I usually don’t like to rant because I tend not to stay focused on what it is I’m ranting about. For example, I’m into the first sentence of this rant and I’m writing about why I don’t like to rant rather then what it is I’m ranting about it. But I am in an irritated mood at the moment so let me see if I can stay focused. My issue very specifically is ABC.com’s video on demand website and more generally why what they are doing is so stupid.

In order for you to play video on demand content from ABC’s website you must first install ‘their’ flash based player. Now their player is a browser add-in developed by Movie Networks http://www.movenetworks.com/. This is the same player used by “ABC, the CW, Fox, ESPN, and others” according to their webpage. Ok great, got a better player that let the web host present advertisement and quality VoD I’m down with that, and I’ll install their player, even though I’m getting very good quality from out-of-the-box flash player sites such as Hulu and Youtube without any extra mandatory add-ons. ABC however has gone the extra mile and done something special stupid. They check to see what browser and OS you are running so, I can only guess, let you know that they have not coded the site for your browser and or OS. So if you are like me and running Windows 7 beta you get a screen that looks like this:

Thanks a bunch for checking my browser and OS and letting me know that your website developers are so arrogant to think that the only people that are worth servicing are people they have chosen to write case statements for. And incidentally, I have no problems with the Fox, NBC, or CW. After filling out ABC’s helpful feed back explaining they suck I got the following email reply:
 

Thank you for taking the time to send us your feedback concerning ABC.com's Full Episode Player. Our development team is continually working to improve the quality of your online viewing experience, and your feedback is an invaluable part of this process!

If you are experiencing technical difficulties, we've attached a few suggestions for resolving some of the more commonly experienced issues.

If you are having trouble upgrading the player software from a previous installation, uninstalling the software from your system and then reinstalling from the website should resolve the issue.

Please note the system requirements listed on the player FAQ page at http://ll.static.abc.go.com/s/fep/help/index. The Player does not support dialup connections or AOL Explorer. You must be able to download at broadband (Cable, DSL or T1+) speeds and use Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox to view the content on this website. The player supports Internet Explorer 7 and Mozilla Firefox 2+ for Windows; Safari and Mozilla Firefox 2+ are supported for Mac OS X. Please view the webpage using one of these supported browsers and operating systems.

Content labeled as HD has higher hardware and bandwidth requirements in addition to the requirements listed for standard playback. These requirements are noted when you select the HD channel in the Player interface.

If you experience problems with slow or choppy video playback, please ensure that you meet or exceed the stated system requirements, including those pertaining to your internet connection speed. If you are unsure of your internet connection speed, please visit http://speedtest.net/ to perform a bandwidth test. Your connection must report that you are able to download at 300kbps or better to view the standard (non-HD) content without problems.

If you meet the listed requirement and are still seeing problems with video quality, disabling any anti-virus or Internet security software which you have running may afford you a more enjoyable playback experience. This will free up more system resources for the best possible video playback. Kaspersky, Trend-Micro and Norton Internet security products are known to cause conflicts and may need to be disabled to view content.

If you are receiving a parser error, please disable any ad blocking software or browser plugins which you may have running.

We hope that this information is helpful in resolving any technical issues that you may be experiencing and thank you again for your feedback!

Regards,

The Development Team

Oh really, great let me just check my speed and all of that other crap to see if maybe that fixes it… Jackasses. The good news is; after going to the CW website and installing what I’m guessing is the same version of the Movie Networks plug-in that ABC.com’s site is currently using the video plays just fine on ABC’s site and I don’t get the “we are dumbass web developers” web page as before. The sad thing is that this same issue has been going on at ABC’s site for sometime now with Vista 64 being the last issue I had with ABC. This issue could be easily solved by hiring a lead developer that is not smart enough to read the browser client info.