NFL Launches "Game Rewind", Every Game On-Demand In HD With No Commercials

Today, the NFL launched a new video on-demand service called Game Rewind that lets you watch every NFL game in HD quality, with no commercials. The service, which costs $19.99 for the season or $4.99 for a week pass, also provides DVR functionality and lets you watch up to four games at once. While it is not known exactly how quickly games are made available after they end, for now the NFL is saying within 24 hours, but it is expected times will be much shorter.

The NFL is using Move Networks for the service, which is the same technology partner used for the NFL's live video service called GamePass HD, available to those outside the U.S. As expected, the quality of video for Game Rewind is amazing and the NFL kept the interface clean and simple. While you can see a demo of the service at NFL.com/gamerewind, the interface I got through an actual account looks a little different. You have the option of just watching the game with no additional content, or including things like stats and chatting with others during the game or watch up to four games at once. Initial buffering times took about a second for me on my Mac, in Safari and I experienced no stuttering at all getting the 2.4MB stream.

While it's not ideal that the NFL would charge for games on-demand, at twenty bucks a year, it's very affordable and by providing HD quality and no commercials of any kind, I'd throw down twenty dollars for it. I'd prefer to see the NFL offer this kind of on-demand video with this kind of quality, for free, but with online video monetization models being what they are today, you can't fault them for charging viewers. With the NFL now providing this kind of video quality for two out of their three online video services, I hope the games they broadcast on Sunday night in conjunction with NBC start getting the HD treatment, or least encoded into a much higher video quality.

Click on the image on the left to see what fullscreen looks like on my 15" MacBook. Keep in mind, the camera does not show how good the quality is, but it gives you an idea.

Related:

- NFL Offers HD, Full-Screen Streaming, But Only Outside The U.S.

- NFL's Live Streaming Leaves A Lot To Be Desired: Capping Users, Poor Video Quality

- Is Adobe Paying The NFL To Use Flash?

Comments

[Christopher Levy]

Dan,

Interesting. Which technology from MOVE is the NFL using?

The quality of the video on the demo is terrible IMHO. No offense to anyone at MOVE but I wouldn't pay a penny for that bad of a video stream.

Also..where are the downloads? Does the user have to be online everytime they want to watch the video? That seems like a tough constraint and also one that creates a lot of expense in bandwidth that isn't necessary.

I would like to be able to download these videos and sync them to my portable video player.

[Dan Rayburn]

Agreed, the demo the NFL has on their website of the Giants game is terrible. Not sure why the demo is so different from the actual offering. I expect they will update that since it just rolled out today.

No downloads as of now which is a draw back because as you say, you will have to be connected to the Internet to be able to watch it.

[Crazywhitie]

THis is messed up.. SO here in the States we get to pay Directv $300+, and now outsiders get it for $20 bucks.. what a Boat of Crap.... Congrats to you guys though..

[Goalkeepr]

GameRewind is for US residents. Game Pass HD is for everyone else and costs $110,

[zaine_ridling]

The restrictions says "NFL Game Rewind is ONLY available in the United States," not outside. And the Sunday games cannot be seen before midnight. Nice service, but would be much better as either a live feed or sooner, as the NFL network replays the best games throughout the week, without commercials, halftime.

Bummer, but might be worth it, but it's like reading last week's news. Once you've seen the SportsCenter highlights, not much point in spending 1.5 hours watching a game.

[Michael]

Sounds OK but I want LIVE games. I hate that DirecTV is the only provider in the US and they charge a fortune. Even if I wanted to pay I can't because I can't get a DirecTV signal at my House, too many tall trees around. I would be willing to pay the $110 to see all the games live but even $20 is too much to watch reruns.

[Justin]

I love the NFL but even I would not pay 20 bux for this service. What is the point of watching a game after it is actually over? The only time I could see this being useful is if you really want to watch a game and you forgot to dvr it.

[AA]

If you are getting a crappy quality video, that's your bandwidth. My provider ratchets me down to 1.5Mbit if im using too much (from 3Mbit). When I have 3Mbit the video is crystal clear, when it goes down to 1.5, the picture gets pixilated, but it doesnt stutter.

[JJ]

I have the service, I think it is worth it every penny. Yes, you have to wait until the full games are over in order to see the replays of the games. At least I'll get to watch my Niners games in full HD without any commercials and don't have to deal with the giants/jets games on local tv all the time. Stop complaining if you want to see it Live, so what. All you have to do is be patient and wait, don't spoil the final scores and able to watch the games anytime, anyday and plus every damn game in the season. I don't see why its not worth it when its only $20 for the season pass. I'm glad that NFL offered this service for my benefit to see all my 49ers games since I'm in the east coast and a heck of a deal than directv or any other services. Besides, I dont have to worry about NFL Network either. Just wait, sit and enjoy every game, no commercials, all in HD quality! You can watch football every day and not every given Sunday. Also, you can watch every big hits and so forth as much as you want since it displayed as DVR mode. Of course you need a fast internet connection and pc, its just common sense people.

[Bryan Bennett]

How about benchmarking what ESPN is doing with ESPN360 and starting to stream NFL games. ESPN360 saved my college football season this year by giving me access to my games even when they weren't on locally. I would pay to watch Cowboy games live, but not replays.

[BIG ROD]

Exactly. I would be willing to pay $20.00 a season ONLY if I'm watching a LIVE FEED (not a re-run after the game is over - WHAT'S THE POINT AFTER THE FACT???), and if the QUALITY of the FEED is robust and looks nice (and NOT crappy looking).

[Extra_Edge]

I had Sunday Ticket and gave it up when it hit $300 per year. I like this service.

The reason that they can't give you the game live is because DirecTV has exclusive rights to provide live feeds of all the Sunday 1:00 and 4:00 games. DirecTV is paying $700M per year to the NFL for the exclusive rights. Why would the NFL launch a service for $20 per user to offer live games? If they did, they would have to have 35 million people sign up to break even with the DirecTV contract that they would be in violation of.

Be realistic, it's all about the money people. The next day service gets around the contract and works for people like me that live out of my team's area and want to watch the games without getting raped. Right now I pay $10 a month for a DVR at my brother's house hooked up to a slingbox. I rarely watch games live because I spend time with my kids and watch the games at night. This gives me the same functionality for less money.

[bill meyers]

Is it possible that in the near future paid subscribers would have on demand access to the entire NFL film library, or a least all the superbowls and championship games.