Gizmodo
Taking a page out of the Hulu playbook, but awesomer, the South Park guys are streaming every single South Park episode in full at their official site, South Park Studios. What they get right: Streams are fast and vid quality is solid; every episode, from first to most recent is available (with one exception); and newer ones are uncensored. Yep, you actually get to hear your favorite childrens scream "What the fuck is going on?" in the Britney ep. Major point of suck: ads.
They're mercifully short, but you get hit with about three per episode (marked by the little white lines in the timeline), though you have a limited ability to jump around the ep to sorta avoid them. Still, they're less intrusive than the pop-ups that assault you at AllSP.com or the like. Which is probably a big part of why they're doing this—the online audience for South Park is huge, with lots of sites streaming eps and major torrent traffic. So why not get a slice of that ad revenue?
Ads are going to be a part of any free TV online equation, unfortunately. So are rights issues—for some reason the Britney ep is already available, but the first episode of the current season won't be up until April. WTF? But all in all, they get it as right as an official channel can for the time being, which looks startlingly like a glimpse at the future of TV. Update: Another reason living in Canada sucks: No access for Canadians. [South Park Studios]
Comments
Fuck commercials. allsp.net FTW!
Meh.
Very, very cool.
For the last few years They have been releasing the DVD sets every 6 months. Now that they are caught up, I was expecting a "complete eleventh season" on DVD but got a 3-ep Imaginationland disc instead....this more than makes up for that.
I would think they would want to put the disc set out before rolling out the eps for free, but who am I to argue ;-)
"every episode, from first to most recent is available (with one exception)"
What's the episode that isn't included? Is it something like the Scientology episode? Or something more to do with licensing, like the Bigger, Longer, Uncut movie?
Doesn't work in Canada as usual...
Meh, not in Canada: The full episodes are blocked here.
I wouldn't mind the commercials if they (a) were different every time, (b) were more than glorified "PowerPoint" slides, (c) exhibited even the slightest hint of creativity and thought, and (d) were not dumb.
Yes, Sonic Restaurants, I'm talking to you.
You may hate the ads but that's how this shit is paid for. You think Comedy Central and the creators of South Park do what they do out of the kindness of their hearts?
Full episodes don't work for Canada. Apparently coming soon.
Complaining about short, hardly intrusive ads that help pay for the service you're enjoying.
How ungrateful can you be?
@dsevil:
Those are better than those stupid Burger King commercials with the dudes yelling at other fast food restaurants in burger costumes.
Sweet, I can catch up on the last 4 seasons that I haven't really been watching.
BitTorrent Forever !
www.allsp.com is better.
I like where this is heading. It makes me feel better about having a cable broadband, but not a TV package.
[www.donotudnerstand.com]
If you're a real fan of the program, you have them all already.
But I do appreciate their gesture... LOL!
gosh, who knew so many canadians read gizmodo? with all their beady little eyes and flapping heads so full of lies.
so stupid... www.allsp.com is sooooo much better!!!!
Canada: FUCK MTV
am I right?
@tucker: Brilliant lol
How fucking hard is to install adblock plus? seriously, its not that hard people.
"So are rights issues-for some reason the Britney ep is already available, but the first episode of the current season won't be up until April. WTF?"
So it has to do with the first episode of the current season, probably a song or something.
@newgalactic: No, I'm talking about the first ep of this season. But they imply that the Wednesday's episode will go up the same day it airs, which is how I hope it works, since a major issue I have w/ Hulu is you have to wait a few days after something airs to stream it. You can grab shit on torrent faster than on Hulu.
I didnt get any ADS while watching the Britney episode, the one thing that really bugged me was that it kept stoping.
Holy crap! Commercials in a web video where the show's commercial breaks are located! That's almost like watching it on TV legally! What's next? Crappy ad banners at the top of their website?
I'm getting hit by this:
[www.southparkstudios.com]
Ah well, at least they're thinking about us!
Do you think we actually get to see Mohammad give Peter Griffin a salmon helmet (while wearing a toga) in the "Cartoon Wars" episode?
Also, @tucker: Hook 'Em!
Just watched a few eps, there aren't commercials yet.
@tucker: Heh. Yes it was all just a scheme to out us Canadians, so they could blame it on us...
@matt buchanan - I'm HIV positive the first episode wasn't that funny anyway.
@strobefx: For Canadians, this has actually been the case for a while at comedynetwork.ca.
Unsensored since last season as well. Not sure about previous seasons because I haven't watched them online.
They've also recently updated the site and are in a new beta mode for all their videos.
Looks and works great so far. You can watch full episodes of a lot of stuff other than South Park there as well.
There are commercials, but they're only for the Comedy Network or shows that air on the Comedy Network.
Shame that South Park jumped the shark several seasons ago.
I watched one last night (Cartman and Stan got AIDS). Not particularly funny.
For the amount of content I wouldn't mind the ad at all consider there're only 3 ads per episode
So whats the "with one exception"? The first ep of this season (Cartman getting AIDS)?
@Zenbrane: Blame Canada?
Hell yeah! i can watch the episodes here in Mexico!! :D
That's the last one: with Battlestar Galactica, the Fox shows, Jericho, The Office and South Park all available for free (legally) online, there's no reason to subscribe to cable any longer.
Yes, it would be nice if there were DRM-free ad-supported downloadable versions for mobile devices, but cable doesn't quite give me that, either.
@LittleBigPlaneteer: Here here!
@emag:
If I could get those shows to stream to a projector onto a 100" screen, in 1080p, I'd be following your lead but until then, I gotta keep my cable..
What's the point? South Park streams have been around for a long long long ass time, without ads.
allsp.com and southparkstudios.com seem to both use the same favicon.ico...
i thought that was fascinating.
I just watched the Imaginationland series and I didn't get ANY ads. Seems like FireFox and AdBlock Plus suppresses them.
Only problem is it won't let me go full screen.
I thought it was nice of them to put Terence and Philip on the Not available in Canada graphic.
But besides that, you have been able to watch all episodes of south park for free on thecomedynetwork.ca uncensored for months now.... legally and in Canada only.
12th season isn't up yet, but that will probably change since it is premiering this weekend.
Tuckertuck beat me to it.
We've had South Park online for months at thecomedynetwork.ca - Take that AMERICA!
England also is on standby for full episodes.
Also, with Firefox and AdBlock Plus, you can watch without commercials.
This trick also works for Conan O'Brian episodes, and The Daily Show.
@RetepNamenots: This is the New Zealand one: [www.southparkstudios.com]
And a little URL tweeking gives the Australian one: [www.southparkstudios.com]
ARG, Damn CRTC and Bell Globe Media!!! Canadian Ip's get blocked from these sites ( I'm still looking for an anonymizer bypass .... not finding one, any suggestions?) I would love to get in on all of these online shows as that would mean that I could have everything I need to entertain me directly from my laptop.
Kick Ass! but yeah AllSP ftw...no commercials.
Just incase anyone is interested,