NBC Streaming Full Episodes of 30 Rock and the Office to iPhones (for Free, No Ads!)

Even though there's no love lost between NBC and iTunes, that doesn't mean NBC doesn't love you! At least if you've got an iPhone or iPod touch. They're streaming full episodes of 30 Rock and The Office to iPhones (and touches) in QuickTime, for free, with NO ads. They work, nicely, but the major catch is that if you exit Safari, you've gotta re-DL all over again, and the files are huge, so is this Wi-Fi only, really. This looks weird for NBC, but it's really not.

They're putting their shows out online in a million different ways (you can even download 30 Rock, The Office, Conan and Leno direct to your desktop now) and more than happy to pipe 'em to you, as long as it's in a controlled sandbox of some sort. NBC Direct requires a walled-garden player install with loads of DRM, and they wanted copyright controls from Apple and Microsoft to give just two examples, not to mention Hulu. It's sorta surprising that the QuickTime feed for iPhone is unprotected, but theoretically it's restricted to two devices. You know, if they'd just relax a bit, overall, they'd be in a good place online. [Silicon Alley Insider, Thanks Peter!]