hulu instead.

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