NBC Hooks Up With SanDisk


Like a bride left at the altar, NBC has turned to SanDisk as its latest suitor, leaving Apple without the network's TV shows. Ars Technica reports that NBC and SanDisk have hastily bundled together a deal that puts content from NBC, USA Network, the SCI FI Channel, and Bravo on SanDisk's Fanfare site from January.

No, we hadn't heard of Fanfare either, which obviously arrived without much...fanfare?

Ars explains: it's "SanDisk's web-based video service that allows customers to download content through their PCs directly to a Sansa TakeTV device, plug the TakeTV into a cradle connected to a TV set, and then watch that content on the TV. The required TakeTV USB dongle can be found online for between $95 and $150, although Fanfare's service is currently free (the company warns, however, that "in the future, some premium content will have a minimum download charge."

Got that? Of course, as you'd expect, it's Windows Windows Windows-only, with no Mac or Linux support now - or possibly ever.

SanDisk will reportedly implement some heavy DRM on the video files, including tying the files to the PC they're downloaded by.

More to NBC's liking is the as-yet-unspecified 'flexible pricing' model that SanDisk has agreed to.

Will it work? Unlike iTunes, which is on every iPod owner's desktop (and hundreds of millions besides). Who knows about Fanfare? Maybe if NBC plug it enough...