A couple of new services are sending video to the iPhone, which has been hampered by a narrow choice of supported video formats (Flash being the most noticed). NBC is streaming episodes of 30 Rock and The Office to the iPhone over the WiFi network reports NYT quoting Silicon Alley Insider. Orb has also launched a native client for the iPhone and iPod Touch, letting users stream video from their PC reports The Register. Orbs client works over the 2.75G Edge network.

The important thing is that these methods bypass Apple’s (NSDQ: AAPL) store, which was pointed out by J. B. Perrette, the president of digital distribution for NBC Universal: “One other benefit of streaming is that it can reach users of a device like the iPhone without having to cut deals with the phone’s maker. Web video, he said, “is only using the hardware as an access point to the content.” The same goes for the data channel.