NBC today offered a new option for people who want to watch TV shows online: free downloads with commercials. Many users still prefer downloading to streaming, because the quality is better and you can watch the video whenever you want.

The new service, which will launch in October, is called “NBC Direct”. After downloading a video you can watch it for seven days. The video will degrade after this seven-day period, “Kind of like ‘Mission: Impossible,’ only I don’t think there would be any explosion and smoke.“