More evidence of NBC Universal’s anybody-but-iTunes strategy comes with news that the company is partnering with SanDisk. Reuters reports that as of January new shows from NBC’s broadcast network and cable channels will be available on Fanfare, SanDisk’s newly launched Windows-only video download service. The initial content lineup will include “The Office”, “Heroes” and “30 Rock.”
Fanfare, in combination with SanDisk’s TakeTV device, offers a way of getting paid-for video content downloaded via a PC onto a television. We’ve previously covered TakeTV, where we described it as taking a much simpler approach compared to the many media extenders on the market by negating the need for a home network. “Instead, content is physically shuttled from a PC to a TV via a dedicated USB stick and docking station.”
Meanwhile, Vudu’s set-top box (see our review) has landed some television content of its own. Crave reports that, as of today, TV episodes from Fox are available for purchase priced at $1.99 each, the same price as TV shows on Apple’s iTunes Store. The lineup covers twelve shows including “24”, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, “Family Guy”, and “My Name is Earl”.
Shuttling data manually sounds extremely lame to me!