ABC released a press release stating their intention to invite 5,000 lucky Australians to a public beta of their new service, ABC Playback. ABC Playback is a way to watch video at no cost over the internet. In order to be a part of the public beta you have to have a fast internet connection like ADSL2/1.1 Mbps.

You can find out more about the private beta registration and invite process at the official web site: ABC Playback. Playback will give trial users access to three channels. these include recently aired shows (ABC1 and ABC2 shows), a shopping channel called ABC Shop that features digital downloads and a history channel.

Once ABC Playback is out of beta, ABC plans to stream OnDemand content to users of the service. The service will be restricted to Austraian ISP addresses only using geo-blocking techniques. ABC will not be offering lower quality videos to users with slower connections, but instead will be concentrating on the high quality video market and broadband internet users.

ABC plans to control cost to themselves by limiting program availability times (in some cases as little as 14 days). They plan to control cost to the user by declaring files size and price before any download begins. This will help with the cost of hosting the large, high quality video files as well.

“ABC Playback is about the future of broadcasting and will speed up the already seismic shift in the way video media is consumed in Australia. Many new habits and technologies are forming around this time and ABC Playback offers early adopters a novel way to watch full length ABC programs on the big screens, be they computer monitors or LCD TVs,” said Sam Doust, Creative Director, ABC Innovation.

The videos are designed for viewing on an LCD screen on the television. The beta is planned to last for 3 months.

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