Has this ever happened to you?  You are in a long term, committed relationship.  Things are going great when suddenly, POW…much to everyone’s surprise (including your own) things are not going so great anymore.  The relationship comes to a grinding halt with name calling and blame throwing from both sides.  And then, here is the kicker.  Have you ever known you would run into that person, so you purposely wore your best suit or dress so you would look extra good just so they would see what they were missing?  Uhm, yeah…me either.

Well, that is what it looks like NBC is up to with their latest endeavor.  After acrimoniously cutting ties (or having them cut depending upon whom you ask) with Apple, they first jumped almost immediately into the waiting arms of Amazon and their unboxing service (hello, can you say “rebound?”).

Now, in what appears to be round two of NBC’s attempt to make Apple miss them, they have announced their own video download service, “NBC Direct”.  This new service will allow users to download NBC primetime and late night offerings, and view them on their Windows-based computers, using the NBC Direct interface for one week (I know, DRM is laaame).   Beta testing is scheduled to begin this October, so keep an eye out for it.

Ultimately, NBC plans to expand the service in order to make  it available to Mac OS users and portable devices.  Plans are also in the works for a P2P system, as well as HD downloads.  Ultimately, NBC hopes to be able to offer a download-to-own service as well as an enhanced rental and subscription service.

Take that, Apple! (or not, uhm, whatever.)

[Source: Infosync]