Slashdot Mirror
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. "
Um, it's been there for over a year now. I watched the first season last spring.
That's why proxies were invented, they don't know the difference...
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
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...?
Desilu -> Paramount -> Viacom -> CBS
wikipedia probably has the details.
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...
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?
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.
<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
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
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.
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 : )