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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.
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.
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:-)
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
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.
This is my sig.
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...?
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.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
well there wouldn't even be a startrek TNG without TOS and its "cheesy" effects.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Be your own boss. Problem solved.
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 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.
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.
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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.
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!
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
Dammit Jim, I just saved a bunch of money by switching to Geico!
"A side note, they seem to work perfectly fine in Linux" (with the proprietary Flash plugin).
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 ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
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.
Hey you weren't the one terrorizing all them convenience stores with the Klingon Batleth were you?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
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.
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."
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.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
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
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.