NBC Streams The Office and 30 Rock to Your iPhone

The NBC / Apple feud is getting ugly. The network has just decided to stream some of its TV shows free through its website. In a move probably intended to stick it to Apple, the episodes are fully formatted for your iPhone.

NBC and Apple have been engaged in a war of words over presenting the network’s shows over iTunes. It’s a void Microsoft’s Zune believes it can fill by securing a deal with NBC for the media player. But iPhone users aren’t completely in the dark when it comes to NBC’s hit TV series. The Office and 30 Rock will be streamed ad-free from its website.

NBC says the full episode downloads are quite popular so far. This is just the first step for NBC online streaming services that will generate ad-based revenue for the company. By streaming rather than providing downloadable files the network avoids sticky DRM or copy-protection issues by sending out each episode soon after it’s aired.

To receive the streaming video you’ll need a Wi-Fi connection. The EDGE connection on iPhone just isn’t fast enough. Hopefully the service will work well streaming through 3G when the updated version of iPhone is finally released. Until then you’ll be tethered to a Wi-Fi hotspot which means that for now, you might as well just watch it on TV.

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