Computer users running Windows Vista with Windows Media Center will soon be able to download and purchase original content from Showtime, including full episodes, cast information, and various video highlights. Unfortunately, this is only available to people running Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate and not to folks like myself still running Windows Media Center on Windows XP. I've been meaning to upgrade, but I'm an extremely lazy man.

I've already said it about a million times, but I'm always happy to see evidence of this sometimes atavistic industry's realization that "television" no longer refers to just the "TV set." As more and more people turn to the Web to see their favorite programs, partnerships like this make a lot of sense. More ways to watch means more people watching, and that's never a bad thing.

The BBC Trust is moving forward with a new plan to allow viewers to download and save BBC programs from the last seven days for up to thirty days on their computers.

The BBC is funded by a fee paid by television owners in the UK. Certain revisions have been made to the new plan to make sure BBC's entry into the world of on-demand TV doesn't negatively affect the market or provide unfair competition for other broadcasters such as ITV, Channel 4 and BSkyB which have also begun to dabble in on-demand services.

Some changes to the initial proposal have already been made, such as reducing the amount of time allowed to keep a program from thirteen weeks to thirty days, and to disallow downloading long-running and continuing shows such as Top Gear and EastEnders. A final decision for the new iPlayer service will be made sometime before May 2, 2007.

[via Digg]