I have to work basically third shift Thursday night, and will unable to see the episode when it airs. Of course I will DVR it, but I wanted to know if anyone knows how long after the original broadcast does it take for an episode to appear on iTunes, or ABC.com.

From midnight to three a.m., I will be where I can watch the episode online, either through iTunes or on ABC.com.

I just don't want to have to wait until after work on Friday if I don't have to. Thanks.

I'm in London and I usually download it from iTunes on Friday at around 9-10 am (although it might've already been there even before that). So depending on the time difference with where u r, u should definitely be able to download it sometime around 3-4 am.

Perfect. Thank you. I may email itunes about it.

How is the video quality of a downloaded episode? Is it the same as DVD quality and what size are the episodes in megs?

I have never downloaded an episode of any show and was just planning for future reference. Some of my favorite shows will never make it to DVD, such as First Wave and some other sci-fi shows.

if ur downloading legally from something like iTunes, the quality is great. I'd say its the same as DVD. Each episode is about 500 MB's so it does kind of take up a lot of space, but if u wouldnt mind spending some money, u can buy a hard drive for like 100 GB's and a lot will fit there

I download every episode so that I can watch them again before the DVDs come out, and they usually appear very quickly -- there have been times when they've shown up on iTunes by the wee hours of Friday morning. Like Penguin said, the quality is perfect if you download legally. Even on my iPod, it's stellar -- and you can even adjust your settings to widescreen or fullscreen. Best part? No commercials.

(Of course, I watch it when it airs on Thursdays, but it's fun re-watching it commercial-free.)