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.
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.
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.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
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
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.
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.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
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'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."