CBS Hosts Ad-Funded TV Series, Incl. Original Star Trek

eldavojohn writes "On Friday, CBS launched a TV Classics section to their ad based online service. Which means that Trekkies can now watch all three seasons of Star Trek: The Original Series online at the expense of a few commercials. Alongside this CBS is offering all of MacGyver, Twin Peaks and even three seasons of the original Twilight Zone. A side note, they seem to work perfectly fine in Linux. "

Comments

Duh!

[AmigaHeretic]

/me slaps forehead!

"On Friday"?

[Dolohov]

Um, it's been there for over a year now. I watched the first season last spring.

Re:"On Friday"?

[Da Cheez]

Yeah, this is old news. The TV Classics section has been up for a long time already.

Re:"On Friday"?

[Blakey Rat]

Yeah, no joke. I watched a few episodes of Trek and a lot of MacGuyver ages ago... was it in an unmarked "beta" or something?

Re:"On Friday"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, the TV Classics section did a slingshot around the sun.

Re:"On Friday"?

[Dolohov]

That's a thought. It certainly behaved like beta software sometimes.

Re:Guide to Ninnle Posts

[TheKidWho]

I'm sorry, but I much prefer Vapor Linux, thank you.

indeed

[wizardforce]

Indeed, it works just fine on LInux [as it should] It's nice to be able to *legally* watch TOS online and brainwash others in the way of Trek.

Re:indeed

[wizardforce]

But I'm spoiled, I grew up on TNG instead. TOS after that was just laughable!

well there wouldn't even be a startrek TNG without TOS and its "cheesy" effects.

Re:indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I know the WORDS to the original Star Trek theme, and have assembled at least SIX scale models of the original Enterprise, Galileo shuttlecraft, and the Klingon warship. So yeah, you best stay the fuck off MY lawn, motherfucker!

Re:indeed

[zappepcs]

I think it would mean more to the viewer if they realized that the original series was written with both the Vietnam War and Summer of Love in plain view. Among all the firsts that the original series created they also created true science fiction; they created stories that told of the issues of mankind in a setting that is in the future and beyond our technology. It was a brilliant series that addressed issues of the day that were addressed in no other way that was as illuminating or cogent. They truly deserve the accolades they have received since.

The stories they told were bold and still apply to today, having stood the test of time even if the technology portrayed leaves a bit of questioning to a modern viewer. As an atheist I truly appreciate how they handled religions. Faced with racism every day I truly appreciate how they handled racism, and have continued to handle it in other series.

If we as a society follow what we are shown on television, I truly hope that we can follow the examples set by the Star Trek series.

side note: I don't wear red shirts anymore ... just can't do it.

Re:indeed

[Arker]

Wow, the kernel has a media player built-in now? Who'd a thunk it? :P

Re:indeed

[PachmanP]

where's the (+1 Sacrilege) mod?

TOS was campy and the special effects didn't quite match those of Enterprise, but it was the 60's! More importantly there was no Wesley or Riker!

Re:indeed

[wizardforce]

that's why I said "as it should" as it is irrelevant what OS family you're running as long as it has a flash port.

Re:indeed

[Shakrai]

More importantly there was no Wesley or Riker!

What was wrong with Riker? It's not like he ever lost the Enterprise to the Ferengi, made out with a little boy, got kidnapped, accused of murder, or lost the Enterprise to an obsolete Klingon rust bucket. Oh, never mind ;)

You'd think from increased insurance premiums alone Picard would have had ample reason to find a new Number One ;)

Re:indeed

[steveha]

I don't wear red shirts anymore ... just can't do it.

Heh. I still wear red shirts sometimes, but every time I put one on I think "Dressed in red--soon be dead." I put it on anyway, just like I don't freak out when a black cat crosses my path. (Our pet cat is a black cat, so that's, like, eighteen dozen times a day, unless she just sits down in front of me and demands pettings.)

It wasn't just Red Shirts who died; any time you had a party beam down with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Ensign Never-Seen-Him-Before, you could be pretty sure that a salt vampire or a lightning bolt or a kligat or something was going to kill him before the next commercial break.

Did you ever watch Galaxy Quest? (If you didn't, you really need to.) One of the classic gags from that movie was the one guy who was certain he was going to die, because when he was on Galaxy Quest he never had a name, and the name characters never died but unnamed ones died about every week.

steveha

Re:indeed

[techno-vampire]

Among all the firsts that the original series created they also created true science fiction;

I suspect that Frankie Thomas and the other people who created Tom Corbet -- Space Cadet would disagree with you, considering that they pre-dated Star Trek by almost 20 years. And, for that matter, Clark, Heinlein, Asimov, Smith and many others were writing it long before Tom Corbet was created.

Re:indeed

[skam240]

What's with your signature? It links directly to a PayPal donation link with no description as to what group I would be donating to. Seems like a dumb way to solicit donations as I have no inclination to donate to an unknown group nor any inclination to research a group so poorly presented.

Re:indeed

[techno-vampire]

TOS and its "cheesy" effects.

The effects might look cheesy now, but they were much better than anything else on TV at the time. If you really want to see cheesy effects, watch the original Dr. Who sometime, or Blake's 7, for that matter.

Re:indeed

[genner]

TOS and its "cheesy" effects.

The effects might look cheesy now, but they were much better than anything else on TV at the time. If you really want to see cheesy effects, watch the original Dr. Who sometime, or Blake's 7, for that matter.

The black and white Dr Who wasm't that cheesey. I think they actually took several steps backward when they first made it in color.

Re:indeed

[__aasqbs9791]

The color just made you aware of how cheezy it was (they didn't know how to hide some things as well). It eventually did get better (even before the new version which rocks.)

Re:indeed

[im_thatoneguy]

I found its antipathy for reason and science far more offensive than its bad vfx.
Spock was an offense to reason and logic.

Rationality and Science were just humanity deluding itself and offending the "One True God."

Re:indeed

[techno-vampire]

I think we should start a movement to get Galaxy Quest back on the air!

Re:indeed

[SeaFox]

Indeed, it works just fine on LInux [as it should] It's nice to be able to *legally* watch TOS online and brainwash others in the way of Trek.

How many Linux users don't already know about Star Trek? /ducks

Re:indeed

[Provocateur]

Hey you weren't the one terrorizing all them convenience stores with the Klingon Batleth were you?

Re:indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just a weird take on perfectly good English.

They created true science fiction. And next week they created more of it. As others had created it before them. As opposed to space operas and space westerns which were termed such because they were just the same old cheesy stories set in space. Nobody said they were the first to *ever create science fiction.

Happily, in the world of novels at least, the term Space Opera has been redefined over the last 20 years to mean something that can be really damn good. Real literature a la Iain M. Banks, and others, now the opera in "Space Opera" can be heard as classical opera rather than soap opera. Not true of SF on TV.

Re:indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that Frankie Thomas and the other people who created Tom Corbet -- Space Cadet would disagree with you, considering that they pre-dated Star Trek by almost 20 years. And, for that matter, Clark, Heinlein, Asimov, Smith and many others were writing it long before Tom Corbet was created.

And you mustn't forget Buck Rogers, who debuted in 1928.

Re:indeed

[Teancum]

Star Trek was the first television show to try and treat seriously science fiction as opposed to shows like Lost in Space that were clearly space operas. I wasn't really aware of "Tom Corbert, Space Cadet" as a series as it was before my time (and most /. readers as well).

One thing that did work in favor of the Star Trek original series is that they had three seasons worth of material.... which was just barely enough to be worth putting the series into syndication during the 1970's as airtime filler for local television broadcasters. While most /. readers likely don't remember the original airings of these episodes, there certainly are many who remember when they were late night re-runs (still are in some markets).

BTW, of the "classic" science fiction programs that pre-dated Star Trek, my absolute favorite is X Minus One that was broadcast on NBC radio during the 1950's. Scroll down to the bottom of the wiki page if you want to listen to them.... genuine classic hard science fiction that still hasn't been dealt with on television except for perhaps the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica or Firefly, and certainly surpasses the quality of Star Trek.

Re:indeed

[commodore64_love]

First off, he was talking about television not the printed matter. Second Tom Corbet used pseudo-science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-science

Of course one could argue that Star Trek did the exact same thing, and is truly just Futuristic Fantasy Fiction, replacing magic incantations with magic technobabble. I have a difficult time thinking of ANY television show that used real science in its stories. Babylon 5 came close but even they made stupid mistakes, like listing temperatures below absolute zero.

Re:indeed

[commodore64_love]

You must be new to Slashdot if you don't know about the "RIAA versus the People" lawsuits.

Although I'm not inclined to donate any money (I'd rather just shoot the RIAA CEO in the head), at least I know what the money is being used for - to help defend citizens against the extortionate RIAA Tyrant.

Re:indeed

[VShael]

You'd think from increased insurance premiums alone Picard would have had ample reason to find a new Number One

As opposed to Jean-Luc "I surrender" Picard? He may have had the British accent, but you could tell he was French by how quickly he was willing to surrender. To anyone.

To paraphrase the late Tasha Yar, "He surrenders at the drop of a hat. Any hat."

Off the top of my head, there was his surrender to Q.
He tried to surrender to the Ferengi in The Last Outpost.
In The Outragous Okona, he ordered the shields dropped "In case we decide to surrender to them."
and in A Matter of Honor, he surrendered to Riker (who had taken over a Klingon ship.)

Seen on Ebay : "2nd hand Phaser inscribed "JPL". Never fired. Only dropped once."

Re:indeed

[aurispector]

Ray Beckerman aka NYCL blogs about the RIAA's legal campaign to sue people for downloading music.

Re:indeed

[Shakrai]

but you could tell he was French by how quickly he was willing to surrender.

I rather liked the Picard from Yesterday's Enterprise. "That'll be the day"

Re:indeed

[skam240]

Yes but there is absolutely no description of what the case is about. For all I know the RIAA is completely in the right on this particular case.

Re:indeed

[phulegart]

Don't forget Harlan Ellison and Alan Dean Foster. They also wrote some heavy science fiction. Oh wait... I understand why you forgot them. They also wrote Star Trek script material.

But, you could have saved yourself some time and typing, if you simply reminded the parent that he forgot two words from the end of the passage you quoted. Those two words being "on television". Go ahead. Add them to the end of what you quoted. I'll wait.

Now, when I read what he originally wrote, I never got the impression in any way that he was challenging some of the greats like A.E. Van Vogt or Zelazney, or Asimov, or Heinlein. I got the exact impression that the parent wanted to send... that Star Trek had kicked Sci-Fi out of the way, and had instead brought Science-Fiction to the little screen.

The funny part, is the Wikipedia article you link to, has THIS to say on the subject...

"Before Star Trek, Tom Corbett -- Space Cadet was the most scientifically accurate series on television."

This is important, because the article YOU mention, points out the Importance of Star Trek and science fiction on television... and the article isn't even about Star Trek. If you read... actually read... with the Jungles on Venus and the Space Pirates living on asteroids, you find that the phrase "Scientifically accurate series on television" doesn't mean all that much. If no other show on TV was showing that gravity actually does work, the only show that did would be the most scientifically accurate one. Or rather, if Every show on TV is scientifically inaccurate, the title of Most Accurate doesn't mean all that much.

You are right, in that there was Sci-Fi before Trek.

ALL Hail You, for mentioning that there was Sci-Fi before trek.

Now, get off your lazy ass and acknowledge that Trek did FAR MORE for bringing science and real science fiction into more American Homes than practically any other source at the time. Because if you don't, you are blind.

Re:indeed

[Heem]

It's because of you that we can't have nice things in Linux.

Re:indeed

[VShael]

Yeah, but I think that was the point. They were underscoring how cool and different that Picard was from the one that was on our screens every week.

Re:indeed

[techno-vampire]

Don't forget Harlan Ellison and Alan Dean Foster. They also wrote some heavy science fiction. Oh wait... I understand why you forgot them. They also wrote Star Trek script material.

I also "forgot" Murry Leinster, J. C. Campbell and a number of others, as well as David Gerrold, who did write Star Trek material. Actually, I just listed the first few to come off the top of my head and never claimed to have given an exhaustive list. Nice strawman, but not even close to what I actually said. I also never denied the importance of Star Trek, nor did Frankie Thomas on the several occasions I met him. Do you have anything to say that's actually an answer to what I wrote, instead of what you want people to think I wrote?

Re:indeed

[fastfinge]

It's only legal if you're in the US. Sad to see Startrek TOS, a series with many firsts, not be the first internationally available series from a TV network. Apparently, those in Canada and the UK still aren't officially allowed to watch startrek online.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Fancast had them already.

Outside the US?

[despe666]

No thanks. I'll stick with BitTorrent, if only because I live outside the US, and it won't be available outside the US, for some reason. They don't want me to watch their ads, and it's a good thing because I don't want to watch them either.

Re:Outside the US?

[Gothic_Walrus]

No thanks. I'll stick with BitTorrent, if only because I live outside the US, and it won't be available outside the US, for some reason.

That reason is copyright law...which, unless I'm mistaken, CBS doesn't control.

Re:Outside the US?

[wizardforce]

That's why proxies were invented, they don't know the difference...

Re:Outside the US?

[wizardforce]

I find it hard to believe that they don't have control over their own copyrights.

Re:Outside the US?

[erikina]

Yeah, to ad free torrents for me too. I would have assumed the reason they block non-USA viewers is because they don't want to pay for bandwidth when they can't find any advertisers. But surely that's not too hard? And it doesn't explain why they restrict some youtube clips to US residents only.

Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Re:Outside the US?

[j0nb0y]

It's quite possible they sold the foreign rights to Trek long before the Internet came along...

Re:Outside the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

yah, but if the CBS execs went warp 10 around the sun, they could go back and, uh...

Re:Outside the US?

[Darkness404]

Yes, but hasn't it already been proven that just because a site in one jurisdiction allows viewers from another jurisdiction they can't be charged because the other jurisdiction forbids the content thats legal in the first jurisdiction?

Re:Outside the US?

[Ilgaz]

Imagine you are an international TV station guy who just purchased airing rights of Star Trek and when you browse slashdot, you see this story, click and start watching the series you just purchased for $100K or even more. That is the issue.

Re:Outside the US?

[Galactic Dominator]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Re:Outside the US?

[wizardforce]

That wouldn't be solved by restricting the distribution by Ip address. It's fantastically easy to go through any of numerous proxies available on the internet.

Re:Outside the US?

[k_187]

I'm not sure about that, but I am sure that Viacom doesn't want to spend the money to find out.

Re:Outside the US?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

One problem is probably regional sublicensing, so it's more contractual than copyright, but there is copyright involved. CBS might have sublicenced the distribution rights series to other companies based on country or region, and they can't just violate those licenses. These contracts predate the popularity of using the internet for video, and they can't just go back on them without consequences.

They might have some problems selling ads for non-US viewers too, there's no sense in selling ads for viewers in the UK for products that are as yet only sold in the US.

Re:Outside the US?

[owlnation]

No thanks. I'll stick with BitTorrent, if only because I live outside the US, and it won't be available outside the US, for some reason.

Yes, and that's exactly why Bittorrent is the mechanism of choice for many. What CBS is doing is the future, and it's a pretty good future, where Bittorent isn't needed -- once they figure out that they can solve so many problems by making shows available to the entire world.

Low ratings in the US? Not such a problem, if your show is available globally instantly. Plus, your ratings aren't based on a Neilsen sample, they are based on hard numbers from actual views. You can make more than 100 times the revenue from advertising to a global audience -- there's plenty of global companies (and I'm sure it's possible to have local ad partners providing local feeds by reading IP addresses). There is no reason whatsoever that CBS is not a Network that broadcasts to every English speaker in the World simultaneously.

Yes, there are rights and distribution issues with the current system that prevent that from happening. Which is why that system is outdated and must be changed. Just as the world no longer needs record companies, the world really no longer needs distributors.

Once the Networks eventually figure this -- very obvious -- fact out, then we will see not only real progress, but perhaps we might actually get to see complete seasons of the shows we love. Firefly, for example, would never have been canceled if it was distributed under this model.

Re:Outside the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't illegally download it, but it is a shame that it isn't available outside the US

Re:Outside the US?

[Telvin_3d]

Why do people keep bringing proxies into these discussions? Sure, there are lots of proxies available, but how many free (or cheap) high bandwidth ones are there? We are talking video here. Bouncing it through a bunch of low bandwidth connections doesn't leave you with a very good experience.

Re:Outside the US?

[Achromatic1978]

I've not explored too much with free proxies (and granted, you could set up a PC in a datacenter, but that seems a rather overbearing and expensive solution to a problem that may not exist), but my experience is that the hope you could watch stutter free video streaming is quite frankly laughable.

Re:Outside the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

They might have some problems selling ads for non-US viewers too, there's no sense in selling ads for viewers in the UK for products that are as yet only sold in the US.

Generally yes, but there are mixed factors.

An upside factor is buzz. Social groups extend across borders. Status-symbol items rely on a whole bunch of people recognizing the item, regardless of whether all that bunch can afford or access it. Purchases rely on the few impressing the many.

A downside factor is legislation. Ads legal in one country may not be legal in another. Like Canada and Britain have stricter requirements for medical claims than the US.

Re:Outside the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in E-Commerce and our technical staff have found IP addresses to be a sketchy predictor of actual location. Is this a widespread issue? I am thinking this might affect things like you describe.

Re:Outside the US?

[WCLPeter]

Yes, and that's exactly why Bittorrent is the mechanism of choice for many. What CBS is doing is the future, and it's a pretty good future, where Bittorent isn't needed -- once they figure out that they can solve so many problems by making shows available to the entire world.

Online is great and all, but I also want the shiny pressed disk in case I have a system failure. I don't want my purchases to be lost because my UPS decided to fail while I away for the evening and wasn't able to turn my media server off before a freak lightning storm, only to find out later that my backup DVDs had dye rot.

I've always liked the idea of a subscription model. Drop two hours of content on a DVD (or Blu-Ray), take five to seven bucks off my Visa, and mail it to me. I wouldn't need to hit the Torrent sites because my DVR decided not to record the last episode of Chuck. I would only have to wait until the end of next week and I'll get it commercial free in my mailbox.

Shows also wouldn't get canceled as often, since direct sales to the viewer give them an indication of just how much money they're making. Throw in variable pricing for shows that aren't as popular and I think its "win win" for the studios; I would have paid eight to ten bucks for two hours of Firefly every month.

Better yet, if they make the DVDs region free they could sell them to the entire world. Now that "fringe" or "cult following" show that gets only a small number of sales in the North American audience might turn into a full blown hit on the world stage. Not to mention that it'd be nice if I could legally get to watch Doctor Who and Torchwood at the same time as those in the UK do, especially considering that my tax dollars, through the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company), help pay for it.

Re:Outside the US?

[Shakrai]

It's fantastically easy to go through any of numerous proxies available on the internet.

And the portion of the population that is knowledgeable enough to do that is small enough that Viacom really doesn't give a rats ass about them.

Re:Outside the US?

[Joe Snipe]

I find it hard to believe that they don't have control over their own copyrights.
ORLY?

Re:Outside the US?

[narcberry]

Streaming video internationally is bad enough without interjecting a clogged-with-hair-bubblegum-and-dirt proxy.

Re:Outside the US?

[canonymous]

yah, but if the CBS execs went warp 10

They could "hyper-evolve" into salamanders and have gross salamander sex?

Re:Outside the US?

[Chandon Seldon]

It took me about 5 minutes to find these guys: https://www.megaproxy.com/learn/free_vs_advanced/

If you're willing to pay (even a little bit) you have tons of apparently high quality options.

Re:Outside the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

uh, obviously, they do have control over their own copyrights...and they've decided not to offer them outside the US...because they don't want the headache of trying to control what happens to their stream outside of US...because it's harder to nail pirates outside of the US.

Re:Outside the US?

[mcrbids]

<NerdVoice

Uh, no. There's no mysterious "time boundary" at warp 10, it's just that NCC-1701-C couldn't effectively do it. However, in an alternate timeline, NCC-1701-D (under Commander Riker) *could* achieve as much as warp 13, and this was key to its victory, even though the alternate timeline was destroyed in the process.

I can't believe you don't know this... EVERYBODY knows that warp 13 is totally possible...

/NerdVoice

Re:Outside the US?

[BorgCopyeditor]

Yes, but hasn't it already been proven that just because a site in one jurisdiction allows viewers from another jurisdiction they can't be charged because the other jurisdiction forbids the content thats legal in the first jurisdiction?

Theory predicts that that would cause a trans-jurisdictional warp anomaly, which could lead to a subpoena cascade. Very dangerous. But Data and I think that if we can reconfigure the deflector array to emit bogus affadavits in the "do-whatever-I-want"-band, the high-energy subpoenas will be completely neutralized. It would be like stuffing a mailbox with scrap paper!

Re:Outside the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bs on you. I live in vancouver and on cable we get rebroadcasted fox on channel 28. Ask anyone you know in vancouver to watch the "infomercials" at 3am and you'll see the exact same cut your fat with anal leakage formulas being sold here as in the states.
We may have laws in place but without enforcement your point is moot. As for the proxies so far can't find one that I can actually watch streaming video with (well faster than I can download a torrent)

Re:Outside the US?

[JackieBrown]

You mean like the BBC shows?

Re:Outside the US?

[astrosmash]

That reason is copyright law...which, unless I'm mistaken, CBS doesn't control

Don't be ridiculous. CBS owns all the streaming rights to their shows. The problem is that they're trying to sell those rights.

By not streaming to, say, Canada, they create a product out of thin air that they can sell: Canadian streaming rights. As far as I know, the only network to buy this new "product" is Canada's Comedy Network, which purchased the streaming rights to a number of Comedy Central shows, including the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. So if you try to stream any Comedy Central shows from Canada you're redirected to The Comedy Network's (awful) website.

US networks have always sold their shows' broadcast rights to foreign TV networks, so it only makes sense that they'd try to do this on the web as well. Unfortunately, the implementation is terrible. For example, The Comedy Network bought the streaming rights to the Colbert Report so they could drive traffic to their site and run their own ads in the streams, but even though the content is legally available in Canada any blog links and embedded videos that point to Comedy Central's web site still won't work at all in Canada (they all redirect to the front page of the Comedy Network). It breaks the web.

I don't think regional streaming restrictions will be around for much longer. For all the money The Comedy Network spent on the streaming rights for the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, all they got was a bunch pissed off viewers who direct their rage at The Comedy Network instead of Comedy Central. I sincerely doubt any other networks will bother to buy streaming rights unless these serious implementation problems are sorted out.

Re:Outside the US?

[the donner party]

They are broadcasting right now for free (really, on advertising money) over airwaves. In principle, there's no reason why they couldn't broadcast for free (again, on advertising money) over the internet. I bet the long-term costs of a high-bandwidth video distribution network (something like youtube has) would be far lower on the internet than they are on the airwaves.

Re:Outside the US?

[mgblst]

Strange they don't want to advertise goods to you which probably aren't available in your country. They are cutting themselves out of a huge market there, aren't they genius?

Re:Outside the US?

[drik00]

For the love of God someone mod this as funny. Silliest episode of ST:Voyager I ever saw.

J

Re:Outside the US?

[dargon]

global also streams quite a few of the US shows, such as Heroes and House, along with quite a few others here in Canada. Now, what would be nice is if you went to a site that streams videos, such as scifi.com and if you tried to stream osmehting that they've licensed out to someone else in your country, it took you to the correct website, so you don't have to dick around with trying to figure out where to go to see it.

Re:Outside the US?

[N1AK]

No thanks. I'll stick with BitTorrent, if only because I live outside the US, and it won't be available outside the US, for some reason. They don't want me to watch their ads, and it's a good thing because I don't want to watch them either.

What always amuses me about posts like this, and especially the fact they so often get modded insightful (this one is correctly marked Interesting at this time), is that it ignores the side effects of this view.

Big companies are more capable of managing a global product launch than small companies. A group like EA games has no issue running support lines for a global release because it already has such a massive infrastructure to support it. A smaller developer who cannot manage to promote (get into shops), support (help people with issues) and produce sufficient volumes (for potential global sales).

Now film and TV isn't the same, but most shows are licensed to different groups for distribution outside the US and even if they weren't, advertisers will only want relevant customers. This means that the agency would either have to wait until it has advertisers across the globe before allowing anyone to use the service, or offer the service without adverts in many countries and bleed cash.

Re:Outside the US?

[VShael]

yah, but if the CBS execs went warp 10 around the sun, they could go back and, uh...

Tell you what, if you can get CBS execs into a rocket, and aim it close to the sun, I'll happily tweak it a fraction of a degree...

Re:Outside the US?

[Teancum]

It wasn't CBS that originally broadcast the original Star Trek series. That honor belonged to NBC, as CBS passed on it in favor of "Lost in Space".

The broadcast rights for some of this sort of content have been screwed up for some time, which is why it has been hard to even get DVDs for some of the shows from this era of broadcasting. In some cases, the music rights for the episodes (if there was music in the show) was not really nailed down too well and required separate licensing by the copyright holder, as most TV shows are a compilation of the talent of quite a few people.

So no, CBS doesn't really have control of this content and it is amazing they have cleared the legal hurdles to get as much out there as they have so far even in this limited format.

Star Trek was popular enough that some effort to clean up the legal loose ends of attribution and royalties has been dealt with for some time, including in "alternate media" like DVDs and network streaming.

Re:Outside the US?

[Darth_brooks]

That would still be more entertaining than.....

/kneels down, takes off sunglasses

...CSI: Miami

Re:Outside the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

US Proxy is your friend...

Re:Outside the US?

[funkatron]

That reason is copyright law...which, unless I'm mistaken, CBS doesn't control.

So you're saying they need to get Disney involved?

Re:Outside the US?

[1u3hr]

No thanks. I'll stick with BitTorrent, if only because I live outside the US, and it won't be available outside the US, for some reason.
That reason is copyright law...which, unless I'm mistaken, CBS doesn't control.

No, CBS certainly does control the copyright. No law prevents them broadcasting (via Internet or any other method) to the entire world. They choose to limit it to the US, probably because the advertisements are targetted to the US, and they have sold distribution rights in other countries to other companies, who would be unhappy at the competition.

Look at all the videos released on Youtube by the creators (eg recently, Monty Python) with no such restrictions.

I am a bit annoyed they don't just say they are blocking other countries insead of giving a misleading error message "The video you have requested is unavailable".

Re:Outside the US?

[1u3hr]

That wouldn't be solved by restricting the distribution by Ip address. It's fantastically easy to go through any of numerous proxies available on the internet.

And even easier to download the complete episode as a high quality AVI file, with no advertisements, and watch it in high def on your TV.

That's how I watch most TV shows, rather than wait 2 years for the local stations to broadcast it, if ever.

Anyway, a minimal effort will block most casual freeloaders, and fulfil their obligations to licensees.

Re:Outside the US?

[funkatron]

Have you complained about it? If they are aware that people outside the US want to use the service they are more likely to do something.

I know I'm going to have my grammar ripped apart but I'll post what I just sent on their feedback form:

Dear Sir or Madam

It would appear that a member of your legal team has left their post on the 50th floor and found their way down to the server in your basement. There they have recklessly tampered with the equipment and prevented your video service from working with computer terminals located beyond your great nation. I demand that you remedy this situation immediately. I leave the decision on how to discipline this wayward employee to you but might I suggest that any action be harsh and swift as this is clearly a grievous offence and could not possibly be an accident.

I look forward to your response on this matter

Re:Outside the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the episode where all the little space creatures try to mate with voyager and voyager has to be submissive to a large space fish?

Re:Outside the US?

[ucblockhead]

Paramount owns Star Trek and thus the copyrights, not CBS. Paramount has a distribution deal with CBS which almost certainly does not include broadcast rights outside the US.

Re:Outside the US?

[LanMan04]

Note to self: Don't license old TV series.

Re:Outside the US?

[cbiltcliffe]

So you set up VLC to play the stream, only recording it to a file on your drive.

When it's done downloading, you can watch it, burn it to disk if it's worth keeping, and delete it if it's not.

Of course, there are other things you could do with it, too, but I'm not going into those right now....

Re:Outside the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

silly mormon, salamanders are not a more advanced species!

Re:Outside the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the reason is not the copyright law in this case, it's advertisement. They're not posting them for "free" you know. You're not paying money directly, but you're watching their ads and later will buy stuff from their sponsors. It's statistics, CBS knows this and so do their sponsors. People from outside US though are not part of that statistic because they're much less likely to buy from these sponsors.. so why waste money/bandwidth on them?

Re:Outside the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

your ratings aren't based on a Neilsen sample, they are based on hard numbers from actual views.

NETWORK EXEC: "How are the ratings for that new series coming along?

NETWORK FLUNKIE: "I'm clicking as fast as I can."

Re:Outside the US?

[trytoguess]

You're not much of a nerd (or the disembodied voice of a nerd) if you weren't aware that sometime in the 24th century (of the current timeline) warp 10 was redefined as infinite speed. link : )

Re:Outside the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

What CBS is doing is the future, and it's a pretty good future

CBS airs only the most recent episodes for a short length of time on their US-only site, where you're forced interruption and annoyance by the ads that pop on every couple of minutes. I'd hardly call that the future. What they're doing is migrating to the internet the same filth used to turn television into the absolute crap as it exists today. Reruns and unwatchable garbage aside, the worst is the 3 minutes of nauseating ads every 10 minutes.

That's the past.

Re:Outside the US?

[kabocox]

Yes, there are rights and distribution issues with the current system that prevent that from happening. Which is why that system is outdated and must be changed. Just as the world no longer needs record companies, the world really no longer needs distributors.

Once the Networks eventually figure this -- very obvious -- fact out, then we will see not only real progress, but perhaps we might actually get to see complete seasons of the shows we love. Firefly, for example, would never have been canceled if it was distributed under this model.

Um, I'll disagree. It would be nice if had one place like hulu or youtube and could trivially watch any TV show that's ever been. That's not likely to happen. What will likely happen is that we will have abc, nbc, cbs, fox, upn, hbo, disney and others having their own sites and throwing their self produced series straight onto the net. Instead of time blocks, you'll have an entire season with a few personalized ads. Heck, I see TIVO or other DVR integration where you just select the season of the show that you'd like saved to be watched later and it would upload how many times that you've actually viewed them.

I see cable channels dieing. I see distributors and shows surviving. The trick will be in changing channels and finding new shows. TV is nice in that you just flip channels to change streams and you know when and what is on. If you've never heard of hbo, or cbs's new show called star trek, then you'll likely have a harder time finding it.

The flip side of that is once you've found a series that you like, you don't have to worry about when it is aired to view it. You just watch the first 2-3 shows to see if you like it, and then watch the rest whenever. Heck places like slashdot, wired, or any given blog will get the word out that there is a new show that you might like to see.

Re:Outside the US?

[Xenographic]

> They could "hyper-evolve" into salamanders and have gross salamander sex?

That's still an improvement over the CBS execs of today... :]

Re:Outside the US?

[Xenographic]

> Yes, and that's exactly why Bittorrent is the mechanism of choice for many. What CBS is doing is the future, and it's a pretty good future, where Bittorent isn't needed -- once they figure out that they can solve so many problems by making shows available to the entire world.

Actually, BitTorrent would make this service a lot better. If the ads are inside the video, why can't we download and share them?

Yes, someone could use their favorite video editor to strip out the commercials. Or pass around scripts that tell your computer which parts of the video to skip. But those violate copyright law (see also: Clean Flicks) and we already have copies of the source videos, anyhow. So that would be going to a lot of work for no reason.

Honestly, I can't stream much of anything. My connection is too slow and I'm not going to wait hours for a video to buffer. But I will leave a BT client on all night and watch a show in the morning.

So I really wish they'd let us download these, but whatever. I do agree that they appear to be starting to come to their senses.

Re:Outside the US?

[Ocker3]

The Daily Show knows I live in Australia, and shows me Australian ads, cool ones too, like ads for bottled water whose profits help build wells in Africa, kids play on roundabouts and also pump water at the same time. damn cool concept, if I see that water, I'm going to consider buying it, perfect ad for that demographic.

Re:Outside the US?

[RandomNameX43]

sigh ... Firefly, my and my gf are right this minute introducing a friend to this wonderful show.. sigh again

Re:Outside the US?

[jamie.rishaw]

Absolutely. Remember, kids -- "DVD Region Coding" isn't just so studios can annoy you : the regions themselves fall along very specific lines; "Minimum points of entry" or "demarc"s, if you will.

Works are very commonly (if not always, or close enough) released at certain times and places TO certain places, usually staggered. There are tons of releases that, for one reason or another, never release in some regions.

Many times, licenses (perpetual, exclusive and/or other) are tied right into this -- some place that distributes, say, Star Trek, in the Americas, may have long ago in a galaxy far away sold exclusivity w.r.t. distribution/licensing to someone else.

Besides, if you can't figure out how to proxy a u.s. address in order to get some download cookies / uris, you shouldnt be posting complaining "poor me".

I'll trade you some Star Trek for some BBC-Player action.. :)

Re:Outside the US?

[jamie.rishaw]

Copyright is copyright. You generally want to (in the us : you *must*) not only maintain exclusive control of it, but you must actively defend against its (using a trademark term) dilution.

You're probably spot on with the ad-sales idea, however..

Re:Outside the US?

[DaVince21]

It's because it's not the only reason, of course. See the whole discussion about copyright and contracts above.

Re:Outside the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll trade you some Star Trek for some BBC-Player action.. :)

+1 Awesome

Re:Outside the US?

[mcrbids]

And yet, somehow, this speed limit was exceeded!

Be a true nerd: Read up on it!

Re:Outside the US?

[trytoguess]

Um... no, have you looked at the link I provided? Infinite speed (warp 10 in current canon) was reached in the Voyager episode "Threshold," but no one went beyond it. Were you trying to say that based on the old measurment of warp speed, ships are capable of going into warp 13 and beyond? If so, then I agree.

Re:Outside the US?

[Ilgaz]

It is all about making inconvenient for international Joe Sixpack to watch them. It is not like they don't know about proxies, a very good team must be there for such a gigantic project.

If you think about it, the entire DRM, region code etc. junk is just for making user hassle and legally responsible. Nothing else. Not like I am supporting this thing, I am one of victims. It is just the reality and how things work in TV World.

Re:Outside the US?

[pacinpm]

People in other countries will prefer this film with subtitles or native language audio track. This station will lose nothing unless we are talking about english-language country.

Wow

[calmofthestorm]

This and Hulu make me very happy. It takes a bit longer to download than bittorrent, but I don't find the ads obtrusive (so short), the quality is good enough for me, and the option to stream live is handy.

I imagine they don't like you downloading it but sometimes I don't have tubes, and as the commercials aren't annoying I don't bother removing them.

Now if only they carried programming I liked more...and here we are:-)

Re:Wow

[Dolohov]

The big thing that bothers me about some of the ads is that they are much louder than the show itself. If they fix that they'll be much less obnoxious. (They may have fixed it already, it's been a few months)

Re:Wow

[Aranykai]

I have been using Chrome + Privoxy for weeks and havent seen a single Hulu add. Recently I don't even have the 30 second delay, just a 1 second jump where the advertisement should be.

Try it out if you want to avoid the adds.

Re:Wow

[martin-boundary]

On the contrary, it's best if they keep them as loud as possible. Makes it easier to write automatic filters :)

Re:Wow

[artor3]

Kaspersky's firewall automatically blocks the ads and instantly jumps back to the show as well. I haven't taken the time to investigate exactly how it does it, but I'm sure that any firewall could be configured to do the same.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome tip, thanks.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a little annoying that it takes a while for the video to start, though. I almost thought it wasn't working until I left it running in another tab and suddenly heard the sound start.

Re:Wow

[Jace Harker]

All three seasons of the original Star Trek have been available streaming on Hulu for the past three or four months, at least. What's new about this?

Re:Wow

[Cassius Corodes]

You do realise that that is how they make money right? They aren't putting in ads coz they want to piss you off...

If you want internet video to continue to provide you a service you have to actually accept having to view the ads.

Re:Wow

[religious freak]

No, they haven't. It's an old trick which, if I'm not mistaken, was actually outlawed in the US for broadcast TV. But no such law exists on the Internet. I don't get it ... do they WANT me to mute them? - while watching hulu, I usually keep my computer closer to me than my remote control when watching tv.

I don't suppose the government should be wasting their time with writing laws for Internet ad volumes, but it's freggin' annoying.

Re:Wow

[skam240]

Honestly I'm kind of bummed that these work-arounds to sites like Hulu exist. Finally I have a means of watching TV where i don't feel like I am wasting too much of my life on commercials while those that make the shows that I enjoy are able to make some money. Now that we're seeing a move back towards a reasonable level of advertising for TV we've got people abusing the system to the ultimate determent of us all.

I like the fact that I can honestly watch these shows without watching 8 - 9 minutes of commercials for every 21 - 22 minutes of show. It's really disappointing to find out that there are those that are actively ruining this for the rest of us because they can't be bothered with 2 - 3 30 second advertisements so that those who make the TV we like can make a bit of money.

Re:Wow

[Joe Snipe]

If HULU still gets the revenue and I get to avoid the ad I'm all for it, but if it is like any other adblocker I'll suffer through it to support a great website. Hulu is one of the first media services who get it AFAIC, and I short of ORB it's the only service that I can rely on for something mindless to listen to while I'm working.

Re:Wow

[nitroamos]

It's not just CBS. I like to watch The Daily Show and Colbert Nation online, and they raise the volume significantly too. They still do it today. It really pisses me off because it's outside of my comfort level, and often times I *have* to mute it.

The other thing I hate are repeated ads. It's super annoying that there are only like 2 ads in circulation at any time, and oftentimes I watch the same ad or from the same company for all 4 "commercial breaks".

I don't understand how the advertisers approve of this, because repetition not only has diminishing returns, it's likely to have negative returns because I begin to associate frustration with their ad.

Re:Wow

[Aranykai]

Its no different than me using a DVR to record the show, and then skip the commercials when I watch it later. Its like my grandfather used to do before the VCR, put the TV on mute until the commercials were over.

Re:Wow

[Lord Ender]

... and you don't risk getting sued into bankruptcy this way ...

Re:Wow

[node 3]

If your sig is all about control being an illusion, and seeming to embrace the chaos that is the actual world, why are you arguing against chaos and for the order imposed by people being forced to view (or at least, wait through) commercials?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right! So no making a sandwich or going to the bathroom or even talking when the ads are on.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't get shit! Proprietary codecs and players mean I can't watch on my phone. Content restrictions so I can't watch outside USA. No easy downloading so I can take it to a friends place who doesn't have a connection (this only happens occasionally but still valid). btw, you can kill the ads and they should still be able to provide video. I doubt they use a pay-per-click model of advertising, more likely like tv where they charge the company a fat $ for x seconds: ie they will never know you skipped the ad.

Re:Wow

[JackieBrown]

Exactly. Block the ads, removing the ads, etc., will give the studios the chance to say this doesn't work.

The ads (at least on Hulu) are 30 seconds timed were the normal comercial breaks would be.

We finally get to watch a show on our timetable on what medium we want.

The only alternative would be a subcription rate which would quickly turn to a cable system with premiums channels / shows.

Re:Wow

[BikeHelmet]

I feel the same way as you. But there's always a percentage of people that will abuse stuff - they have to push it.

Re:Wow

[Sage Gaspar]

Yeah I think it's bullshit too. Maybe the advertising model is not going to work anymore but I'm not a big fan of leaching until the well runs dry. At some point there has to be some give and take if you want the programming to continue. There is not going to be a mystical service that is free, without advertising, without interruption, without subscription fees, streaming high quality with an option to download in any format with no DRM that still makes money for the content providers.

Re:Wow

[Animaether]

I counter your example with the fact that if you think that going to the bathroom etc. are valid alternatives to watching the ads - and they are - then what's the problem with ads at Hulu? Just go to the bathroom etc.

Instead, the GP suggests that *instead*, they take technical means to skip the ads altogether.. without the inconvenience of a delayed viewing experience that a DVR (with ad-skip functionality) would have.

Really, if you want to watch it without the ads, go grab the torrent.. at least then you're not using the provider's bandwidth in ill faith.

Re:Wow

[Dolohov]

I've heard that the repeated ads are because they're having a hard time getting advertisers. I don't know if that's true, but it certainly seems that way when a fair number of the ads I got on Hulu were of the "Here's how to advertise with Hulu!" type.

Re:Wow

[aurispector]

It's interesting to read the negative comments about the ads. If they would only make the ads less annoying people would be less likely to skip them. Jacking up the volume and doing things like using intrusive pop-ups just forces people to use adblockers. Then again, the bastards are greedy AND stupid so it's not likely to change anytime soon.

Re:Wow

[compro01]

was actually outlawed in the US for broadcast TV

If it is illegal, nobody pays any attention to that law.

Re:Wow

[Andy Dodd]

For me it's a mixed thing.

I want to support the site and would happily watch the ads. Ads are NOT why I rip Hulu video for later viewing.

Unfortunately, Adobe's Flash player is AWFUL and requires 2-3 times the CPU power of any other method to play back the same videos. My HDTV is fed by a somewhat older HTPC system that can happily play back most content I want to watch. This system can play back Hulu and CBS ripped FLV videos with 20-30% CPU usage at worst. The same videos played "legitimately" stutter with Hulu's player and are effectively a slideshow for CBS online videos.

Same content, different player. If they embedded the ads inside the main video stream I would not mind at all. They'd get the money for ads they want, I'd get video that played back on my living room PC. Right now with the sorry state of Adobe's flash video player, it's a choice of one or the other but not both.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a standard flash player, and the content restrictions you mentioned are liscensing issues (it has nothing to do with hulu).

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Hulu's video quality and selection are still inferior and will likely always be. Why should I bother? It's possible that a large part of the population has a low threshold of hypnotic suggestion and is susceptible to advertising, but this is a good reason to discourage it. In any case I'm not ruining anything "for the rest of us" since I wouldn't watch advertisements even if my eyelids were held open, and any that I've accidentally seen have given me a strong aversion to the product advertised.

Really everything would be fine if content creators would accept more modest profits. Maybe a 100% inheritance tax would help.

Re:Wow

[nitroamos]

i know. it's an advertising model that's still being developed, so i can't fault them too much for problems along the way.

however. i think it would be better if they skipped commercial breaks with dupes.

Re:Wow

[migla]

What if I refuse to buy anything advertised in those ads, should I still have to watch them? If I had a TV, Would I be allowed to change channels when I'd watch a commercial network and there were ads on? I want to please our old advertising overlords. Please, tell me what to do!

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

The more people that find their ads acceptable, the more ads you'll see. I couldn't possibly watch a show where it suddenly drops all user controls while displaying annoying ads for a minute at random times in an episode. I stopped watching television for that reason and stopped watching the network sites when they adopted the behavior. Which is fine, I enjoy shows better when they're fully controllable and uninterrupted.

Bittorrent is obviously greater than network sites and Hulu for those reasons, but it's quicker to use other sites that don't stream ads than to download. You can find them on the OVGuide.

If you're the type of person that's fine with visiting sites riddled with dozens of pop-up ads then you probably won't mind video-injected ads as well. Ad-blocker downloads suggest that you'd be the oddball, though.

Re:Wow

[Cassius Corodes]

What? Lay off the drugs man.

The sig is about accepting the reality of the situation rather then pretending something is other than what it is. Nothing there that says the world *should* be chaotic. If anything the world needs more order.

Re:Wow

[skam240]

Why should I bother?

Yeah lets not support a company that's part of the solution for excessive advertising. That makes sense...

It's possible that a large part of the population has a low threshold of hypnotic suggestion and is susceptible to advertising, but this is a good reason to discourage it.

Huh, what? Currently advertisements are the only real means TV content creators have for making money. Are you saying that those who make the TV you enjoy should not be paid for their efforts?

In any case I'm not ruining anything "for the rest of us" since I wouldn't watch advertisements even if my eyelids were held open, and any that I've accidentally seen have given me a strong aversion to the product advertised.

Yes you are if you are editing out their advertisements. If too many people start doing this then advertisers pull their support for the sight and Hulu loses the ability to pay for the bandwidth you are greedily sucking up. You're basically advocating theft here, from those who make the shows that you enjoy.

Plus if you think you're not effected by advertising you are horribly naive.

Really everything would be fine if content creators would accept more modest profits. Maybe a 100% inheritance tax would help.

Ummm, that's what Hulu is. It's clearly TV show creators taking smaller profits. As for the inheritance tax comment, what the hell are you going on about? That has nothing to do with this.

OLD NEWS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, sorry, but OLD NEWS. This was not launched last Friday, but rather at least a year ago.

Star Trek should be required in schools.

[tjstork]

And by that, I mean, classic Trek. See, the current vogue is that every character has to have faults and be greedy and weak somehow... I mean, in the new Galactica everyone has more issues than a Windows Beta, and its like, it sucks. Men are all crying, cheating, pathetic, and I'm supposed to draw some moral lesson from these people? What a joke.

On the other hand, there's Captain Kirk, decorated, confident, successful. Now, he goes and tells me that there is a better way, that, I don't have to be a big jackass and we can solve social problems, learn about the world around us, and not be sissies about it, that's all good.

Re:Star Trek should be required in schools.

[Culture20]

Excellent, use, of commas, in, the Kirk paraphrase!

Re:Star Trek should be required in schools.

[Zenne]

The lesson I learned from Kirk was that if something has boobs, I can kiss it and solve all of my problems.

Re:Star Trek should be required in schools.

[originalTMAN]

Kirk does have flaws. He just laughs it off every episode... Just like every other Trek Captain.

Re:Star Trek should be required in schools.

[bitrex]

The new Battlestar Galactica is just Dallas in space.

Re:Star Trek should be required in schools.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think so.

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=84014&in_page_id=34

Re:Star Trek should be required in schools.

[religious freak]

Nah, IMHO TNG was light years better (no pun intended).

Stewart played Picard so perfectly he really was a model of a leader: detached, confident, stubborn and strong. Kirk was good, but Shatner is/was not even 1/4 the actor Stewart is. I'm not trolling, but Stewart is truly outstanding.

Re:Star Trek should be required in schools.

[__aasqbs9791]

I strongly agree. It seems we (as a culture) have this habit of making iconic characters that are perfect (the way we would like to be). And then we seek to destroy them under the guise of making them "more real" by making them flawed. At first, this is probably an accurate description, but after a while they become so flawed I start to wonder how they survived childhood, and they become almost a parody of real people. I read some paper someone wrote several years ago about this phenomena and I think the person who wrote it (can't recall much about it other than the premise now) was right. I'm sure it is just another one of those great pendulums in society and it will swing back the other way again soon enough.

Re:Star Trek should be required in schools.

[Anonymous Coward]

The new Battlestar Galactica is just Dallas in space.

Except with hot women, and guns, and drama, and...oh....

Re:Star Trek should be required in schools.

[dkleinsc]

There are times when I'd rather it was Debbie Does Dallas in space.

Re:Star Trek should be required in schools.

[Anonymous Coward]

See, the current vogue is that every character has to have faults and be greedy and weak somehow...

That's because every human being has faults and is greedy, and is weak somehow. Life is about how we deal with those faults.

Not that star trek isn't great. There's plenty of room for the type of hero you want to see on tv, and they dealt with real social issues. However, if you want to see how those social problems really affect people, analyze why those social problems come about, and see some real character development, then the perfect unblemished heroes like Kirk just don't cut it, because they don't exist.

Re:Star Trek should be required in schools.

[Maxo-Texas]

Picard surrendered too much for my tastes.

Kirk's solution was usually to confuse the computer, seduce the girl, or violate the prime directive.

Picard's solution often seemed to be "I surrender".

I think his total surrenders were only four, but the 4th came fast enough that I lost a bit of interest and respect for the character.

Re:Star Trek should be required in schools.

[LanMan04]

On the other hand, there's Captain Kirk, decorated, confident, successful.

No wonder you're a Neocon/BushCo supporter. You seem to have a hard-on for overconfident, arrogant, boorish men.

Re:Star Trek should be required in schools.

[whatsit]

I prefer, Melrose Place in Space because it rhymes. :)

Re:Star Trek should be required in schools.

[Anonymous Coward]

Similarly, the much praised Firefly is just "Gunsmoke" set in space, only not as interesting and with worse acting.

Old news...

[djupedal]

Twilight Zone episodes have been online for the last year, at least...

STTNG, Voyager, Stargate, Atlantis are online via ShoutCast...

Why are you guys so out of the loop...?

Re:Old news...

[Qubit]

STTNG, Voyager, Stargate, Atlantis are online via ShoutCast...

ShoutCast is the Nullsoft/AOL internet radio site. Do you mean Fancast?

Assuming you meant the latter, I went to their site and found ST:TOS, but nothing about ST:TNG. I don't think that TNG is available on any of these ad-supported, media-company-supported sites.

bittorrent?

[Cyko_01]

what, no torrent? CBC still wins

This is why I need a new computer.

[tjstork]

My dual Opteron is nice and all but all I have is AGP on it because I was an idiot three and a half years ago and I did not think that in a million years PC-Express would kill off AGP as fast it did, my graphics card is a wimpy GeForce 6200. What I really need is a quad processor board with a PC-Express 2 pair of slots, so I can have all sorts of multiple monitors, one of which would be devoted to Trek. Now I just have to figure out how to get my company to pay for it.

Re:This is why I need a new computer.

[joocemann]

Be your own boss. Problem solved.

When did CBS get the rights?

[Nimey]

If I remember correctly, NBC was originally responsible for Trek Classic.

Re:When did CBS get the rights?

[Anonymous Coward]

Desilu -> Paramount -> Viacom -> CBS

wikipedia probably has the details.

Re:When did CBS get the rights?

[k_187]

Paramount owns Trek and they are owned by the same people that own CBS I believe.

Re:When did CBS get the rights?

[mrbrown1602]

The rights to ST:TOS originally belonged to Desilu Productions, which was bought by Paramount. Paramunt was later bought by Viacom, which also owned CBS. Viacom spun off CBS into "CBS Corporation", which maintained their TV library. They would later become "CBS Paramount Television".

Just because it was shown on NBC doesn't mean they have the rights to it...

Re:When did CBS get the rights?

[k_187]

Turns out I was half right, they once were owned by the same parent company, and are now seperate and deal with each other or something.

Wikipedia tells it better than I can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBS_Corporation

Re:When did CBS get the rights?

[originalTMAN]

TOS was produced by Desilu which was bought by Paramount which became Viacom which became CBS.

Re:When did CBS get the rights?

[R3d M3rcury]

It's an honest mistake for one so young...

You see, way back when, there were studios and there were broadcast networks. Broadcast networks weren't allowed to own studios. So they would buy the rights to air the program (and they would have some say over content and the like), but the studio owned the program. So when a network cancelled a program, the studio would make the money on syndication and, later, on DVD sales. The studios would make more money on syndication and DVD sales than they made from the networks for the original airings.

So, back then, all NBC did was show Star Trek on their network. Desilu (and later, Paramount) owned the actual rights to the show.

Of course, they got rid of that rule about networks owning studios (which is how the Fox network, etc. came about). Studios bought up networks (Disney bought ABC, NBC is part of Universal, and CBS is part of Viacom, which includes Paramount). This works nicely for the studios because they are no longer dependent on some outside source to make shows popular--they control everything.

Re:When did CBS get the rights?

[DaVince21]

What, citing Wikipedia as a SOURCE?!

Gotta love TV networks

[Adrian Lopez]

It won't let me watch from Puerto Rico: "The video you have requested is unavailable. Please visit www.cbs.com for current videos."

You really gotta love these TV networks. Here we have a global network -- the modern wonder that is the Internet -- and the TV networks can't think of anything better to do than to impose the same old territorial divisions through entirely artificial means. Reaching a global audience used to be a technical challenge, but with the Internet there is no longer any need for that. I can't wait for the day when these "old fart" networks are displaced by their modern counterparts.

Then there's ESPN, that wants to impose the cable TV model upon ISPs...

I say again... I can't wait for the day.

Re:Gotta love TV networks

[Aerynvala]

I agree with you. It's incredibly frustrating. And it's not just the tv people, nor even just the US ones. You'd think they'd be happy to get the money/eyes on ads from any place willing to pay/watch. But I guess they'd rather maintain 'control'. And yes, I'm aware that pre-existing contracts would have to be tweaked, but I'm not seeing any effort on big content's part to do that. Idiots.

Re:Gotta love TV networks

[YrWrstNtmr]

You'd think they'd be happy to get the money/eyes on ads from any place willing to pay/watch.

Nope. Ads are very time and location specific. They can't advertise the same things everywhere at the same time. Sandals vs snowtires, & Miami vs Minnesota.
In traditional media (TV and print), it is easy. But retailers and advertisers are still trying to figure out how to manage that concept in the online world.

Re:Gotta love TV networks

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sad... And here, Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States... Anyone from Guam wanna chime in?

Re:Gotta love TV networks

[Aerynvala]

Well, if they can tell via IP address or whatever what country a viewer is coming from wouldn't that allow them to serve country specific content rather than just blocking them?

Or if that's not how it works, they could have a neutral start page and then have people select the country they're from and ta da, targeted advertising.

Re:Gotta love TV networks

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet may be global, but the distribution rights for the shows are most likely still linked to physical borders.

I'm sure they would love to have an international audience, but that would mean they'd be stepping on the toes of whatever broadcasting channel owns the rights to show the program in that place.

Re:Gotta love TV networks

[YrWrstNtmr]

...allow them to serve country specific content rather than just blocking them?

Country specific ads? Maybe you're not sure of how they work, but CBS does not produce and air ads out of their own pocket. To serve 'country specific content' (ads), CBS would have to contract with some retailers/manufacturers/advertisers everywhere.
They're not that savvy yet. Or maybe they just don't want to.

And it's not just country, but region. The aforementioned Miami vs Minnesota situation looks at very different products based on time of year. And putting a totally incorrect ad in front of the eyeballs (snowtires in Miami) tends to cast a bad light on the network airing the show + ad.

Re:Gotta love TV networks

[NeumannCons]

What amazes me is that some ISP's according to ESPN have drank the cool-aid and are paying the extortion fee. I suppose it's good to try new revenue models, but I sure hope this doesn't catch on.

Reminds me a project I was working on years ago where we had a device that processed video signals thought a pc. Someone engineer brought up the issue of macrovision (or product stripped out macrovision as a side-effect). So someone (engineer) checked it out and found out that we would have to pay the macro-folks many $ to *not* strip the encoding. "Well that's a no-brainer, we're done!" all the engineers thought... until the lawyers got wind of it, paid the extortion fee, we made sure to implement macro-vision on the video out, and the product quickly flopped. I wonder if the ISP's lawyers are also somehow involved in this...

Re:Gotta love TV networks

[Aerynvala]

I was simplifying by saying country rather than region, I apologize. But I still think it would be a workable solution. Enter your postal code, then go to view the videos and get region appropriate commercials. And yes, it would require a little effort on CBS' part, but it seems like it would be worth it.

Re:Gotta love TV networks

[Bent Mind]

Then there's ESPN, that wants to impose the cable TV model upon ISPs...

Would ESPN have viewers if not for the cable TV model?

Re:Gotta love TV networks

[Adrian Lopez]

Google makes billions of dollars on advertising. The international nature of the Internet has not impeded this.

Finaly real nerd news

[ters a-zA-Z0-9$_. !*]

i have been watching TNG DS9 & voyager now on shuffle for months,160 gigs worth now i have this see you guys next week!!

Re:Outside the US? Like Canada

[NFN_NLN]

Browsing from Canada this is all I get when I try to watch videos...

"The video you requested is unavailable. Please visit www.cbs.com for current videos."

Is this just a coincidence or is anyone having the same issue?

Are they dubbing over the original soundtrack?

[syousef]

I can see it now....tension as Amok Time climaxes with Kirk and Spock fighting to the death. /Queue melodramatic music

Kirk: Drink coke, Spock!
Spock: Eat at McDonalds!!! *Spock nails Kirk to the floor*
Kirk: No! *kick* Eat *kick* at *kick* Joe's *kick* Spock *kick*

Re:Are they dubbing over the original soundtrack?

[rob1980]

Dammit Jim, I just saved a bunch of money by switching to Geico!

FYI: Can't have any adblocking

[SpectreBlofeld]

I tried to fire up one of the episodes in Opera, only to be met with the message that the video was unavailable because I had ad-blocking software installed. Thinking it was some browser detect issue, I tried FireFox. No joy. Google Chrome, no luck. I sighed and fired up IE thinking this was one of those IE-only sites... no such luck.

Then I remembered that I have a pretty comprehensive ad-blocking HOSTS file.

If they want to get around ad blocking via a hosts file, they just need to deliver their ads through the CBS domain. Don't require me to open up to other sites' content to view yours.

Re:FYI: Can't have any adblocking

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ad-funded TV series"...no adblocking permitted...shocking!

Deal with the ads, you greedy freeloader.

Re:FYI: Can't have any adblocking

[SpectreBlofeld]

I have the HOSTS file installed because most of the time I'm tethering through a cell phone modem for my net connection, and overbearing ads choke it. Like I said, I'm willing to deal with the ads, but CBS should consider serving the ads up through their own domain. Hulu, for example, doesn't give me this problem; I 'deal with the ads' just fine there.

Re:FYI: Can't have any adblocking

[JackieBrown]

Works in IceWeasel with adblock installed on on.

I am using Linux (hence IceWeseal.) Maybe it is more forgiving for the Linux OS since we do not have IE?

Hopefull, Netflix sees Hulu and CBS and decides to get off of quicksilver and IE so I can use it is well. I am getting close to canceling my subscription. The online thing is the only thing that seems interesting, and I don't like opening a Virtual machine for windows and using playon just to be able to watch it on my Linux XBMC

Re:FYI: Can't have any adblocking

[ucblockhead]

If you use actual adblocking software, you can create a local exception just for those ads.

The percentage of people doing ad blocking from the host file is likely far, far too minuscule for them to care about.

Also works on Solaris

[IvyKing]

Worked just fine on Solaris as well, key ingredient is a decent Flash plugin.

Spyware Blocker - Blocks Twilight Zone

[bizitch]

It appears like something out of Twilight Zone -

My Untangle Spyware blocker is blocking me from viewing episodes of the Twilight Zone

Lots and Lots of "Doubleclick ... blah blah" rejects in the event viewer - looks like this:

2009-02-08 9:58:11 pm

block

172.30.254.158:1171

http://content.dl-rms.com/rms/mother/6401/nodetag.js : http://content.dl-rms.com/rms/mother/6401/nodetag.js

in URL List

128.242.186.203:80
2009-02-08 9:58:11 pm

block

172.30.254.158:1160

http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/CBS/classics/the_twilight_zone/season0/video;dpart=classics;show=the_twilight_zone;feat=video;type=ros;;sec=0;sz=234x60;tile=2;prod=feature;dcopt=ist;adv=d;abr=!webtv;ord=1234151837797? : http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/CBS/classics/the_twilight_zone/season0/video;dpart=classics;show=the_twilight_zone;feat=video;type=ros;;sec=0;sz=234x60;tile=2;prod=feature;dcopt=ist;adv=d;abr=!webtv;ord=1234151837797?

in URL List

209.62.176.52:80
2009-02-08 9:58:10 pm

pass

172.30.254.158:1160

209.62.176.0/19 : Doubleclick

in Subnet List

209.62.176.52:80
2009-02-08 9:57:20 pm

block

172.30.254.158:1128

http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/can/cbs/pwt30GHt8psKJ_I7teLjIJ_tcYp2Ui8N4;site=entertainment;dpart=classic;show=twilight_zone_half_hour;season=1;feat=full_episodes;feat=rebroadcast;partner=cbs;vid=626428813;outlet=CBS%20Production;pid=wt30GHt8psKJ_I7teLjIJ_tcYp2Ui8N4;noAd=;type=ros;format=FLV;pos=1;sz=320x240;playerVersion=CANPlayer1.5.0;ord=624011? : http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/can/cbs/pwt30GHt8psKJ_I7teLjIJ_tcYp2Ui8N4;site=entertainment;dpart=classic;show=twilight_zone_half_hour;season=1;feat=full_episodes;feat=rebroadcast;partner=cbs;vid=626428813;outlet=CBS%20Production;pid=wt30GHt8psKJ_I7teLjIJ_tcYp2Ui8N4;noAd=;type=ros;format=FLV;pos=1;sz=320x240;playerVersion=CANPlayer1.5.0;ord=624011?

in URL List

209.62.176.52:80
2009-02-08 9:57:17 pm

block

172.30.254.158:1128

http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/CBS/classics/the_twilight_zone/season0/video;dpart=classics;show=the_twilight_zone;feat=video;type=ros;;sec=0;sz=234x60;tile=6;prod=presenting;dcopt=ist;adv=d;abr=!webtv;ord=1234151837797? : http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/CBS/classics/the_twil

Re:first

[Anonymous Coward]

Ebaums does their dirty work again.

I'm tired of TV networks like this.

[BikeHelmet]

Boo! Put it on Hulu so Canadians can watch it too!

I don't understand these networks. They don't seem to understand that the internet is a global community. With TV there's no guarantees that you're hitting the correct audience, so the desire to filter the audience(so that it is "correct") is understandable when the opportunity arises - but what they seem to forget is they lose out on evangelical advertising because of that filtering.

I'm Canadian, but I spammed all my American friends about Hulu, and now they all watch TV there. If a show isn't available on Hulu, then we'll look for it elsewhere. If we have to jump through hoops to watch it(AOL, ABC, CBS, BBC, etc. etc.), then we won't; we'll just torrent it.

I think they'd be best off streaming it with or without ads to other countries, just to capitalize off word-of-mouth advertising. Stuff that can be watched by anyone on the internet spreads rapidly - See: Dr. Horrible, Monty Python

Networks like this will never get my endorsement - but not because of me; it's because they block me.

Re:I'm tired of TV networks like this.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't seem to understand the internet is a global community either. Most of Hulu isn't available in 99% of the worlds countries.

Re:I'm tired of TV networks like this.

[gravyface]

How do you get Hulu.com in Canada?

Re:I'm tired of TV networks like this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Boo! Put it on Hulu so Canadians can watch it too!

Hulu has always returned messages: 'can only sream within the United States,' at least for myself and everyone I've spoken to about it.

What's unusual on your attempts that makes it work for you?

Re:I'm tired of TV networks like this.

[MartinSchou]

Sorry to be so blunt but "fuck Canada".

From Hulu's FAQ:

International
For now, Hulu is a U.S. service only. That said, our intention is to make Hulu's growing content lineup available worldwide. This requires clearing the rights for each show or film in each specific geography and will take time. We're encouraged by how many content providers have already been working along these lines so that their programs can be available over the Internet to a much larger, global audience. The Hulu team is committed to making great programming available across the globe.

Hulu or not - the rest of us are still going to get our "needs" covered by The Pirate Bay.

Re:I'm tired of TV networks like this.

[BikeHelmet]

My ISP isn't on their block list. The big ones like Telus, Shaw, and Bell are, but apparently smaller ones aren't? :P

I'm with Teksavvy.

Re:I'm tired of TV networks like this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a pack of moose carrying packets.

Re:I'm tired of TV networks like this.

[BikeHelmet]

True, most of hulu isn't unless you use proxies - but some of it is.

But hey, there's always the fallback on torrents. :P

What took them so incredibly long?

[Dzimas]

It's hard to believe that major networks around the world have been unable to bring their traditional business model to the Internet until now. The elevator speech is incredibly simple: "Imagine that instead of broadcasting using radio waves, we use streaming video to reach people who have abandoned traditional broadcasting in favor of the Internet." Of course, it all boils down to copyright - the rights holders simply didn't want to their content streamed on the Internet because that prevents them from selling it for $1.99 an episode.

The weird thing is that I've seen networks in the USA, Canada and Europe that have started to stream shows without advertising. It makes absolutely no sense from a business perspective, unless they're attempting to build online viewership to woo advertisers - very much a case of trying to make up (non-existent) margin with high volume.

Re:What took them so incredibly long?

[Blakey Rat]

Uh, you're making a big assumption here: that Slashdot carries timely news. You'd be better served to assume every single Slashdot story has at least one critical flaw to it before making any posts; it's almost always true.

These episodes have been on CBS.com's classics section for at least a year. I don't know where the hell the "friday" date in the article comes from, but I'm guessing it's either from an old news article (which isn't linked), or the submitter just pulled it out of his ass.

Re:What took them so incredibly long?

[MemoryDragon]

If you mean with networks the BBC, well it is paid by the uk taxpayer, and outside of the uk it is the same situation, if you do not bypass the country restrictions, then you get the message sorry, you cannot watch it in your area. As usual you can bypass it, but I am not from the UK and I would love to watch the BBC "legally"...
Same goes for the US tv stations which already stream. I know about the legal situation but it probably would be the right time to get things right now, otherwise they will be hit as hard as the music industry. It already is happening with people constantly loading shows from torrents, because they cannot watch it on tv here or awefully dubbed and if they can watch it mostly dubbed with a 2 years delay!
Heck those are exactly also people who could live with commercials and would not even bother to download the episodes if there was another way!

What was the name of the MacGyver Ep where he was

[Joe The Dragon]

What was the name of the MacGyver Ep where he was messing around the with the in sides of the computer systems and messing with rom chips?

define "perfectly"

[JThundley]

"A side note, they seem to work perfectly fine in Linux" (with the proprietary Flash plugin).

Re:define "perfectly"

[KingAlanI]

come on, can't you people be *somewhat* pragmatic?
At least they didn't Silverlight it. :)

Re:define "perfectly"

[pD-brane]

That is indeed an overstatement. I do not like Flash anyway, but do have gnash installed, which does not display the movie.

The fact that one can get it working on GNU/Linux by installing proprietary software is not an advantage.

Re:define "perfectly"

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you give Gnash a try?

Side note: it's a proprietary world. Having the opinion that it should be the other way around doesn't really make a difference on how it works. In other words, go fix it or stop whining.

Re:define "perfectly"

[JThundley]

I can't fix their site, I can only avoid it.

Re:define "perfectly"

[DaVince21]

Yeah, but who *would*?

...

Oh, right. Obama.

Maybe you wanted www.cbs.ca

[NotQuiteReal]

Oh, sorry, that URL seems to be all parked up.

As an American, I suppose it is fair, you don't get American shows, even if they have Canadian actors "starring" in them, and I don't get Canadian programming.

Hmmm, on second thought, maybe you win?

I tried watching it for a while...

[ZosX]

Watched most of season 1. Then I got really annoyed when the video would halt partway through and reloading it involved watching the same number of commercials that I had watched up until that point. The quality is also pretty terrible. Its better than SD on youtube but its not really great. To make matters worse you cannot make the crappy image full screen. The best they do is a severe letterbox. I gave up and downloaded twin peaks and star trek from thepiratebay. they were dvd rips and the quality is superb. i could see this working for cbs if they a) upgraded the quality and reliability and b) offered northern exposure with the original music, which I would become an instant junky to. In a way I kind of can't wait until I could just pick any TV show I've not seen in a while (MASH, Night Court) and dial it up and watch whatever episode I want. I don't care if there are a few commercials, I mean I really didn't care then either. More targeted commercials would equal less ad time anyways. The british had it right with the BBC which is now regarded as a public cultural institution. So much of our cultural history is bound by copyright for an insanely long period of time. I can't think of any others....anyways I'm getting off track here.....

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

you must be new here

be new here

[be new here]

you must be new here

No, I be new here!

Re:be new here

[Anonymous Coward]

you must be new here

No, I be new here!

Bet you tried to register "New Here" first :-P

90% of the posts here...

[Rude Turnip]

...are going to be expressions of righteous indignation and showings-off of how their ad-blocking software and proxies prevent them from viewing the free programming that CBS provides. Time to warm up the wahhhhhmbulance.

Re:90% of the posts here...

[DaVince21]

So far it's been less than 5% of the posts.

Unavailable for everyone outside USA

[Exp315]

Same for Canada, "The video you have requested is unavailable..." This is true of almost all online video, music, book and magazine offerings due to restrictive regional licensing agreements. And they wonder why the unofficial alternatives are popular outside the USA?

Not too bad

[OrangeTide]

The commercials are few and short at least. But I'm not a fan of the modified Trek. I prefer the old special effects. I think they should have learned from George Lucas's mistakes and not rework special effects of a classic.

Re:Outside the US? Like Canada

[Cplus]

Same deal here....I was going in for a quick Macgyver fix, perhaps some things are best left to memory.

Wait, maybe with some bubble-gum, a proxy, and my shoelace.....ahhhhhhh, that's it. Yes, it's as bad as I remember.

Re:Outside the US? Hot Spot Shield

[brasspen]

I watch stuff on hulu.com like Simon & Simon (they have seasons 2 & 3, which are not available on DVD). I do it using Hot Spot Shield which creates a VPN to mask where you are. The trade off, of course, is advertising. I can live with that. I just tried it on cbs.com/classics and watched some of a Star Trek episode. I'm in Toronto.

Uncut or butchered?

[Hordeking]

Are these episodes being shown as originally shown, or are they being butchered for time or content (you know to appease modern-day content-crybabies)?

Advertless tv

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but over the last several years I've stopped watching 'normal' tv at home and get virtually my sole fix of tv from internet downloads - this has several advantages:

- I don't have to remember to set up a recording device to capture the tv show, or remember to switch on/over the tv at a specific time
- On a 2mbit connection I can download a 45 minute tv show in 30 minutes and start watching it before it's finished downloading (unrar & keep broken file(s)), usually meaning whilst I'm watching one show another is downloading in the background
- No having to wait from anywhere between 5 to 700+ days for it to appear on my own countries tv broadcasts
- I get to watch some great shows that may never reach my country or even DVD ("jPod", anyone?)
- I can drop it onto a USB stick or my laptop to watch on virtually any computer anywhere I am, usually I watch it on my tv through my PC's video output
- No "hang on, what happened there? / what did they say?" moments becuase I can rewind it with ease
- And most importantly to me - no fricken adverts with volume normalisation & dynamic range compression where I'm forced lower the volume because it's so fucking loud, plus I don't feel like I'm being insulted by the fuckwit actors that talk to me like I'm sheeple

It works

[KingAlanI]

Firefox 3 on WinXP, with simple ol' Adblock Plus, and it's working fine.
But I probably should go to bed, rather than watch TV...or read Slashdot. :P

Boxee!

[motang]

Yep and they work great in Boxee (which is running on Ubuntu 8.04 by the way)!

cat and mouse

[Mathinker]

Using Megaproxy I went to whatismyipaddress.com and it directly warned of "Suspected proxy server or network sharing device".

So, YMMV + Caveat Emptor. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the more professional proxies are blocked by CBS's site.

Re:cat and mouse

[Chandon Seldon]

My guess is that there's absolutely no margin for CBS in trying to block proxy users. The only reason they block is due to the demands of advertisers and/or foreign licensees - if a user works around that block CBS wins an ad view.

Re:cat and mouse

[xouumalperxe]

"So, I see you billed me here for 100 ad views, but I see here that some people outside the US may have been targeted. You know, we really don't sell in those markets, so I can't see why I should be paying for those views..." See where I'm headed?

Re:cat and mouse

[Dogtanian]

The only reason they block is due to the demands of advertisers and/or foreign licensees - if a user works around that block CBS wins an ad view.

That doesn't really apply if someone in Lithuania gets shown an ad for Honest Joe's Motors in Buttfuck, Illinois because the proxy is located near there (or whatever). In fact the ad only benefits the advertiser if it's a truly global brand (and a truly global campaign at that).

I doubt Honest Joe's is going to be amused and would have a good case against CBS if it could be shown that CBS were not taking reasonable action to prevent this.

What about Amos & Andy

[Vidar Leathershod]

Now there's a show that needs to be made available. Not a single bad episode.

I can't wait for the day

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember the day, I remember getting cable tv so we didn't have to watch ads, it's why we paid for it.
Yours is a long wait for a day that ain't coming.

Lawyers will control their behavior

[Mathinker]

I see your point, and what you say could very well be true, but it all comes down to what their legal department defines as proper "due diligence" with respect to their contract terms.

They might very well think instead that there are so few proxy users that the extra ad views are insignificant compared with the legal exposure.

Re:does it work in freedom?

[Anonymous Coward]

ah... free software... it's great! You can share it, look at it's source, modify it. Now, if it actually worked you would have the freedom to use it too...

MOD PARENT UP

[Progman3K]

I could swear you just described the plot on last week's TNG rerun...
Wait a minute, you just described EVERY episode of TNG!
Bravo!

Another abuse of the WWW URL.

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't work in the here in the UK and I suspect doesn't work anywhere outside the USA.

Bittorrent

[johnsie]

This technology was already available.

Re:Outside the US? Like Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish people would give decent error messages when this happens. The BBC often comes up with 'there's a problem with this video' when they actually mean 'bugger off, johnny foreigner'.

Downloads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know if it is possible to download the episodes?
I have bandwidth limits and would like to download in case I want to re-watch an episode.

Another source: YouTube

[macraig]

TOS episodes have also been available on YouTube for a while:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=20048A7C541C941C

And as this summation and others relate, MacGyver and other series are also available:

http://lifehacker.com/5061973/youtube-gets-full+length-episodes-of-star-trek-macgyver

Essentially the same series had already been made available for streaming at least several months ago.

Re:Another source: YouTube

[macraig]

Oh, forgot to mention the obvious: the YouTube episodes have no commercials.

Doesn't work

[FornaxChemica]

I was only interested in the Twilight Zone episodes personally but it's not working. I'm pretty sure they forbid access if you don't live in the US, it must be that IP detection they use on the South Park site and with some YouTube videos also. That's really a dumb thing to do but was expected.

Bait & Switch

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally I have a means of watching TV where i don't feel like I am wasting too much of my life on commercials while those that make the shows that I enjoy are able to make some money. Now that we're seeing a move back towards a reasonable level of advertising for TV we've got people abusing the system to the ultimate determent of us all.

The low number of ads is an introductory offer — a bait & switch.

Once Hulu becomes sufficiently popular to dent their broadcast revenue, they'll increase the ads to maintain their revenue.

I suspect they'll be unable to resist even if their data shows that ads in smaller bundles have a greater impact, and so pay better.

Re:Bait & Switch

[skam240]

Wow, what else do you see with your magical crystal ball of seeing into the future? All I see is a TV service that is finally putting forth a reasonable number of ads. If they change their policies I will change my opinion of them but I am not going to try to screw them over because some crazy person thinks they know what they'll do in the future.

Non-Americans not welcome.

[Anonymous Coward]

The video you requested is not available at this time. Please use bit torrent.

If you live in the united states!

[Snaller]

" Which means that Trekkies can now watch all three seasons of Star Trek: The Original Series online at the expense of a few commercials"

and a trip to the United States.

How much will sponsors pay for a dub?

[tepples]

Low ratings in the US? Not such a problem, if your show is available globally instantly.

By "globally", do you mean in English or in all languages? The population of the rest of the industrialized anglophone world (UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Canada) is less than that of the United States. To attract advertisers in non-anglophone countries to a show in English, the networks would likely need a subtitle track (or, in the case of anything rated TVPG or lower, a dub), and the networks don't want the proverbial egg of Engrish on their face. Will sponsors pay enough for a good dub?

Re:How much will sponsors pay for a dub?

[S.O.B.]

You're only including countries that have large populations that speak English as a first language which is about 375M. If you also include countries that have large populations that speak English as a second (or even third language) then you're probably talking (pun intended) about another 470M to 1B depending on how literacy is defined. A pretty good sized target market for any advertiser. Add in subtitles which are easier than dubbing and you can reach most of the planet without too much difficulty.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#Geographical_distribution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population

Re:Outside the US? Like Canada

[JohnnyBGod]

From Portugal it's the same, though I can watch it in the "viewing rooms", though you can't control the timer, so you'd have to wait until the episode restarts.

This "internet" thing really coming together

[ewg]

Star Trek on Linux? This internet thing is really coming together...

Re:Outside the US? Like Canada

[camperdave]

Ah, MacGuyver. I remember the first episode. He fixed a bullet hole in a hot air balloon by taping a map over it... by the corners only.

Re:does it work in freedom?

[Anonymous Coward]

gnash

Well there's your problem

Be VERY CAREFUL

[p51d007]

If you are on a "bandwith cap" ISP. Watching a few of these might put you over the limit ;)

Star Trek

[sibeco1]

If we as a society follow what we are shown on television, I truly hope that we can follow the examples set by the Star Trek series. -- http://www.sibecolog.ru/

Due to copyright restrictions, the video is ...

[vorlich]

Due to copyright restrictions, the video is only available to customers in the United States.

Before you bother going any further...

The example set by Star Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mean how different races have different behavioural traits?

Klingons are aggressive and emotion, Vulcans are logical and calm, Cardassians are cruel. The breed called Ferengi is naturally obnoxious and dishonest, hence it's perfectly acceptable to be rude and skeptical towards any Ferengi you encounter from very the beginning. If they claim mistreatment it's perfectly acceptable to ignore it - after all, you know they will try to pull one on you in the end, sooner or later! It's in their breeding!

If people struggle in some way, then you should not interfere with their development. Although you have technology to save millions, it should not be shared with people who eat crap and die of diseases you can easily cure. After all, their right to free development is so important that you might stifle their creativity should you assist them in not eating crap and dying.

If you have an enlightened and advanced form of government, you will only allow people to join your alliance if they are culturally enlightened. People who have backwards views cannot join a Union until they have purified their culture and developed to a greater level of understanding. (Perhaps an example for Europe?)

If you're skillful and clever, you get good assessments, and you get to play with the most advanced toys. If you are not skillful or clever, people will describe you as generally shit, and your personal record will show for your lifetime that you have underperfomed consistently. Your entire life will be spent with third-grade equipment, effectively supplying and providing for the most capable of your species (that is, people better than you).

This isn't meant too harshly - I just considered writing a 'The Real Lessons of Star Trek' some time :-)

Dumb HD letterboxing

[Torodung]

Since Star Trek is an NTSC program, the effect of the "HD" letterboxing is that my 17" monitor is now an 11" monitor. It's getting letterboxed, twice. Once on the left and right to accommodate the "HD" widescreen format, and again on top and bottom to show that widescreen format on my 4:3 monitor.

I find this to be utterly silly, given that it is being streamed over a computer.

--
Toro

not technically

[professorguy]

Daily Show and Colbert in a move that should be applauded, actually ADDED dynamic range by allowing the average dB level to range all the way down to -8 to -12. However, all modern commercials are as close to 0dB as possible (which removes all dynamic range--that is, loud is loud and quiet is loud). So they seem much louder.

.

Whenever there's not much difference between the show and the commercial, it's because the show has been cranked to horrible levels so the 0dB commercials don't stand out. Not a great solution.

Re:Outside the US? Hot Spot Shield

[Anonymous Coward]

The trade-off for Hot Spot Shield is that if you use Windows, it will cause your computer to blue-screen continuously, and it doesn't uninstall completely without manual intervention.

Re:does it work in freedom?

[DaVince21]

Try swfdec, which is more actively in development and supports more video-related stuff.

Yes, but...

[DaVince21]

Yes, but does it run... Oh. Uh, nevermind.

Moar shows...

[Anonymous Coward]

I want Streethawk!

Re:Wow - getting paid

[hicksw]

If you download the ad, the network gets paid. Nobody can tell how many eyes watch the stream/file at the receiving end. It could be several pairs. It could be none.