All Star Trek TV Coming To Netflix

tekgoblin writes "This is great news for all the Star Trek fans out there. Starting in July, every episode from every Star Trek series will be available for Instant Watch over Netflix. Right now Star Trek TOS is available for Instant Watch, and the movies, but that's all. Soon it will all be here for our viewing pleasure."

Comments

Simply

[pasv]

Made my day hearing this!

Re:Simply

[BadAnalogyGuy]

No ST cartoon.

Re:Simply

[Haedrian]

And nothing of value was lost.

Re:Simply

[clang_jangle]

Probably there are lots of us who aren't willing to invest much time in collecting videos to watch, instead preferring to mostly stream what we can find when we have time. The other choices are either too time consuming, overpriced, or legally risky.

Re:Simply

[SpooForBrains]

Bah. USA only.

Re:Simply

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's the thing- if you DL them, you Always have them, and can watch them whenever you want, however you want.
If you stream them, you need to be on the internet (at broadband speeds), and are at the mercy of the streamer. If they decide to stop offering the series, too bad!

Re:Simply

[clang_jangle]

Not everyone agrees that wanting a thing entitles one to that thing. That's the problem I have with your solution, frankly. Fighting injustice with a counter-injustice may feel good for awhile, but it doesn't generally work very well long term.

Re:Simply

[hairyfeet]

While I find it humorous that a guy with a UID of R Stallman is suggesting WMC, in this case he's right. it isn't like you have to do...well much of anything if you want to record with WMC. Any cheap USB cap card will do, I personally have the basic cable plugged into mine. Simply pick a show, choose "record series" and...well there is no step three, that's pretty much it. Hell my dad can record with WMC and it took him years to figure out where defrag was on WinXP.

So if we were talking one of those shows that aren't one pretty much 24/7 then I'd agree with you but ST is on basic cable pretty much every single day, and with WMC it is beyond simple to just have it watch for the things and save them all for you nice and neat.

And the way we've seen IP holders suddenly get their panties in a wad and take stuff back, such as the games they yanked off of GOG or the books they yanked off Amazon if I was into trek I'd just go ahead and get the episodes in a way I can keep them without worrying about take backs or streaming issues.

So I'd say this one is brain dead simple: There are no legal issues with regards to time shifting, the shows are on practically 24/7, and choosing a whole series is as simple as "record series" so I don't see how more simple anyone could make it, short of a single script that would magically download the whole series and burn them onto tasteful Lightscribe discs with the captains faces on them.

Re:Simply

[clang_jangle]

So, whatcha gonna buy with your astroturfer's allowance this week -- depilatory for your feet?

Re:Simply

[TheWanderingHermit]

And even in the USA, I just checked. In spite of what the article says, the original is NOT available, at least not yet on my account. It's still DVD only.

The only version of Trek available for Instant Watch on my USA account is the 2009 movie.

Re:Simply

[Crimson Wing]

Another case of an incomplete summary. TOS, TNG, Voyager, and Enterprise will be added to Watch Instantly sometime in June. DS9 will be added sometime in October. They'll be available for at least two years, with the option to extend it at the end.

Re:Simply

[Anonymous Coward]

So,your solution is to simply take what other people hand-feed you? Watch what They want you to watch?, when and how They want you to watch it??

No wonder America's so fucked up.

Re:Simply

[CTU]

not everybody has a TV capture card to do so...heck there are people without cable/sat to get the video to record it in the first place :)

Re:Simply

[CTU]

Same here :(

Re:Simply

[CTU]

DS9 was the only series I really wanted to watch and now I have to wait to Oct...makes torrent worth it :)

Re:Simply

[Ambiguous Puzuma]

No ST cartoon.

True, but you can already watch that here. Brief ads, but no Netflix subscription needed.

Re:Simply

[SteveFoerster]

Exactly -- I was excited about this announcement exactly because I wanted to rewatch DS9 with my teenage son. But that's half a year away. I'm not surprised if someone torrents it instead, but I suppose I'll finally get around to hooking my TV up to my computer and get it through startrek.com.

Re:Simply

[CTU]

Exactly -- I was excited about this announcement exactly because I wanted to rewatch DS9 with my teenage son. But that's half a year away. I'm not surprised if someone torrents it instead, but I suppose I'll finally get around to hooking my TV up to my computer and get it through startrek.com.

Tempting, but my video card does not have HDMI out so it would not be so straightforward for me to do that.

Re:Simply

[Anonymous Coward]

So your solution is to just take whatever you want, without regard for who owns the rights to it?

No wonder America's so fucked up.

Re:Simply

[clang_jangle]

You seem to think I have some sort of biological imperative to consume video. Nothing could be further from the truth. I choose what to watch from what's available legitimately, and have no problem with it. Video entertainment is nice to have, but it isn't so important that I need to risk legal trouble getting it. I like to drive at speeds in excess of 100 MPH too, but I don't usually, and for similar reasons.

Maybe when you grow up you'll understand? :)

Re:Simply

[Anonymous Coward]

But I find this succeeds well in making ST cartoonish. (Sometimes almost to the point where it's more entertaining than the actual show.)

Re:Simply

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but you can already watch that here. Brief ads, geographically bound, but no Netflix subscription needed.

FTFY

Re:Simply

[mrchaotica]

DS9 is also the only series that isn't currently syndicated. I can watch TNG on at least 3 different channels (SyFy, BBC America, and Peachtree TV or something), but can't watch DS9 at all. Why?! : (

Re:Simply

[Phoghat]

Yes, if you live in the US or Canada, but what about us North Americans in Mexico? We're farqed!

Re:Simply

[TheWanderingHermit]

I'm glad to hear from someone else who likes DS9.

I came within a hair's breadth of writing for TNG, but they shut the door on all freelancers to rush through the 2 parter with Spock in it, then Roddenberry died, and by the time they would even talk to freelancers again, I was dealing with a divorce and not at a point where I could worry about anything but the immediate issues around me.

While I loved TNG, I think DS9 showed a higher level of quality than any of the other Trek shows, and I always suspected that's why many Trekkies didn't like it: It actually was outside the box and had real, flawed characters with ongoing conflicts that were about more than phasers and variable-tri-phase inverters. Speaking critically, the writers had more freedom on DS9 and I think that led to a higher quality of writing than on the other shows. Part of that was it wasn't constrained by Roddenberry's later limits he put on TNG. (And boy, did I hit those limits every time I pitched -- it's interesting that one of the big TNG writers, Ron Moore, later got notice for running what was often called "the best sf show on TV" by breaking the very limits he was required to follow while working on TNG.)

Re:Simply

[gmhowell]

Yes, if you live in the US or Canada, but what about us North Americans in Mexico? We're farqed!

In more ways than one.

Re:Simply

[Anonymous Coward]

If it has already been broadcast, for FREE, on TV, then who cares?

Re:Simply

[Anonymous Coward]

I choose what to watch from what's available

If you can only watch "what's available", then you don't have a choice.

I like to drive at speeds in excess of 100 MPH too, but I don't usually ...which means you DO, occasionally. You're willing to risk not just your life, but the lives of those around you*, and you think *I* need to grow up?!?

*even if you think there's no one else on the road, you could be mistaken. And even if it is truly empty, if you crash, there's the lives of the First Responders. You crash your car, someone has to crawl on the gasoline soaked ground to pull you (or your body) out. Resources are used to rescue you that could be better used to help others. All for a cheap thrill. All I do is violate copyright, and not even for profit. You risk lives. Fuck you.

Re:Simply

[coolmadsi]

True, but you can already watch that here. Brief ads, geographically bound, but no Netflix subscription needed.

FTFY

I saw that too, it also said:

Here are some other videos you might enjoy:
0 results

Re:Simply

[clang_jangle]

Whatever you need to tell yourself so you can continue to believe you're not a piece of shit, right? :) Yeah, I see you there, with your erroneous assumptions and logical fallacies. Pretty transparent.

Nerd-gasam

[Starteck81]

That is all.

Re:Nerd-gasam

[clang_jangle]

Ah god NOOO, that's not the image I want with breakfast!

Re:Nerd-gasam

[jhoegl]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLnWf1sQkjY

Re:Nerd-gasam

[Crimson Wing]

You should know better than to read /. with breakfast. :P

In my daughter's word(s)

[93 Escort Wagon]

Awesome!!

I share her sentiment. I'm especially looking forward to Deep Space Nine being available - we already own TOS, so having it on Netflix is of less importance to us.

It's a good day for nerd-dom.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Noughmad]

Awesome!!

I share her sentiment. I'm especially looking forward to Deep Space Nine being available - we already own TOS, so having it on Netflix is of less importance to us.

It's a good day for nerd-dom.

If you haven't seen DS9 yet, don't. It's by far the worst Star Trek series. And trust me, I've seen them all.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[mehrotra.akash]

Wasnt Star Trek Enterprise the worst?

Also, as someone who started watching from TNG, would it be a good idea to watch TOS?

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Haedrian]

I saw TNG before seeing TOS.

Sure the graphics are rubbish - and it looks very low budget (especially in the beginning), but the storylines are much nicer, and Kirk punches tons of people in the face.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Haedrian]

If you haven't seen DS9 yet, don't. It's by far the worst Star Trek series. And trust me, I've seen them all.

Meh I wouldn't say that. DS9 isn't THAT bad. Takes a bit of getting used to, and sometimes you feel like wanting to stop hearing Bashir's annoying accent, but otherwise its not that bad. Its just.. different.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[sortius_nod]

TOS is great, as good as TNG.

Enterprise is better than DS9, by far.

Enterprise is shit though, DS9 went from good to worse than shit.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the two first seasons of ENT aren't that good (but it can be said to be better than the first two seasons of TNG - all of the shows started not so well), the last two seasons of ENT are really really good, with the exception of the final episode and two-three weak ones, all of them are worth it.

The shows are very different.

TOS is more theatrical and old-fashioned. While that makes it somewhat silly in comparison to the rest of Star Trek, it's also its charm. The atmosphere, the colours, the music, the surrealism of the sets makes even the bad episodes enjoyable for me. And there are episodes that are a must-see (The Devil in the Dark, The City on the Edge of Forever, etc.)

I disagree that DS9 is the "worst", although I certainly enjoyed it the least. It's like a completely different show, a space station filled with civilians that are too often central part of the action, all episodes are tied to a highly religious society (with awful design), there is a show-long arc, the show gets very dark. I didn't like it because it was too different and it was slightly dragging to stay seven seasons in the same place, but it also had one of the most wonderful episodes of all Star Trek, and the big arc wasn't all that bad.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

every star trek sucks a bit in the first two seasons.

ds9 has garak, weyoun and lots of romulans. they rock.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[MindCrusher]

IMO DS9 is the best. I love the Cardassians. Garak is one of the greates characters in Star Trek, together with Quark. I saw only TNG, DS9 and half of the first season of Voyager and from TOS I've seen few episode so I might not be a representative Star Trek fan.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Awesome!!

I share her sentiment. I'm especially looking forward to Deep Space Nine being available - we already own TOS, so having it on Netflix is of less importance to us.

It's a good day for nerd-dom.

If you haven't seen DS9 yet, don't. It's by far the worst Star Trek series. And trust me, I've seen them all.

How can we trust you? Your taste in Trek is abysmal.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[mikael_j]

That's a highly subjective opinion.

My personal ranking is:

1. ST:DS9 - I liked that it had a large overarching plot
2. ST:TNG - It's a classic
3. ST:Voy - Yes, it had plenty of lame bits but at least it wasn't as shitty as Enterprise...
4. ST:Ent - The best description I've heard of this is "If you just make it through the first two seasons it gets better..."
5. ST:TOS - It may be a classic but it's still crappy by today's standards, and Spock frequently makes appeals to logic which are actually purely emotional

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Stormwatch]

How can we trust you? Your taste in Trek is abysmal.

Maybe he is a vorta.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

How can we trust you? Your taste in Trek is abysmal.

Maybe he is a vorta.

Heh. Poor eyesight!

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[drinkypoo]

I'd put Voyager at the bottom, personally. It had cheese factor ten. For its time it is by far the cheesiest. TNG at the top; most successful implementation of the original formula, and the best talent by far. (Nimoy is still my favorite Trek actor, but taken as a whole...) I thought Enterprise was better than most people thought it was. I guess Nazi aliens don't bother me so much when we STILL have plenty of real Nazis running around on this mudball. Shit, the Bush family fortune came from funding the Nazis and everyone knows it.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

Enterprise and DS9 both relied on serial plotlines. I didn't like the time-traveling alternate-future sparkly-people stuff in Enterprise, but I did like a lot of the one-off episodes. It was not shit.

In the later seasons, DS9 got really deep into a complicated, ongoing story. If you weren't into it, you wouldn't be able to appreciate it, but we when watched in syndication (a new episode every night), those were some of our favorite episodes from any Star Trek series ever. It didn't go from good to shit, it went from simple to sophisticated.

If you were a true fan, you would know that Voyager is the only Star Trek series that truly sucked.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[RevWaldo]

DS9 FTW, mainly because it didn't rely on made-up-on-the-spot fake science or holodeck claptrap to drive/resolve the storylines.

.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[thatbloke83]

Awesome!!

I share her sentiment. I'm especially looking forward to Deep Space Nine being available - we already own TOS, so having it on Netflix is of less importance to us.

It's a good day for nerd-dom.

If you haven't seen DS9 yet, don't. It's by far the worst Star Trek series. And trust me, I've seen them all.

Whereas for me personally DS9 is the one I enjoyed the most. And trust me, I've seen them all.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Rob the Bold]

I share her sentiment. I'm especially looking forward to Deep Space Nine being available - we already own TOS, so having it on Netflix is of less importance to us.

DS9 can come in handy. Last night, for instance . . . I had a terrible time getting to sleep.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome!!

I share her sentiment. I'm especially looking forward to Deep Space Nine being available - we already own TOS, so having it on Netflix is of less importance to us.

It's a good day for nerd-dom.

If you haven't seen DS9 yet, don't. It's by far the worst Star Trek series. And trust me, I've seen them all.

I think you mean best. DS9 was by far my favorite of all the series'. Especially the later seasons with the dominion war and the constantly continuing story arc. It wasn't just a week to week show, you had to watch each episode to really get what was going on, thats what i look for in a great show (Lost, Heroes, Etc.)

As for Enterprise being the worst, i went back and watched the entire series, because i didn't have the option of watching it when it was new (no UPN affiliate in saint louis as that time). I was really impress with it and thought if it had been on a good network with the proper promotion, it could've easily made it to seven seasons if not more. There was definite movie potential with it as well. (How cool would a movie about the formation of the federation have been, instead of just a crappy flashback last episode....)

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit, the Bush family fortune came from funding the Nazis and everyone knows it.

Let it be known that Germany was perhaps, at the time, the US's best foreign trade partner. Let it also be known that Nazis were a political party, and nothing more.

Your implication that Prescott Bush was into murdering Jews and Pols is patently false. The overwhelming majority of Nazi party members were not what you attempt to paint them to be. They were regular people, you know, like Democrats and Republicans. You've failed hard in your attempt by neglecting history.

Perhaps you should read about a small organization within the Nazi political party called the Schutzstaffel.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[7213]

Ok, wow. DS9 would probably be the BEST of the set. Enterprise earns an honorable mention as the basted child of DS9 & TOS. It is clearly VOYAGER that is the worst of the series, but even VOY had a few redeeming qualities (and I'm not talking 7of9, she was one of the reasons I DISliked that show).

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[hellop2]

You said: ST:Ent - The best description I've heard of this is "If you just make it through the first two seasons it gets better..."

That's because the female Vulcan, T'Pol, finally gets naked in Season 3 episode 15 "Harbringer".

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Registered Coward v2]

Wasnt Star Trek Enterprise the worst?

Also, as someone who started watching from TNG, would it be a good idea to watch TOS?

No, it was actually pretty good. As with any ST, it had really good episodes and really poor ones. I do think it had a lot of potential that was waited - the whole "we're the first explorers from Earth" could have been played up more rather than the time war; especially had they explored our first contact and relationship with other species prevalent in "later" series.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Registered Coward v2]

Enterprise and DS9 both relied on serial plotlines. I didn't like the time-traveling alternate-future sparkly-people stuff in Enterprise, but I did like a lot of the one-off episodes. It was not shit.

My favorite was the Tholian Web episode "In a Mirror, Darkly;" they could have built a whole new series around that.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[bigstrat2003]

Voyager was fine. Enterprise is the only series which sucked.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[mattcsn]

There's nothing wrong with a deep and complicated story, but the problem with DS9 is that they completely botched the execution of the premise. I would have loved to see a series focusing on the reconstruction of Bajor. No dominion, no wormhole, no Chosen One junk, no hostile shapeshifters, no screw-TNG-continuity-let's-go-to-war-with-the-Klingons crap, and no technobabble.

Take some ambivalent Federation prime-directive fans and mostly-peaceful isolationist Bajorans who both want the Federation far away from Bajor, some cheerful and enthusiastic Federation and Bajoran goodie-goodies who get along well and want to work together for a better future, and some bitter screw-the-ungrateful-violent-hicks Federation crew and militant kill-the-foreign-infidel Bajorans who despise each other for various reasons.

Keep the station in orbit above Bajor to make visits to and from the planet more common, and have more scenes on Bajor showing what problems they had and what was being done to fix them. Show more of Bajor's cities, towns, and villages; show the ordinary people on the ground. Show the tension between traders, diplomats, priests, politicians, veterans. Show the differences between the provinces. Make it the story of one world of no importance to the galaxy, but make it a deep one with fleshed-out characters. Don't be afraid to permanently replace major characters. Make the climax of the series to be admission of Bajor to the Federation.

And above all, less Starfleet! DS9 was the perfect chance to show how the civilian side of the Federation works. Maybe have some of Starfleet's equivalent of the US Army Corps of Engineers, a handful of security officers, and maybe a liason to Starfleet, but that should have been it. Make the person in charge a civilian Federation official, someone with a well-rounded view of Bajor's politics and economics. Throw in the odd patrolling-starship-visits episode for variety if you really must have your Starfleet fix.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[trparky]

Oh hell no! I love Deep Space Nine! It was the only series of Star Trek in which the characters felt as if they were real characters and once you could relate to.

Yes, it was a complicated series but if you watch the series from start to finish with no break in between, the series plot line makes sense.

And I don't know about you, but DS9 seems more real in the sense that it's more human. The characters deal with real issues, issues that we humans today deal with on a daily basis. Bigotry, racism, terrorism, war, etc. Seriously, I don't think humanity will ever be able to get over these issues but maybe that's my cynical nature coming through.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[bill_mcgonigle]

DS9 FTW, mainly because it didn't rely on made-up-on-the-spot fake science or holodeck claptrap to drive/resolve the storylines.

All of Star Trek relies on fake, made-up science. Warp drive, travelling through worm holes populated by gods?

The important aspect of good Trek is that it explores/confronts human/societal problems/issues. If that's done as a murder-mystery in a holodeck setting or a non-space set in a hut on a planet, that's not really a failing. Sci-Fi tricks its readers/viewers into dealing with these matters with the lure of science.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Cimexus]

Sad. I've never understood the hate for Voyager. I have a soft spot for it.

Then again I'm not a hardcore Trek fan. I do enjoy it though, like most people who frequent Slashdot and have a general interest in sci fi.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[redemtionboy]

I don't know about you, but I was amazed with the terrorism discussion in season 4 when the changelings invaded earth. I was most impressed that this came BEFORE 9/11. If only every american had watched DS9, we could have avoided the patriot act and two wars.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Kymermosst]

At that point just title it "Bajor Trek" because, well, you've kind of left the stars out of it.

All you'd have to do is add in a fancy submarine and you'd be able to call your show something like SeaQuest....

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

I share her sentiment. I'm especially looking forward to Deep Space Nine being available - we already own TOS, so having it on Netflix is of less importance to us.

It's a good day for nerd-dom.

If you haven't seen DS9 yet, don't. It's by far the worst Star Trek series. And trust me, I've seen them all.

Wasnt Star Trek Enterprise the worst?

Also, as someone who started watching from TNG, would it be a good idea to watch TOS?

I know, don't feed the troll, but DS9 was way, way better than Voyager or Enterprise.

Not as good as Babylon 5, obviously, but we can't expect miracles ;).

Oh, and as to whether TOS is worth revisiting, in my opinion, depends on what kind of Shatner tolerance you have.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

On Voyager I'll say one word: macrovirus

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[DeadDecoy]

Ya, instead they stole Babylon 5's storyline after having a look at Straczynski's scripts.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[rainmouse]

IMHO Voyager was fine. Enterprise is the only series which sucked.

There I fixed it for you. After all, opinions are like assholes....

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

They may have stolen Babylon 5's storyline but at least they implemented it well..

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[MBraynard]

What about TAS?

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[R3d M3rcury]

Actually, Paramount redid the graphics when they re-released TOS in HD. They look decent now.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing like watching B5 episodes to get your next story points... it always seemed that DS9 would have a parallel story arc movement about 5 weeks after it originated on B5... hmmm....

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you'll be happy, it's not going to be available.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

1. ST:TNG - best stories (a lot of philosophical questions there), best spirit, best actors, ...

2. ST:TOS - good stories, like Greek tragedies

3. ST:Voyager - bad first seasons, but after it gets good stories as well, with real content in them

4. ST:enterprise - honest show, but not so much profound ideas behind the stories

5. ST:DS9 - stupid stories, most of the time; childish series (even though there more adult relationships involved); this series is a shame: it is pure show, without any interesting ideas/questions behind the stories. Almost nothing to think about there.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[mbkennel]

"The overwhelming majority of Nazi party members were not what you attempt to paint them to be. They were regular people, you know, like Democrats and Republicans"

Whose leader happened to have written Mein Kampf, and guess what---he meant every word of it.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Noughmad]

Oh hell no! I love Deep Space Nine! It was the only series of Star Trek in which the characters felt as if they were real characters and once you could relate to.

Yes, it was a complicated series but if you watch the series from start to finish with no break in between, the series plot line makes sense.

That might be true for the first four seasons. I watched it from start to finish with no break, so I remember the plot quite well. I liked it from the start, and I liked most of the characters.

However, after about half of the series, everything goes downhill. Yes, changeling invade, but nobody bothered to explain why. Every possible Cardassian role, and even one Bajoran, is played by Gul Dukat. In the last season, they even dropped the "And now, the continuation", but the entire season became a soap opera. The war is won by Sisko talking to the wormhole aliens. Really, why didn't they think of this before? And don't get me started about the parallel universe, every other episodes seems to be taking place there. Maybe I'm just not the type to enjoy seeing Kira in leather. Oh, and Sisko's dream where all the same actors play different roles working for a newspaper company.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

DS9 seems to divide people. Some love it some hate it. Having just watched it last year, I ended up really enjoying it. It works much better if you watch it from start to finish rather than just picking up an episode here or there.

As for Enterprise, I have to say I thought season 4 was pretty good (aside from the lame final episode). Of course this opinion may be relative to the fact that I'd just watched seasons 1-3 before it and before that all 7 miserable seasons of Voyager.

I wound up a marathon year of trek by watching TOS last. The stories are pretty good and you can see how some of the trek staples evolved. It's nowhere near as PC as TNG onwards though. Kirk punches things and kills aliens and occasionally acts like a pig to women. Even so, Spock as a character is great and Nimoy's performance still holds up.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

then you never saw voyager

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[drinkypoo]

Perhaps you should read about a small organization within the Nazi political party called the Schutzstaffel.

Yes, that was the direct destination of the money from the corporation operated by Prescott Bush, and he has to have known this based on the extent of his involvement with the corporation. The money went straight to the S.S. Nice astroturfing though, coward.

Re:In my daughter's word(s)

[AmiMoJo]

The problem with Voyager was twofold.

1. The plots were too action oriented, so the interesting ideas and philosophical debates that made TNG interesting boiled down to "let's blow them up". It also reduced the fearsome Borg to a lame bunch of ineffective villains that Janeway got to beat every damn episode, although First Contact didn't help either.

2. The characters were all losers and most of them had almost zero development over the entire 7 series. Compare any of them to say Worf and you can see instantly how 2D they were. Well, except Seven of Nine perhaps...

You cannot kill the good stuff...

[Tirs]

Despite the CBS moronic policy on Star Trek, Roddenberry's legacy will prevail!
The suits there think we still live in 20th. Century! (no Fox intended)

KA'PLAH!

Netflix's future...

[cyberfin]

... is guaranteed for now me thinks.

In related news...

[Noughmad]

All Star Trek TV already on the Pirate Bay.

Re:In related news...

[Hadlock]

But not available for instant streaming tailored to your connection's bitrate.
 
I'd rather stream it via netflix legally (which I already pay for), rather than hoard it illegally on a drive I then have to buy and maintain.

Re:In related news...

[sortius_nod]

Maybe not, but my NAS sure streams what I want when I want. Every series on it, no problems streaming. Not sure what netflix has over my NAS.

Please, enlighten me.

Re:In related news...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

All Star Trek TV already on the Pirate Bay.

Streaming is superior.

Re:In related news...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Serious question: Do you have it working on your phone or tablet? Can you hit it from computers outside of our network, like from work?

Re:In related news...

[GrumpySteen]

> Not sure what netflix has over my NAS

1) It's legal.
2) The studios that produced the shows get some revenue which correlates to the level of interest people have in Star Trek, which encourages them to produce more material.
3) Netflix gets some revenue, which correlates to the level of interest people have in Star Trek and encourages them to continue providing Star Trek and maybe other sci-fi series.
4) The actors who worked on the series get some money via residuals, making Star Trek seem like a decent career move for other actors.
5) Paying $8 a month isn't a hardship and you're contributing to our culture by paying those who produce our entertainment rather than leeching and not giving back for what you receive.

Re:In related news...

[adolf]

Seriously: I have my collection of stuff at home available from wherever, however, via Subsonic.

It works well enough for pocket-sized video (and works great for audio), and it's free. I watched an episode of Dirty Jobs the other day with this using 3G connection on my Droid

That said, I also pay for Netflix, and my family watches a ton of streaming stuff that I myself would never bother with putting on the network.

Comparing a bunch of local storage (even if you can get to it remotely) to Netflix is like comparing a large, populated bookshelf at home with the local library. Neither is going to have everything you might ever want, and they serve rather different purposes.

Re:In related news...

[theCoder]

Unfortunately, as a Linux user, I am not allowed to stream Netflix because of their (or the studios) rampant paranoia. So I am not a Netflix customer. I guess having less customers is better than someone maybe copying the stream.

Re:In related news...

[Dr. Spork]

Yeah, I think that Netflix streaming is the first commercial video service which is better and more convenient than piracy. Because let's face it, piracy is pretty darn convenient, and if you invest a minimal effort, the quality is also pretty good. For now, piracy still wins on the amount of content available, but I'm glad to see that Netflix is catching up!

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

1) It's legal.

You presume it's not legal content on his NAS. Perhaps he purchased the DVDs and ripped them (in a jurisdiction where ripping is allowed). Or perhaps he didn't purchase a thing, but downloading is legal (such as in The Netherlands - where this netflix service is not available and even if it were, this deal is for the U.S. market only - as usual).

2) The studios that produced the shows get some revenue which correlates to the level of interest people have in Star Trek, which encourages them to produce more material.

How much revenue? Wouldn't seeder/leecher / download statistics also correlate to the level of interest people have in Star Trek?

3) Netflix gets some revenue, which correlates to the level of interest people have in Star Trek and encourages them to continue providing Star Trek and maybe other sci-fi series.

warning: self-referencing.

4) The actors who worked on the series get some money via residuals, making Star Trek seem like a decent career move for other actors.

Except that anybody who's been reading about Star Trek is more likely to get the idea that people loathe Star Trek. They hated what was done to TNG, they only marginally liked DS9, and hated Voyager (and let's face it, the series finale -was- ridiculous.. but I guess if you're getting cancelled, it's better than leaving the ship floating in space with an uncertain future that would only be filled in by self-acclaimed fanfiction authors... not that I'm looking at you, StarGate:Universe).

In addition - there's new movies being made. Unless fans really want Star Trek to pull a classic comic book move and spawn a zillion different 'universes', any new series would have to take these new movies into account. In addition.. NEW MOVIES. This means actors people are already going to be familiar with. But, oh, they're not TV actors.. they're movie actors. How many of them are likely to accept a move to television series? Maybe if they're desperate (Laurence Fishburne). The alternative is that they cast people who somewhat look like the movie actors. I'm sure there's thousands of people who want to be the TV counterpart of Zachary Quinto's Spock.

5) Paying $8 a month isn't a hardship and you're contributing to our culture by paying those who produce our entertainment rather than leeching and not giving back for what you receive.

That $8. You're right, that's not a hardship. It's also not exactly a cash cow - and a good chunk of it is going to Netflix, not to the people "who produce our entertainment". Netflix's forays into producing content themselves via a sistercompany aside as it's not -that- content that you're consuming.
Let's say you watch one episode of TNG per day. And ONLY watch that one episode if TNG per day, so that your $8 doesn't get diluted with portions also going to the producers of Glee or whatever. Now let's say that the producers of TNG, via the above, get a royal 75% that monthly payment - $6.
There's 178 episodes, so that's about 5.5 months, but you have to pay monthly so let's make that 6 months. 6*$6 = $36.

On the other hand, there's a DVD box set. 49 discs, looks like it's $249 new.
$249! Even if the producers got only a paltry 15% of that, that's $37.35 and they've already made more from -that- than they do your Netflix.

Again, that's presuming they even get 75% of your monthly $8.

So if you -really- wanted to support the producers, you'd buyt the DVDs. You're not really much less of a leecher by paying $8 to Netflix for pretty much unlimited, completely undedicated, viewing and in the end only gives you a streamed version with quality and availability issues, than the guy downloading it, when compared to people who buy the boxset.

If another legal (in terms of having signed contracts for distribution and such) service were to appear that would cost only $1 per month and the producers would get pretty much zilch and worked just as well as Netflix, I'm sure people would move to that service in droves and -still- use the exact same bullet points you're using now.

Re:In related news...

[mblase]

Paying $8 a month isn't a hardship and you're contributing to our culture by paying those who produce our entertainment rather than leeching and not giving back for what you receive.

Sums it up nicely. For years we've been complaining that we'd gladly pay a reasonable fee for unlimited streaming, and not only does Netflix finally deliver that, it does it on more internet-enabled devices than any other provider.

Re:In related news...

[Hadlock]

Oh please, that's quite possibly the lamest excuse in this day and age. 2006 called, they want their lame Micro$haft excuses back. A 1080p Roku box runs $99 these days. The 720p model is even cheaper. Want more utility out of your box? Try a used Wii, Xbox 360, PS3, Mac Mini... or just repurpose an old PC as an HTPC. Anything built in 2008 will run 1080p just fine (mine does). A good number of TVs and Blu-Ray players ($60) have netflix/pandora support built in.
 
Get over yourself, and look in to getting that penguin tattoo removed from your ass.

Re:In related news...

[Trelane]

Or subscribe to Amazon's service. Vote with your dollars, folks.

Re:In related news...

[theCoder]

I wasn't blaming Microsoft, I was blaming Netflix, and the various copyright holders that control them. Your own Roku example illustrates that there's no technical limitation to streaming on Linux (Roku, IIRC, runs Linux). I already have a nice HTPC running Linux. As you point out, I could by another piece of hardware to enable me to spend more money to subscribe to Netflix, but frankly, it's just not worth it to me. If someone expects me to be their customer, they should treat me like a customer, not like a pariah.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

> just repurpose an old PC as an HTPC

That's what I did - well, a 2009 PC actually. My HTPC runs MythTV. As far as I can tell, netflix won't stream to it, although everything else does this just fine (youtube, hulu, etc). I'm certainly not going to buy another computer just to stream Netflix when the one I have now could do it if they only pulled their head out of their ass and stopped with the vendor lock-in already. I don't even have a convenient place in my entertainment center for another box.

Re:In related news...

[darjen]

The pirate bay can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. You never know how fast your downloads will be, what will be available, or what the quality will be. Yes, I have used it in the past myself. I still do occasionally for stuff Netflix doesn't have, like Disney for example. But since I now have a decent paying job, I have a Roku with Netflix that streams 1080p beautifully over my wireless network. Much easier to deal with IMO and not that expensive.

Re:In related news...

[devent]

To buy and maintain? An external hard disk is now 70$ for 1TB. You can buy that once plugin it to your computer with USB and you are finished.

StarTrek Original is from 1966, ST TNG 1987, ST DSN 1993, ST V 2001. I see no moral obligation to pay for 10 years, 17 years, 24 years and 45 years old series, that were countless times on TV already. In my opinion they should all be in the public domain already, because they paid them self more than enough. The actors have their pay, the producers have their profits, why should I have any moral obligation to pay them again to watch the same episodes just in a different format?

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

really i find it inconvenient that they only service the USA.....pirate bay services the world

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no it really isn't.

I've been hit with a troubling number of outages in the past week from Netflix. It seems their customer base is growing faster than capacity which highlights the fact that there is no absolute guarantee I can get what I want, when I want.

Additionally, even when it works right, seek times are atrocious from Hulu, Netflix, et al. Even the highest quality streams are significantly lower to accomodate the relatively puny connections everyone has.

Realistically speaking though, no one offers to really 'sell' me content (I don't consider a supposed sale with DRM a true sale), so 'renting' via streaming is the only legally viable alternative.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel your pain. I also have a kickass Linux-based HTPC/DVR that is also my main desktop. But I also run Netflix over my Wii and have felt it's well worth the money. It'd be great to run on my DVR, but since that's unlikely, I don't want to miss out on the functionality it offers.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

For years we've been complaining that we'd gladly pay a reasonable fee for unlimited streaming, and not only does Netflix finally deliver that, it does it on more internet-enabled devices than any other provider.

Cool,

Now let me use Netflix in my european country, so I too can pay for culture instead of "stealing" it.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I guess having one less customer is going to break Netflix, right?

Re:In related news...

[electrosoccertux]

amount of content doesn't mean crap if you can't filter through it.

Netflix lets you watch any of 100 4/5 star rated comedies or 1000 3/5 star rated comedies when you feel like a comedy.
Want action? Plenty of that.
Romance for those lonely friday nights? Check.
It's a pain to find new good stuff to watch. Rather just have it shoveled to be based on my previous ratings of films.
And lets face it, who is going to pre-download a season of Hercules? How would I have found that if not to watch an episode on demand right now to laugh at, and then recognize "hey this is a pretty hilariously entertaining show"?

For $8/month it beats any and everything in my book. If you run linux, quit whining, pony up the one time fee of $50 and get a box that will play it.

Re:In related news...

[517714]

Last I heard VMs didn't require another box.

Re:In related news...

[Junta]

You presume it's not legal content on his NAS.

Given the context of the thread starting off with Pirate Bay already had it, I think it's a reasonable assumption.

Wouldn't seeder/leecher / download statistics also correlate to the level of interest people have in Star Trek?

Now figure out how to buy lunch based on those download statistics. I do wonder though how netflix pays for streaming rights and by extension how closely studio revenue maps to viewer interest.

Except that anybody who's been reading about Star Trek is more likely to get the idea that people loathe Star Trek.

Well, I think both you and the parent post are off the mark. Actors by and large will be available for whatever the studios pay to do. I don't think actors will be specifically financially drawn to Star Trek knowing it's on netflix with dreams of dollarsigns yet I think they will be dissuaded by various mumblings either.

That $8. You're right, that's not a hardship. It's also not exactly a cash cow - and a good chunk of it is going to Netflix, not to the people "who produce our entertainment".

This is probably the most counter-productive sort of thinking that content producers can have when dealing with an essentially unlimited 'supply'. You focus on one individuals contribution as if paying so little makes them unworthy of enjoying the content. Economics is not about such a petty concern. You want to maximize total profit. We are talking about a market with trivial per-unit cost resulting in effectively unlimited supply allowing the provider to price solely based on demand. So you have a $250 way of getting your content and let's say 100 people think it's worth paying that in a certain population, you got $25,000 out of that population. Now let's say you allow the same experience for $8. Now you get 10,000 people out of the same population willing to go in and you've just made $80,000, aver three times as much. The economic choice is clear, $8 is the winner in this hypothetical, but many content producers will allow pride to overrule good judgement and feel insulted that people who could only be arsed to spend 8 bucks 'get' to enjoy their stuff..

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Streaming is superior.

Nobody told me it was backwards day.

Re:In related news...

[7213]

The roku box may cost $99, hey I don't even need it as I've already got a Wii. However the added equipment required to cleanly integrate either of these into my whole house distribution system EASILY doubles that cost. I already have a full featured Linux HTPC that can be viewed or controlled from nearly any room in my home. Netflix simply refuses to integrate into my existing setup for a reasonable cost therefore I refuse to fund them.

Re:In related news...

[Junta]

I have a Linux HTPC because it was the easiest to get to work with what I wanted *and* I didn't see a compelling reason to pay Microsoft a license fee when my primary use is *easier* in linux. I could buy more devices, but you know, I like my home theater to be straightforward and the more devices I am forced to buy the more that goal diminishes. I have one HDMI port, that has my HTPC connected. If I wanted another HDMI device, I'd have to upgrade my TV, stereo, or buy an HDMI switcher. Depending on what happens, I may need more button presses on more remotes to change between what I'm doing.

This isn't particularly being anti-Microsoft, it's being for a straightforward experience that doesn't require a box for every little thing I want to do.

Re:In related news...

[Rob the Bold]

Oh please, that's quite possibly the lamest excuse in this day and age. 2006 called, they want their lame Micro$haft excuses back.

Seems to me the GP wouldn't use Netflix unless it supported his chosen format. How is this an excuse? A person doesn't need an "excuse" to not subscribe to Netflix, they needn't buy extra hardware to please others,

So anyway, he explained his reasoning. This is a discussion, after all. People state opinions, explain their rationale . . .

Get over yourself, and look in to getting that penguin tattoo removed from your ass.

And other slashdotters make rude comments like this. It's not clever, it's just mean-spirited.

I also don't want to use Netflix because I use Linux. And I use Linux to make my father-in-law not want to visit because he can't use my computer to stream his Netflix. And of course for emacs.

Re:In related news...

[Richy_T]

If I have enough lead time, I rather download a movie or even rent it from Redbox. Netflix streaming is OK as long as you don't need to back things up or don't put the Wiimote down so the "B" button is accidentally pressed or it isn't the 1 time in 10 that the internet is running slow and your viewing experience is constantly interrupted by buffering.

I support what Netflix is doing but they need a better player. Of course, there's only so much they can do with the Wii that I use (though I would cerainly be willing to attach external storage if they made that an option)

Re:In related news...

[517714]

Hardware isn't the problem, you could build a hundred boxes and if you load them all with Linux, you won't accomplish anything. Or you can run a VM with Windows, IE and Silverlight like the FAQ of your HTPC software suggests.

Re:In related news...

[Teckla]

Sums it up nicely. For years we've been complaining that we'd gladly pay a reasonable fee for unlimited streaming, and not only does Netflix finally deliver that, it does it on more internet-enabled devices than any other provider.

Except it's not really unlimited (99.9% of us have download caps, enforced by our broadband provider) and Netflix's streaming service tends not to include the majority of the content most of us would consider good (though that is slowly improving).

This is coming from a Netflix subscriber that does use Netflix streaming on a regular basis.

Re:In related news...

[517714]

If you were streaming to a Sony BD player, your problem may have with the Anonymous DDOS attack on Sony the other day. I could stream to my computer fine, but not to the BD player.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

why should i have to go out and buy another box just to stream movies into my house? yeah, might not cost that much, but still, it just doesnt seem right to have to buy a special box to do what my home computer can and does do, but they wont let me do cause of my os. my entertainment system is already filled with crap, even a re-purposed toshiba laptop for pandora and dvds. im not about to replace it so i can stream netflix in. my current method works.

and the penguin tattoo is on my chest, not my ass. get over yourself

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

I already have every Star Trek episode and movie on my Drobo, but I would gladly continue supporting Netflix with my subscription. One caveat: I'm overseas military, and have to jump thru proxy hoops for the privilege :/

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, just a 100$+ Windows license which I don't need or want.

There's nothing about my current hardware or software that prevents streaming video. The problem is a purely artificial construction, and as long as someone went out of their way to make it not work on my system, I might as well torrent the content. I'm happy to pay for it if they would sell it to me, but they don't seem inclined to sell it to me.

Re:In related news...

[bigstrat2003]

No, it really is unlimited. If your ISP caps you, that isn't Netflix's fault.

Re:In related news...

[T-Bone-T]

It took me a month to download every episode of Voyager due to limited availability.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's next? Support for BeOS? Amiga? Why should Netflix remotely care about 1% of the desktop market? I can understand 10% for Mac, as that's not a small share. But as the other poster mentioned, tattoo removal is possible.

Re:In related news...

[T-Bone-T]

The Xbox 360 is a poor example. You have to subscribe to Xbox Live Gold in order to stream Netflix. Who want a subscription to have a subscription?

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Only 8 bucks a month for any dvd and live streaming and some people STILL manage to fucking complain! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Get over it and pay up suckers. You can finally get what you want. If you have linux, boo fucking whoo, it's not anyone's fault but your own that you can't get Netflix. They are a business and obviously need to make PROFIT to be successful. Deal with it. Not everyone's gonna work for free so you can enjoy life more. If you want the "Linux" version of life, I would say get on welfare or start a communist country.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon streaming works in Linux (interface sucks though).

That is all.

Re:In related news...

[Teckla]

No, it really is unlimited. If your ISP caps you, that isn't Netflix's fault.

I wasn't assigning blame, just stating a truth. In pragmatic terms, there is a limit.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

And it would work on pretty much every Internet enabled device at this point if they had gone with Flash instead of Silverlight. There is simply no excuse for the lack of DRM support in Moonlight; clearly Microsoft was just pretending to play nice with the Moonlight guys. I'm no fan of Flash don't get me wrong, but it's clearly the better choice from a compatibility/standards point of view. This combined with the codecs they use (inferior quality) is why I don't use Netflix.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound just like a whiny mom at gamestop demanding that they sell her a Zelda game for her PS2. Learn to dual boot or STFU. It cracks me up the amount of labor Linux folks will put in to avoid paying MS $109 for a OEM license.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

In reference to number 2, given the recent material they have produced, I don't think I want any more.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that they took away native linux streaming support.

Re:In related news...

[Hadlock]

It's mean spirited because his post is redundant and nauseating clichéd. I make no apologies.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't blaming Microsoft, I was blaming Netflix, and the various copyright holders that control them. Your own Roku example illustrates that there's no technical limitation to streaming on Linux (Roku, IIRC, runs Linux). I already have a nice HTPC running Linux. As you point out, I could by another piece of hardware to enable me to spend more money to subscribe to Netflix, but frankly, it's just not worth it to me. If someone expects me to be their customer, they should treat me like a customer, not like a pariah.

It's not worth it to you because you can steal the same content instead.

Re:In related news...

[1u3hr]

StarTrek Original is from 1966, ST TNG 1987, ST DSN 1993, ST V 2001. I see no moral obligation to pay for 10 years, 17 years, 24 years and 45 years old series, that were countless times on TV already. In my opinion they should all be in the public domain already, because they paid them self more than enough. The actors have their pay, the producers have their profits, why should I have any moral obligation to pay them again to watch the same episodes just in a different format?

The remastered TOS is beautiful on a big screen. I saw it originally in b/w on a 20" tv in the 60s, and I must say the remastered version is rather more than "the same episodes just in a different format".

The other shows, probably there is little or no difference though... anyway, TOS is the only one I'm interested in.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

(facepalm) Yes, That does work and MANY people do that. but, thecoder obviously feels that isn't the "right" way to do it. What reaction did you want?

Re:In related news...

[Grishnakh]

That's weird, I have a Blu-Ray player with Netflix that performs horribly. When it works, it's great: 1080p streaming just like you say. But much of the time (as in most evenings, especially Friday or Saturday evenings), it freezes up constantly because there's apparently not enough bandwidth. What's weird though is that if I hook up my laptop computer to my TV and switch over to that, the rest of the movie works just fine. Netflix seems to use different servers for the Roku/Blu/Ray players, and for PC-based viewing, and the former are horribly overtaxed during prime-time viewing hours.

Re:In related news...

[smileyphase]

Not in Canada. Netflix is hobbled mostly by the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television Commission) - we can't catch a decent selection up here yet - a small portion of the US stuff, especially old stuff. Star Trek TOS isn't here yet. In Canada, we also have rediculously low bandwidth caps for residential DSL subscribers (most DSL providers also provide traditional TV/media services and don't like the competition). Smaller providers are being forced to pay for sharing infrastructure too.

But for all that, my behaviour has generally fallen into the pattern of paying a reasonable amount for content and streaming legally.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

One of GP's arguments was that by going the Netflix route, you're supporting the producers through a slice - however tiny - of that $8/month subscription.
However, if instead you purchased the DVDs, then the slice of the $249 is likely to be much larger. Even if they got the whole $8 from Netflix, they'd only need about 20% to get more out of the DVD deal than they would from Netflix - and I seriously doubt that they get 100% of Netflix's subscription fee.

I agree with your argument that by making it available for less - be that through Netflix or through lowering the cost of the DVDs - they may be able to tap into a larger market (more so on the Netflix end, for convenience reasons) where ultimately they stand to make a larger profit.

But, again, the point was to support the producers. So if suddenly 10,000 people go for the Netflix option for the reason of supporting the producers, then for the purposes of supporting the producers those -same- 10,000 could instead buy the DVD box.
Then it's a matter of 10,000 * $8 vs 10,000 * $250.

Which is why I pointed it out as a silly reason. It might be a bonus side-effect, but if primary reason were to support the producers, the DVDs are the better option - unless you want to show them less support, of course.

Re:In related news...

[Trelane]

Seconded. I *used* to be a Netflix customer, and left after the silence just became awkward. Fortunately, Amazon wants my business instead.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

For Comcast users (which is the biggest broadband provider in the USA) there is no effective limit - you can steam Netflix 24 hours a day and not go over. 250GB is simply that large. There goes your 99.9% estimate.

Re:In related news...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Streaming is superior.

Nobody told me it was backwards day.

Try asking questions.

Re:In related news...

[Grishnakh]

What does a DDOS attack on Sony have to do with streaming to a Sony BD player? Did Sony stupidly engineer their BD players to constantly ping their own sites or something? These BD players are really nothing more than embedded media-center PCs with Blu-Ray drives slapped on. In theory, there shouldn't be any significant difference between streaming Netflix to your Windows laptop PC vs. streaming it to your Sony BD player (or your Roku device, or your Boxee box, or your Wii...). The only thing a Sony BD player should need to access Sony's site for is to check for software updates. Netflix content should be going straight from Netflix to your player, not through Sony.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Streaming helps me out a lot when I want to grab a couple of seasons of something to watch at work as I cross the pacific ocean at 15 knots. Or for a flight. Or at this hotel I'm currently at that seems to max out at 80k and usually runs around 60-70k. Streaming is great. Funny thing is, torrents work great for every scenario.

Re:In related news...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

No, they dont.

Re:In related news...

[coolmadsi]

Hardware isn't the problem, you could build a hundred boxes and if you load them all with Linux, you won't accomplish anything. Or you can run a VM with Windows, IE and Silverlight like the FAQ of your HTPC software suggests.

The cost of a Windows license to run it in a VM might be the same as the cost for some of the other hardware options mentioned.

And if you're running Windows without a license, you may as well not bother with Netflix at all and just pirate everything. I suspect the original poster wanted to use their existing hardware (i.e. not buy dedicated hardware just to run Netflix), not buy extra software (i.e. Windows) just to run Netflix, and not pirate anything (either content that is avaliable on Netflix, or Windows).

Re:In related news...

[AmiMoJo]

Just to play Devil's Advocate for a moment I suppose the rights holders would argue that like DVDs and BluRay you need a device to play each. Those technologies require a license to implement, so while you have a choice of devices none of them are free as in freedom because the licensing requirements are incompatible with open source.

Similarly if you want to use Netflix you need a licensed player. That is just part of the deal, take it or leave it.

Personally I would take it, but probably not in the sense they are thinking of.

I wonder how they will do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if we are in store for HD versions of the episodes? I've heard that atleast with TNG the scenes with cgi were rendered in standard def. 35mm for the character scenes which is do-able. I'd think that most of these scenes the effects could be redone by someone in their basement compared to 1987. It is star trek they should let the fans add the effects back in. They would do it for free to get their name in the credits.

Re:I wonder how they will do it.

[Dogtanian]

I wonder if we are in store for HD versions of the episodes? I've heard that atleast with TNG the scenes with cgi were rendered in standard def. 35mm for the character scenes which is do-able.

No, AFAIK the special effects on TNG were mastered on video. The majority of the show was shot on film, but transferred to video for editing and the addition of most special effects.

This means that even if the original high-resolution source film remains intact, any "HD" transfer of TNG would still have to redo the effects since even the "originals" only ever existed as SD video- AFAIK there aren't (and never were) any higher quality versions.

Given the craptastic quality of 80s NTSC video, there's no way you could "clean" or upscale them so that they looked like anything approaching HD- they even looked crap at SD (*)- and more importantly so that they didn't stand out like a sore thumb against the higher quality rescanned film footage.

I'd think that most of these scenes the effects could be redone by someone in their basement compared to 1987. It is star trek they should let the fans add the effects back in. They would do it for free to get their name in the credits.

That sounds nice, and I'm sure that there are many skilled fans who'd do it for free. However, I suspect it's not as simple or "free lunch" for the studios as that.

For one, there's coordinating such efforts, ensuring that (e.g.) the style of effects being done by different teams have a consistent (and not jarringly different) style.

And if people are working for free, how far will they accept being told what and how to do things by the studio? What if their personal fanboy view of how things should be done or what should be concentrated on disagrees with that of the studio? (No, what hardcore fanboys want and think should be done with a show isn't always the best from a general audience point of view- indeed, pandering to the self-indulgences of obsessives can sometimes damage the general appeal of a show and destroy what made it great in the first place).

And will such people be working in their spare time? What if the studio needs X done for release in 18 months time, but some guy working in a particular area can't spare the time from work? Of course, they could pay him... which starts to blur the line between employees and free contributions anyway.

So it's not as simple as you might think.

(*) I always used to wonder why the likes of TNG looked so "soft" and generally bad- the same problems that I could see with US-based video shows- when earlier US film-based shows looked okay. Turns out that the older shows were shot and edited on film, but that at some point during the 80s there was a trend towards shooting on film but transferring to video for editing. Apparently, the BBC etc. used their own film-based prints of older shows, which obviously wouldn't have suffered from NTSC video's defects, but they clearly couldn't do this with video-edited shows. And believe me, even watching TNG on a bog-standard moderately-sized colour television set in the UK, the difference in quality was obvious.

Congratulations nerds of US of A

[TheP4st]

Great news if you live in a part of the world where netflix is available. Attention /. editors, the tubes are global and so are your readers.

Re:Congratulations nerds of US of A

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Great news if you live in a part of the world where netflix is available. Attention /. editors, the tubes are global and so are your readers.

A. The US is not small.
B. We get stories about your lovely CCTV system.
C. It's only THIS year that the US will have parity with the UK when airing Doctor Who.

Git.

Re:Congratulations nerds of US of A

[bledri]

Great news if you live in a part of the world where netflix is available. Attention /. editors, the tubes are global and so are your readers.

1. So slashdot should only post stories about stuff that's available to the entire planet?
2. The "tubes" are global, but most submitters live on a small patch of said globe.
3. Be a nerd, use a VPN for !@#$ sake.

Re:Congratulations nerds of US of A

[Zedrick]

Well, the rest of us (Star Trek-fans) probably already have all Star Trek:* episodes on the HD, downloaded from tpb or the thing on port 443/563 that should not be named, so it's not a big deal. Still, yes, annoying. But don't blame slashdot, blame netlfix and the copyright holder who still believe in national boundaries. In the year 2011 :-)

Morons.

Re:Congratulations nerds of US of A

[TheP4st]

A. Really. I wasn't aware of that thanks for the enlightenment.
B. Don't have that many of those were I live. Sorry to disappoint you with me not being British.
C. I am glad for you. Really. I Am.

For your information, what triggered my reply were the editors phrasing of the posting "This is great news for all the Star Trek fans out there." Now who is the git?

Re:Congratulations nerds of US of A

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Thatd be the guy who didn't clearly communicate his thoughts.

Just checked...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Right now Star Trek TOS is available for Instant watch"

It isn't here.. nor most of the movies either.

Confused.

Re:Just checked...

[mccalli]

Yep, it is. Exactly how officially however...

allstepisodes.com

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Just checked...

[Stormwatch]

Now that's an awesome site. Bookmarked.

Re:Just checked...

[RoverDaddy]

Same here. TOS is not available for instant streaming. Too bad - I was going to fire it up right away.

Good

[C0R1D4N]

To think just 6 or 7 years ago I was buying every season of DS9 at close to $100 a pop on DVD in terrible cases that have mostly broken.

Re:Good

[hellop2]

Tell me about it.. I wasted all my time downloaded every episode. And now, they're just easily watchable online?! I'm pissed now!

Re:Good

[camperdave]

I wasted all my time downloaded every episode.

Wasted your time? All you have to do is click on the download link at a torrent site. You can do that during the span of a single commercial break. After that your computer does all the work. Look at it this way: The parent poster spent $100/season for DVDs. That's $700. You saved $700 in two minutes. That's $2,100/hr or $4.2M/year. Not a bad take home pay.

Re:Good

[hellop2]

You expect me to scrape by on $4.2M/year????

Re:Good

[notsoanonymouscoward]

I'm sure at that level of income, the Gov't will be more than happy to provide you with numerous subsidies to ensure your quality of life and continued pursuit of the American Dream.

Animated Series?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like they qualified it by specifying
"Live action" Star Trek. So probably not all of them.

Huh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't figure out how torrents work?
Don't already have the entire box set of everything star trek ever made?

What kind of geek are you.

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are people going to endlessly rewatch the few decent episodes of this camp space opera?

Re:Who cares?

[bledri]

Are people going to endlessly rewatch the few decent episodes of this camp space opera?

Yes, Mr. Anonymous Doofus, some people will.

Awesome

[TouchAndGo]

Not that I needed much of an excuse to re-watch TNG and DS9, but it's nice to have one.

Again?

[Seumas]

I'm pretty sure this was already announced a couple months ago.

Also, I'm sure in typical Netflix style, before you get 20% through it, you'll start getting notices that the content will expire in a couple weeks.

I'm pretty sure I have about 15% of my current Netflix queue about to expire and become unavailable. Hopefully they'll start to address this stuff soon, so we can have a consistent collection of content rather than a "here one day; gone the next" collection,.

Re:Again?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Also, I'm sure in typical Netflix style, before you get 20% through it, you'll start getting notices that the content will expire in a couple weeks.

Well, 104 weeks.

It depends on what you want from your TV

[SmallFurryCreature]

TOS is a series that was originally meant to be more like the Twilight Zone, different characters each episode. It still keeps the characters from having a ongoing story. There is no story arc spanning episodes although the book versions do tie the episodes together. The stories themselves are close to Sci-Fi in that they explore the now by just slightly changing the now to make us re-examine the facts. Simple example: Rather then examine black vs white race issues, the race issue is shown by two people who are both black and white, just different sides. To "us" there is no difference to them there is. This shows just how silly race differences are.

TNG most hated change was the kid. For some reason TV must have a kid in it and people hate kids and Wheaton was the most hated of them all. Wonder what ever happened to him. The characters also become more like the crew of the Love Boat, in that they had from the beginning long established relationships, parent-child, ex-lovers. The difference is clear in that TOS never had an episode aimed purely at introducing the cast. TNG did it and needed two episodes.

It also did something else, the most powerful most capable characters, were white humans. Spock from TOS was gone, replaced why a white android and various white male humans. It lacked the edge. Maybe that was a good thing, maybe a token black woman on the bridge was no longer needed to show a society that had moved beyond racism. Maybe.

Finally, the approaches of the crew were stellar opposites. TNG was all about endless meetings. Crisis, Enterprise about to be blown up in ten seconds, MEETING time! Kirk would bust some balls, Picard would listen to suggestions. It seemed all a bit eighties to me.

DS9 was a radical departure, first off, the kid again, two this time... don't they learn? They ditched the enterprise and sayed a big Hello to story arcs... it was a soap in space. And where as Kirk always tried to do the right thing, DS9 firmly brought in politics especially US politics of screwing your allies any time you can. They didn't think anything of betraying their allies if it suited them at that moment only to suck up to them next time. This wasn't the brave new world, it wasn't Kirk either kicking ass OR accepting that humans didn't always get it right BUT willing to learn. This was Senate Hill in space.

Voyager went back into space but dumped all sense of ethics at the spaceport. Kirk would never have stood for it. Janeway did anything to get home, including mass genocide. Star Trek, how far can you fall.

Enterprise... well that answered that question didn't it. The opening trailer showed only US spacecraft. TOS had russians, blacks, aliens in the same crew. Enterprise, USA all the way.

Perhaps it is important to remember that each series reflected its time. TOS was a by product of the hippy era and Gene Roddenberry had created a story where the future was bright. Racism, hunger, war. These things had been overcome and now we could get on with the fun stuff. Exploring new worlds.

The other series were as much a product of their time. The "management is everything" culture of the eighties. The "US is right and we don't need the rest of the world" of later years.

Each series stand on its own and frankly I don't think any true fan of one can possibly like all the others. Personally, my favorite is still TOS (although to be honest, more the books then the TV show) I can stomach some TNG (the ones without wesley) and the rest. Just no thanks. Didn't bother with the reboot. It might be good, it might not be but I think it is not... the ones I heard whosaid they liked it also seem to like the later tv-shows. Fine for them but then it ain't aimed at me.

One franchise, so many different audiences. Kind of amazing if you think about it.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Fnkmaster]

Wonder what ever happened to him.

Oddly enough, you'll occasionally find Wil Wheaton posting on Slashdot. Or at least he used to (Slashdot username: CleverNickName). I think he still does some acting gigs here and there though I haven't seen him in anything in a while now.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Anonymous Coward]

He was recently on The Guild-- seasons 3 and 4.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[BlueLightning]

Oh, and don't forget The Big Bang Theory. Classic.

WHEATON!!!!!

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Anonymous Coward]

The other series were as much a product of their time. The "management is everything" culture of the eighties. The "US is right and we don't need the rest of the world" of later years.

Perhaps, but DS9 was more, "Hey, where did we shove those docs that guy - what's his face - the one with the name I can't pronounce. You know, the one about the space station?"

The hilarity between JMS pitching Babylon 5 to Paramount, which then suddenly came out with DS9 aside... Honestly, DS9 was the best Trek. You had all the lack-of-salt-shaker-medical-devices of TNG, and none of the stupidity and watering down of evil that was Voyager. (Seriously? The Borg - the defining enemy of TNG, whose very idea scared a generation of child-geeks to death whenever they went to sleep - were turned into nothing more than a comedic foil for Janeway? BAAAAAAAAH.)

Uh, yeah, let me move past my ranting against Voyager. Yeah. DS9. TNG plus politics, and more importantly, no shortage of Klingons. They should've never made Voyager or Enterprise - they should've made a Klingon series.

'sides, I challenge anyone to name a more awesome character than Garreck. YOU CAN'T, SUCKERS. IN YOUR FACE.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[TheGratefulNet]

wil is also on fark.com (from what I understand).

his latest rant about the TSA was worth reading. yes, even old movie/film stars will get hassled by the grope squad.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Anonymous Coward]

He's a redditor, just fyi. Fairly active one at that.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[flappinbooger]

Probably the most thorough and insightful commentary on the various startreks I've seen on here yet.

Having the STs on netflix is long overdue and very welcome. I see it as a milestone in a way, solidifying NF as THE vast repository of our media content.

Aaaaaaand ...... with their quite reasonable price, might in the long run cut down on .... "illegal downloads"? Maybe?

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Anonymous Coward]

That may be the longest post ever written in which I disagree with every single part of it.

"TNG / Love Boat?" Worst. Analogy. Ever.

"What ever happened to Wheaton?" Seriously? I don't expect most people to be aware even of who WW is, but anyone who wonders what happened to him should already know.

"The most powerful TNG characters where white humans?" Yeah, Troi and Crusher totally owned Worf, LaForge and Data.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't seen him in anything in a while now.

The last things I saw him in were Big Bang Theory and as an evil guild leader on "The Guild". Both were hilarious.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[plurgid]

It also did something else, the most powerful most capable characters, were white humans. Spock from TOS was gone, replaced why a white android and various white male humans. It lacked the edge. Maybe that was a good thing, maybe a token black woman on the bridge was no longer needed to show a society that had moved beyond racism. Maybe.

Jeordi La Forge? ... the thing is, thought that he was far more than a "token black guy".
He was a fully developed, very interesting character. I'd have to say, if you really look at the best episodes, they all revolved around Jeordi, Worf & Data.

I always thought that was a really cool thing about the show. It wasn't the "cowboy captain punches aliens and get the girl" show.
The captain was usually involved, and important, but it wasn't about him, necessarily (at least all the time).
The show was sci-fi for sure, but it had really good characters, by the end.

Wesley ... yeah that was an unfortunate misstep. I liked him better toward the end, when he was more of a young adult than a kid straight from an afterschool special, who's only purpose was to ask incredibly contrived leading questions so an adult could speechify about drugs or sex or peer pressure, or what have you. When they finally figured out how to use the Wesley character well, he was off the show, which is really kind of a shame in a way.

Yeah ... I still find TNG inspiring in a way, because it does show a better future, but more than anything, it shows a group of competent adults who excel in their respective fields, care about their work, and work effectively together in spite of their differences, and do it without descending into backbiting and politics.

In short, I wish I could work for Captain Picard so bad ... lol

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Anonymous Coward]

TNG: Spock from TOS was gone, replaced why a white android and various white male humans.

Enterprise: The opening trailer showed only US spacecraft. TOS had russians, blacks, aliens in the same crew. Enterprise, USA all the way.

You seem hung up on race. Data was not white but was played by a white actor. Jordy was black as was Warf. Both were main stays of the series. As for the US comment, the Enterprise was an American project. While it had no Russian, it had two alien races and a black guy. You need to get over the fact that not every show is going to meet YOUR idea of political correctness. You just end up with another series that is dated by your archaic "race is all that counts, America can't do anything right" attitude.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[trparky]

He's going to be staring in Eureka on SyFy soon.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[trparky]

Wesley Crusher was for all intents and purposes, a Marty Stu (male version of Mary Sue). If you look up Gene Roddenberry you'll notice that his middle name was "Wesley". Wesley Crusher was a self-insert for Gene.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[KingMotley]

I had the exact same impression.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[chebucto]

Voyager went back into space but dumped all sense of ethics at the spaceport. Kirk would never have stood for it. Janeway did anything to get home, including mass genocide. Star Trek, how far can you fall.

Examples please? my knowledge of Voyager isn't encyclopedic, but I've seen most of the episodes and seem to remember that Janeway _always_ rejects quick ways of getting home if it means breaking ethical codes. Hell, that's the main tension of the entire series: how to deal with the problem of being so far from home while still maintaining the core of ethics that makes one human (or vulcan, or whatever).

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Grishnakh]

It also did something else, the most powerful most capable characters, were white humans. Spock from TOS was gone, replaced why a white android and various white male humans. It lacked the edge. Maybe that was a good thing, maybe a token black woman on the bridge was no longer needed to show a society that had moved beyond racism. Maybe.

Hawke made a pretty good captain on DS9 I thought, but he was still male. But in Voyager, they tried having a (white) female captain, and look how that turned out: it was a disaster. She was utterly irritating.

There actually was a potentially good female captain on a TNG episode, the one called "Conspiracy". Why couldn't they have someone like her be the captain in Voyager, instead of annoying Janeway?

Finally, the approaches of the crew were stellar opposites. TNG was all about endless meetings. Crisis, Enterprise about to be blown up in ten seconds, MEETING time! Kirk would bust some balls, Picard would listen to suggestions. It seemed all a bit eighties to me.

What you're missing here is how these shows are reflections of the times they were made in, and have all kind of assumptions and biases from those times, because the people writing the episodes are living in those times.

TOS was made in the 60s, when the USA was successfully sending men into space and to the moon, with technology that had just been invented. TNG was made in the late 80s and early 90s, when the USA was (and still is) no longer capable of such feats. Do you have a desk job in a large corporation? Probably not, because if you did, you'd know that endless meetings are exactly what goes on in those places. Why do you think it takes hordes of engineers to accomplish one tiny project these days? It's because they spend all their time in pointless meetings, because managers these days think that's how work gets done, sitting face-to-face and talking to each other, not by sitting in front of a computer. TNG simply reflects this modern-day reality.

And where as Kirk always tried to do the right thing, DS9 firmly brought in politics especially US politics of screwing your allies any time you can. They didn't think anything of betraying their allies if it suited them at that moment only to suck up to them next time. This wasn't the brave new world, it wasn't Kirk either kicking ass OR accepting that humans didn't always get it right BUT willing to learn. This was Senate Hill in space.

Again, a reflection of the times.Yes, the USA has been screwing allies any time they could since day one, but back in the 60s, the People were naive and uninformed, and really thought our government tried to do the best thing, and TOS reflected that idealism. These days, not only are Americans fully aware of the dirty dealings of our government, they fully back these actions, no matter how barbaric or immoral, because in an American's mind, the only thing that matters is me, me, me, and getting the lowest price for oil even if it means murdering thousands of innocents. So these new shows simply reflect this mindset that Americans have, that there is no such thing as right or wrong, and all that matters is getting the most you can by screwing everyone else. The writers probably wanted to just make the show center on the Ferengi as the heroes, since we Americans are so much like them, but the Ferengi were too ugly.

Voyager went back into space but dumped all sense of ethics at the spaceport. Kirk would never have stood for it. Janeway did anything to get home, including mass genocide. Star Trek, how far can you fall.

Again, a reflection of modern American society. Americans don't see anything wrong with mass genocide, and are happy to commit it to get control of oil and higher corporate profits. Or, if it's happening someplace else and doesn't affect us, we don't see any reason to step in and stop it.

The other series were as much a product of their time. The "management is everything" culture of the eighties. The "US is right and we don't need the rest of the world" of later years.

Exactly. Except I think your comment about management and the 80s is incorrect: "management is everything" is still the current culture, it never changed since the 80s.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Grishnakh]

Yeah ... I still find TNG inspiring in a way, because it does show a better future, but more than anything, it shows a group of competent adults who excel in their respective fields, care about their work, and work effectively together in spite of their differences, and do it without descending into backbiting and politics.

Yep, that's the biggest reason I like the show. It's incredibly unrealistic though, because real modern-day humans are NOT competent, do not care about their work, and do not work effectively together, and the general trend for society these days is a downward spiral. It's hard to find a competent person anywhere these days.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Anonymous Coward]

He's also in the YouTube series 'The Guild'

Actually, he pops up all over various internet culture.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Grishnakh]

Jordy was black as was Warf.

Good god, did you ever watch the show? It's "Geordi" and "Worf". Plus, Worf wasn't black, he was a Klingon. Finally, the OP was complaining that TNG didn't have any non white males in powerful leadership positions, not that there weren't any at all. Geordi was the chief engineer, not any kind of commander, plus unlike Riker, he was terrible at picking up chicks and had confidence problems around them (Worf's dating advice didn't help either). And Worf was essentially just the Captain's bodyguard. Data too was not a commander. The two top guys were white human men. Not that I'm complaining; after they got past the awkwardness of the first season (and got rid of Argyle and promoted Geordi to his position), the cast worked quite well. I think it helped that the Captain wasn't American, but rather French.

As for the US comment, the Enterprise was an American project.

Which just shows why the whole premise of the show is flawed: in this universe, there's no way America will ever succeed in creating an interstellar manned spaceship. If any one country manages to do so alone, it'll be China. Here in the USA, we'd rather spend our money giving giant tax breaks to corporations and starting wars over oil rather than devote one dime to any kind of research that would lead to advances in space exploration. On top of that, our citizens have no interest in pursuing careers in scientific fields (because most of them are too lazy and stupid, and the ones who are interested are too smart to go into such a poorly-rewarded career), whereas in China scientific careers are seen as very prestigious, and rewarded well.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[antdude]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pQvyo3o5kc for an example. :)

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[ColeonyxOnline]

Wheaton has a pretty active blog in the link below:
WWdN: In Exile
He posts a lot about role-playing games and has become a spokesman for the hobby.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[SmallFurryCreature]

Yes, La Forge. Not Uhura.

Jeordi is not african, he is a westerner with black skin. Big difference. Perhaps as I said a sign of moving on, that being black no longer means you have to pretend to be straight from darkest africa and discover your roots... but the fact remains, TOS had the first black/white kiss. TNG had none of that.

And Jeordi on developed later on. Watch the first season again if you can stand it.

You wish you could work for Picard... indeed. You would serve under Kirk, that is because he is a captain, not a manager.

But as said, different fans, different tastes. I know a girl who likes Picard too. One sick puppy. Everyone knows Kirk gets all the girls.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Raziel-chan]

Voyager went back into space but dumped all sense of ethics at the spaceport. Kirk would never have stood for it. Janeway did anything to get home, including mass genocide. Star Trek, how far can you fall

Yes, and this is why even in the first (second, if you treat the two-parter that began the series as two episodes) episode Janeway chose to destroy their currently only way back home instead of letting it fall into the local warring and cruel race that'd use it to conquer other planets and enslave their inhabitants. possibly leaving to things like mass genocide you mentioned. And all the other occasions where she refused to compromise her values and use methods of getting closer to home that'd endanger other species and civilizations, like with that other stranded ship that exploited energy-creating beings for that. All because she'd do anything to get back home and had no morals, it's so simple!

Wait.

cya
Raziel-chan

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Hamsterdan]

"They should've never made Voyager or Enterprise - they should've made a Klingon series."

-Agree, But I would have *LOVED* to see more Romulans (or even a series about them)

The design of those massive D'deridex Warbirds was just too awesome (much better then the ones from Genesis)

As for B5 vs. DS9, the similarities between both series are just too striking to be a *coincidence*

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[mrchaotica]

'sides, I challenge anyone to name a more awesome character than Garreck. YOU CAN'T, SUCKERS. IN YOUR FACE.

First, it's Garak, not "Garreck."

Second, Sisko is more awesome. Garak was a tailor; Sisko beat Q in a fistfight!

[Q, surprised at being knocked down] "You hit me! Picard never hit me!"

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[mrchaotica]

Data too was not a commander.

Data was third officer (just behind Riker) and ran the bridge during the night shift. They just didn't show him in command on-camera much.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Anonymous Coward]

He's also done a lot of work on The Guild with Felicia Day.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[zeroshade]

Data too was not a commander

I'm fairly certain that "Commander Data" (which is his title) was a commander....as his title implies.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Grishnakh]

Good point, I forgot he was promoted to that later on. Still, even with the "Commander" rank, we never really saw him doing much commanding. It was always Picard and Riker. Data usually got relegated to watching the bridge during the night shift when nothing happened, and any time there was some action, Picard or Riker took over.

Re:It depends on what you want from your TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Racism, hunger, war. These things had been overcome and now we could get on with the fun stuff. Exploring new worlds.

Not to shatter the 'fun' this topic implies, but what world are you posting from?? Or, given the tense you're using, 'when' are you posting from?

Missing One

[FrootLoops]

Starting in July, every episode from every Star Trek series will be available for Instant Watch over Netflix [...] the original Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise

*Ahem*, what happened to The Animated Series? It's almost entirely awful and is more or less non-canon, but it's still a Star Trek series.

(The article does go on to say "all five live-action Star Trek series", but the bit I quoted and the title are not technically accurate. Of course I have to point out such an inaccuracy, given the topic.)

Re:Missing One

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately, they are on the much better download service eMule. Who cares about this if all I want is already on p2p networks for a long time?

Re:Missing One

[mike.mondy]

*Ahem*, what happened to The Animated Series? It's almost entirely awful and is more or less non-canon, but it's still a Star Trek series.

Awful and non-canon? Admittedly, I was a kid at the time, but I recall that the stories were pretty good. I don't recall the visual quality though. Wikipedia mentions an Emmy, critical acclaim, a couple of stories by David Gerrold, the use of a lot of the original writers, and the use of the original "series bible". I'd guess about as awful and non-canon as ST:TOS (discrepancies in the original can't be canon).

Re:Missing One

[FrootLoops]

I had watched TAS a year or so ago. There were two episodes I liked, but most of them I had a hard time sitting through. I remember being repeatedly glad that they were only ~22 minutes, and that there were only a couple dozen or so of them. The Wikipedia article is much kinder than I expected. It was also a children's show, so watching it as an adult is kind of unfair. Maybe if I had watched it years ago I wouldn't have disliked it so much. The animation was often cheap, the plots didn't fit very well into the short running time, and they were often silly (even for Star Trek). The child me wouldn't have noticed any of this, though.

For the record, I like TOS, and every other Star Trek series besides TAS. I really only watched TAS for completion, seeing as I had seen every other episode of every other series.

Oh quityerbitchen'

[Sycraft-fu]

Seriously, not every story on Slashdot, or on any site, needs to concern the entire world. In particular Slashdot is a US site and the US has a significant Internet using audience, so US related stories are of interest.

It in no way harms you to have some US news on the site. Indeed if it bothered you that much, I wouldn't think you'd come here. Slashdot has many US centric or US only stories.

Personally I think you are just being bitter because Netflix is a toy you can't have. Here's a hint: This is not Slashdot's fault, and not even Netflix's. It is the fault of your law makers and the media industry. Netflix would love to expand everywhere as that is just more money for them. They have expanded to Canada recently, but it is still problematic. They wanted to expand to the UK in 2004, but all the red tape stopped that.

If you want Netflix, let your politicians know that they need to stop with allowing the media companies so much control over distribution.

However don't cry that the US has it.

Movies?

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I can tell, only the most recent reboot is available for streaming. All the others aren't available yet.

Bring it to Europe already!

[Elbart]

I don't want to realm the shadowlands of the intertubes to get a Trek-fix when I want it, theoretically, ahem. Let me pay for this legal service. Please!

Remastered TOS

[lyinhart]

I'm guessing they'll only stream the remastered version of the Original Series, which is too bad. Some of the redone visual effects look sorely out of place.

Instant watch? In which world?

[SLOAero]

The summary: Right now Star Trek TOS is available for Instant Watch, and the movies, but that's all. Uhm, maybe you live in some sort of amazing world where Star Trek TOS (and the other series) wasn't taken off instant play months ago - in which case that is totally awesome. But where I am there aren't any episodes to watch right now. None. I wish that wasn't the case and I'm very, very happy that the various episodes/seasons/series of Star Trek will be available in the near future, but to say there are any available right now is a bit of a lie. Unless you're mixing TPB with Netlifx.

All Star - Trek TV ... whats Trek TV?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know what All Star means, but I never heard of Trek TV, is that some special tv station?

really says who?

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL
A) you need a online computer
B) you need to pay
C) READ A HARDCORE. With internet pricing in canada or the usa its too pricey with the isp gouging ...

SO once i dl i never have to pay , never have to be online cane put to any device i want and enjoy.
YA streaming now is for morons. YOUR AN ABSOLUTE MORON IF YOU STREAM.

Re:really says who?

[tepples]

Anonymous Coward wrote:

A) you need a online computer

You need one to download too.

B) you need to pay

$150,000 per work whose copyright was infringed.

C) READ A HARDCORE

What does this mean? Is this some image board meme? Google isn't helping.

With internet pricing in canada or the usa its too pricey with the isp gouging

The ISP will gouge whether you stream or download.

Re:really says who?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

A) you need a online computer

Der.

B) you need to pay

Derrrrr. Neither of these points are seperate for downloading.

C) READ A HARDCORE. With internet pricing in canada or the usa its too pricey with the isp gouging ...

I'm in the USA and, sorry, working just fine over here.

YOUR AN ABSOLUTE MORON IF YOU STREAM.

I have on-demand access to a library that's getting larger and larger. My tv plays it just fine, again on-demand. I see something new, I hit 'play', seconds later I'm watching it. My phone and tablet can also hit it no problem. I can even call up stuff at work, which for me comes in handy from time to time. I don't need to maintain a massive collection of files and go biting my nails about backups or drives failing. Oh, yeah, it's also fully legit.

I don't recommend calling people morons about topics you demonstratively don't understand.

Not worthy

[sproketboy]

If you don't already have all the box sets, figurines and toy communicators then you're not worthy to be on slashdot.

TOS is not available online now

[LordNimon]

Am I missing something? When I go to netflix.com, it says that the TOS is not available for instant streaming.

Re:TOS is not available online now

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I missing something? When I go to netflix.com, it says that the TOS is not available for instant streaming.

Yes you are... The content will not be available on Netflix until July.

Re:TOS is not available online now

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the article said that TOS was available NOW. Please RTFA.

Time to look up that ONE episode....

[mblase]

There was one episode of ST:TNG from season 1 that I never, ever got to see the beginning of. No matter how many times it popped up in syndication and reruns, I always tuned in just after the title sequence.

I'm not sure how, but I believe this is related to the phenomenon where, when there's a popular syndicated show you almost never watch, on the rare occasions that you do tune in you always see the same episode.

READ IT

[Anonymous Coward]

says TOS - the original series and its cause in many places of the world its about to fall out of copyright

Good! Add TNG and the X-Files...

[RevWaldo]

and maybe BBC America will stop showing them and have room to start showing, oh, I don't know, BRITISH programming!?

.

Finally!

[rainmayun]

I've worn out watching DVR'd reruns of ST:TNG and I've been annoyed that DS9 hasn't been on streaming or syndicated re-air or anything other than a DVD somewhere. I'm looking forward to seeing that series again.

netflix on linux works fine with a few shims

[Anonymous Coward]

The shims being: Internet Explorer in Windows XP running fullscreen on a VirtualBox VM on Debian Squeeze (64 bit).

Re:netflix on linux works fine with a few shims

[tepples]

So then how does one come by a lawful, affordable copy of Windows XP to transform a Linux box into a Netflix device?

Netflix: The Wasteland

[camperdave]

From Netflix Canada:
'Star Trek' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: First Contact' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Nemesis' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Generations' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Insurrection' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Evolutions' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Voyager: Season 5' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Voyager: Season 1' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Voyager: Season 2' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Voyager: Season 3' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Voyager: Season 4' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Voyager: Season 6' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 1' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 3' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Season 1' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: The Animated Series: The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Voyager: Season 7' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 2' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 4' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Season 2' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Season 3' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek III: The Search for Spock' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek V: The Final Frontier' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season 1' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season 2' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season 4' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season 6' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Season 1' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season 3' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season 5' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season 7' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Season 3' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Season 2' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Season 4' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Season 5' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Season 6' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.
'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Season 7' is not available but you might enjoy these titles.

In short Netflix has nothing. No Star Trek for Canada. I'll spend my money on bandwidth and hard drive space.

Oh, and their sorting sucks too.

No, I loved Enterprise

[unassimilatible]

I honestly don't understand the nerd hate on Enterprise. Sometimes I just think it's nerds being nerds, i.e., opposition to the T'Pol hotness. Picture Conan O'Brien doing his nerd voice, shaking his fingers, "Ohhh, must not have nudity on Star Trek, violates the canon!"

I loved Enterprise, except for the ending, and was sorry it was cancelled.

Re:No, I loved Enterprise

[trparky]

Oh God, the ending of that show. I remember watching that and as it cut from the signing scene, my jaw just dropped and then I went on with a string of swear words as I cursed the producers to hell.

Re:No, I loved Enterprise

[quacking duck]

Enterprise was the worst, followed by Voyager. It's not nerds not liking hot women--there was no objection to Troi in TNG, or Dax in DS9, or at least that wasn't the reason people gave if they disliked those shows.

As a so-called prequel, Enterprise took the most tired and overdone element of Star Trek, time travel, and made it part of its very DNA with the "temporal cold war". The idea that the original Star Trek universe of TOS, TNG, DS9 and even Voyager was the result of meddling in the 22nd century by aliens in the far future, was ridiculous. Though to be fair, story-wise we started down that slippery slope in Star Trek: First Contact.

The producers also deliberately kicked at continuity just for the sake of it, like bringing in the Ferengi, then contriving a reason why they weren't heard from again until TNG's time. T'Pol as first officer on a Starfleet vessel. The Borg (though here, ST: First Contact can be blamed again).

I could go on, but no point beating a dead horse.

Re:No, I loved Enterprise

[notsoanonymouscoward]

Read the books that follow if you haven't. They figured out how to pull that fail from the fire and move on.

Agree, Garak was awesome

[unassimilatible]

I'd been thinking of re-watching DS9, which I had never watched in first-run, just on DVD years after cancellation. The finale was lame, like on Enterprise though.

Excellent, maybe I'll buy NetFlix now!

[multipartmixed]

I got busy during ST:DS9, right at the height of the war with the Dominion.

I keep meaning to catch up via BitTorrent, but I've ah, procrastinated a bit.

Netflix Sucks Because The Content Owners Suck

[Bald_Earthling]

That's too bad for me, as I just cancelled my subscription last night. Having rented Inception on DVD, the wife and I sat down for our Friday Pizza-and-a-Movie ritual. As is common, the actual movie was prefaced by previews...plus advertisings for movie-related computer games...plus other horn-blowing movie preservation spew. I lost count after six, but what really blew my fuse was that NONE of these adverts could be skipped, NOR could I access the Top or Main navigational menus. By the time the movie could finally be started, I had finishing my meal which was thoroughly poisoned by the force-feeding of Warner Brothers (a subsidiary of Time Warner) promotional material. When I pay (or rent) content, I expect quick gratification...especially when the technology was designed for such. Quick Movie Review of Inception: The beginning made no sense for nearly 30 minutes, with too little information being revealed about the plot. The characters were shallow. Leonardo's performance was forced and fell flat. The SFX were good, but overplayed. Overall, I felt that this movie was an exercise in recycling The Matrix(es) mind-fsck and bullet-time memes. The musical score had its moments...and moments...and way too many moments, to the point of being so overbearing as to detract from the scenes being presented. I feel generous in giving it one Star. I will be making a conscious effort to avoid Warner Brothers (a subsidiary of Time Warner lest you forget) content. Sorry Netflix, you lost a customer too.

Re:Netflix Sucks Because The Content Owners Suck

[Junta]

Considering this is about Netflix *streaming* which doesn't currently act like that, a rant on the state of DVDs (rented or not, they do the same crap if your dvd player actually honors the 'no skip' requests in the media, which some don't) is a bit off topic.

Re:Netflix Sucks Because The Content Owners Suck

[Bald_Earthling]

True, and I shold have concluded my rant with this point: Just wait, and soon the streaming content will be imbedded with advertising. "Big Content" cannot stand to have any pipeline without such pollution, even when subscriber-paid.

Not caring about level of interest in watching

[tepples]

Anonymous Coward wrote:

You presume it's not legal content on his NAS. Perhaps he purchased the DVDs and ripped them (in a jurisdiction where ripping is allowed).

How do you recommend coming by the money to move to such a jurisdiction, and then moving again once the United States pressures that jurisdiction to change its copyright law in U.S. movie studios' favor?

Wouldn't seeder/leecher / download statistics also correlate to the level of interest people have in Star Trek?

Those who finance Star Trek don't give two craps about the level of interest in watching Star Trek or any other TV series. They care about the level of interest in buying a series, whether the buyer is a TV channel buying a syndication package, a video on demand provider such as Netflix or a cable TV system, or a member of the audience buying DVDs.

Unless fans really want Star Trek to pull a classic comic book move and spawn a zillion different 'universes'

As I understand it, there are only two Trek universes: the universe of Star Trek (2009), and the universe of TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, and all prior movies.

It's also not exactly a cash cow - and a good chunk of it is going to Netflix [...] So if you -really- wanted to support the producers, you'd buyt the DVDs.

But how much of the price of the DVDs do Amazon, the post office, and the licensors of the DVD format keep?

Netflix- No streaming here

[rogerdugans]

In the US.

Of course I use an OPERATING system instead of a Steve Jobs System or Malware System.
No MacOS or Windows here.

Because Netflix can't manage to pull their heads out and have a client for a secure, modern OS that JUST WORKS on my hardware and provides the applications I need, I am not able to take advantage of the streaming video even though I both live in the US and subscribe to the service.

I don't consider that a huge problem in reality as I am not a fan of streaming media from the internet anyway. Local storage is far superior and allows me to watch without ads, buffer glitches or worries about internet congestion issues.

As for the geek opinions of all the Star Trek series-
There can be only One.

Re:Netflix- No streaming here

[517714]

It amazes me that you, and an amazingly large number of Linux users, see an obvious shortcoming of Linux as a problem with Netflix, and other content providers. The pattern seems to be beating ones chest for being a Linux user, a criticism of other OS', a justification of piracy, advocation of local storage, a criticism of streaming in general, and a veiled attack on ISPs. I have one word for you: DENIAL.

If you were a Netflix executive reading the comments by Linux users here, would you not conclude that there is no reason to support Linux? You stated clearly that Netflix could not provide you with adequate service for four distinct reasons. Similar patterns exist in other areas where Linux is not supported and you guys wonder why.

Networks take note.

[yodleboy]

So i notice in the article that this is a deal between CBS and Netflix. I might actually try some CBS shows in gratitude. You do nice things for your audience and they might do nice things for you. imagine that.

Want to change it? Go to Congress

[tepples]

why should I have any moral obligation to pay them again to watch the same episodes just in a different format?

Because you don't believe strongly enough in a rollback of abuses of copyright law to deny yourself, pick up your Pirate flag, and run for the House in your congressional district. (I don't blame you; neither do I, at least not yet.)

watch in chronological order

[Crock23A]

Is there a list somewhere that shows an order of episodes based on star-date chronology? There was a lot of overlapping between TNG, DS9 and VOY.

Re:watch in chronological order

[Anonymous Coward]

I go to Memory Alpha and watch episodes in release order, which is roughly the same.

Wake me when there's Linux support

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawn.... Wake me when there's Linux support.

What about Netflix Canada?

[Meshuggah24]

I'm having my doubts that this includes Netflix Canada.

Re:What about Netflix Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

The deal is only available to USA customers at this time

What were you thinking???

TOS is NOT available now

[Anonymous Coward]

just checked - was wondering how I missed it - you can get the disks, but not stream it (as of now)

though I imagine everyone interested checked netflix before reading the rest of the posts, so this is kind of redundant

Never thought Paramount would let money go

[Anonymous Coward]

Have they finally made enough from gouging fans with $90+ season sets? (and thank you so much, Netflix, on THAT front..)

"Pwufessuh HaiwyPheet's GREATEST HITS" (NOT!)

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject-line above, & these "prime examples" below via links to the originals of WHY hairyfeet shouldn't have gone to "ITT Tech", in his TECHNICAL BLUNDERS, & more (regarding HOSTS files):

---

Static vs. Dynamic Adbanner addressing (lol, "according to hairyfeet"):

(Which even BestBuy Techs know!)

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2061048&cid=35681060

---

DNS Client Cache turn off for HOSTS, a TECHNICAL Blunder by Hairyfeet:

(Which even BestBuy Techs know also (just like the one above!))

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2061048&cid=35686054

---

Hairyfeet's single solutions SECURITY FAILURES? See inside:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2064694&cid=35690260

---

Your sources on "security" vs. mine (actual security people) (AND myself, a source on it):

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2064694&cid=35690328

---

Lastly, as to your LIBEL of myself (w/ arstech):

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2061048&cid=35668740

---

The defeat of hairyfeet by APK (video analogy - hilarious, BUT, apt):

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2064694&cid=35690536

---

They say it all, & usually vs. hairyfeet's own words quoted! I wouldn't pay him too much heed, especially after you read the above b.s., lies, changing figures, & even LIBEL of others that hairyfeet likes to do. After all - he's from "ITT Tech" (student)...

Worst part of ALL, here?

Hairyfeet just clearly doesn't even understand how HOSTS files benefit you for:

---

1.) ADDED Reliability (vs. DNS going down, or being 'poisoned', & even DNSBL (DNS Block Lists))

2.) ADDED "layered" Security online (vs. known bad sites &/or servers (botnet C&C) + maliciously scripted adbannners by BLOCKING them out)

3.) ADDED Speed (not loading adbanners, and hardcoding your fav. sites into it)

4.) Even more ADDED 'anonymity' online (vs. DNS request logs)

(Even server admins might NOT mind having the load on their DNS servers lightened up also, bonus!)

---

APK

P.S.=> Personally though - because hairyfeet is only a "techie"? I suspect he doesn't want people to know about HOSTS files' added LAYERED SECURITY benefits to the end-user: Why?? Because if users stop getting so much "malware-in-general" which layered security (and HOSTS) give you added layered protection against, he's out money...apk

I for one

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one once again welcome our Klingon zapping overlords! May the force be... oh wait. Um. Er. Keep on trekkin'. To boldly go where millions have gone before.

100 Tacos

[Ryanrule]

Yes, this should be adequate sustenance for the Star Trek Marathon.

Good news everyone!

[AnonymmousCoward]

Oh wait...wrong series

Instant watch

[Anonymous Coward]

Is not available on any of the ST shows or films currently at Netflix. The article was incorrect. Nothing is available until July. Don't people actually edit what they write anymore?

Hear, Hear!

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't have said it better myself. Netflix is, by far, the best experience I've ever had for consuming the kind of entertainment I like. Give me more TPB!

You know what I find sad?

[hairyfeet]

Your product is a complete and total failure, except in those areas a corporation can fuck you hard (and then you thank them for the surprise buttsex) thanks to the TiVo trick, ala damned near every router and other CCC (Cheapo Chinese Crap) and you are so far behind you actually reach 1% and cheer (and it only took 18 years! Wow!).

Meanwhile consumers run away from your product as fast as they can, and tell you in giant letters DO NOT WANT even on products designed around your strengths, and retailers look at you like the black death thanks to all the returns and broken drivers, oh and your great leader says the kernel isn't designed, it grows like a virus LOL! (Yeah Linus, it would be called an STD) and you know what is amazing and sad?

NEVER, not fucking ONCE, does it enter your tiny little mind to even ask the most basic of econ 101 questions, such as "What is my competitors doing right that I'm doing wrong?" Nope, because that would mean admitting your shit sandwich OF FREEDOM was a festering turd, which BTW? It is. Instead you scream shill or astroturfer, which is your version of nigger or spic, for anyone who doesn't suck down the kool aid and wash it down with a heaping dose of RMS cock slobber.

And the part you'll NEVER believe, because it would shatter your tiny little worldview, hiding in your mom's basement eating your Cheetos and thinking if it wasn't for that evil M$ army the world would embrace your precious shit sandwich like the force you love so much? Well guess what sparky, I'm not a shill NOR an astroturfer, I'm in fact a retailer. You know, that group that you constantly whine would carry your shit sandwiches on their shelves? yeah that bunch. And you know WHY we won't carry your rotting bag o' fail? It isn't a conspiracy BTW, it is because we tried your product and we know your lies are just that, LIES.

I tried for nearly FOUR YEARS to find ONE DSITRO, just one mind you, that wouldn't fall apart like a house of old cards when a fat guy farts, just one that would continue to run consistently after updating. Just one mind you? How many did I find? ZERO.Zilch nada squat bumpkiss. Your driver model is a drawing of a pile of shit with "do it yourself LOL!" written underneath, your idea of having software tied to the kernel is frankly laughable if it wasn't so pathetic, your package managers are just band aids on bullet wounds trying to cover up the dependency hell that hangs over everything you do like the Sword of Damocles, shall I go on? Your lack of a stable ABI, which BTW Apple, MSFT, BSD, Solaris, hell even OS fricking 2 has had for like a decade now, means that shopping for devices that will actually work is a game of "hardware roulette" that is more rigged against the consumer than anything in Vegas...

Hell I could do this all day, but why bother. It is like pushing a retard into traffic. Sure it is easy because they are so fucking stupid, but not much in the way of entertainment value, not when I have dozens of top notch AAA games I could be playing, or Netflix, or WMC, or hell washing my socks would be more entertaining than dealing with a FOSSie. BTW do us both a favor before you open your cake hole and check on Linux TM Repo before you chime in, as the horseshit you and the other FOSSies spew has been done so damned many times TM repo actually has all your bullet points down as TMs. Hell I bet whatever you come back with I can match one for one with TMs, such as WorksFo

Re:You know what I find sad?

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? I always thought APK was the weird one by following you around. I guess loons attract loons.

Re:You know what I find sad?

[clang_jangle]

Thanks for confirming your troll cred.

Re:You know what I find sad?

[rainmouse]

Nope, because that would mean admitting your shit sandwich OF FREEDOM was a festering turd, which BTW? It is.

Turd in a sandwich? If I may suggest, perhaps a baguette may be more suitable.

Re:You know what I find sad?

[Beelzebud]

Get back on your meds.

ST:TOS

[PortHaven]

Not here in U.S. either. It was about a year ago but was pulled.

Love Star Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

This is fabulous news! I have watched Star Trek since the 70s and there's still lessons to be learned from it

Thanks for confirming you're a FOSSie

[hairyfeet]

Which like a Moonie or the useful idiots of old go "la la la" while putting blinders on to the broken shit around you. Did you even read a single link? No because that would shatter your little worldview that it is a M$ conspiracy and not the fact YOUR SHIT IS BROKEN that is keeping the masses avoiding your product like a free STD.

Hell I could post about 14 pages of "update foo broke my drivers" from your very own forums, page after page of bugs that have been there for years, but why bother? Like any other zealot if your leaders teabagged your ass you'd thank them for the gentle caress!

You know what the sad part is? It is the fact that you could fix it if you'd only take your lips off RMS and Linus's asses long enough that is. The ONLY reason Linus is able to get away with his Amateur hour bullshit is so many line up to kiss his ass. The ONLY reason why developers are able to put out one broken version after another instead of actually fixing the damned bugs is the way the users go fawning all over them, squeeing like little girls.

But go ahead, call everyone that doesn't suck down the shit sandwich OF FREEDOM your version of nigger spic or kike, ala troll shill or astroturfer but you know what? Your little twisted broken dreams are NEVER coming true and you simply can't face reality or the facts.

FACT..Every retailer that has tried to sell your product found it to be a broken mess, with high returns thanks to updates breaking drivers, which frankly is Win3.x era amateur hour shit. Updates should NEVER break working drivers and the fact you accept it just shows what a Mickey Mouse OS it is. FACT..Even Dell, one of the largest PC retailers ON THE PLANET, can't get enough decent QA from your precious developers to allow their Ubuntu offerings to update, so they have to DISABLE UPDATES and run their own out of date repos. What happens when they run updates from the default repos? Why it breaks sound and networking LOL!

So don't get mad when the developers give you a Cleavland Steamer for an OS, tell them it is manna from heaven. Don't get mad when you can't even run fricking updates without the whole thing falling apart like DOS, tell them LinuxMakesYouSmart(TM), ignore the fact that NOBODY sells your OS at retail, you can say it TheX86Conspiracy(TM) and then claim you're "winning" (Hell crazy Charlie is more of a winner than Linux) because LinuxRunsOnAnything(TM). Meanwhile don't be surprised if it takes you ANOTHER 18 years to reach 2%, if you ever do. Oh and be sure to thank Google for the surprise buttsex when they TiVo trick Android. At least somebody is messing with you, right?

Why does Linux survive @ all, by APK... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm actually inclined to agree with you for once (can you stand it?)... & I'll tell you why Linux survives @ all - it's a FREEBIE (up front no money down, but the troubles come later...). It's a decent enough server though, I'll give it that, & not "horrible" as a desktop OS... but, it's NO WINDOWS, by many a longshot.

That is why it makes ANY headway @ all - money, talks (as I am sure you realize having lived this life yourself (& the "infamous they" say "talk's cheap"? NOT when money's doing the talking, in other words)). Free's pretty appealing to say, young startup companies, for instance, especially.

However, given that it's free up front? Well, it should have kicked the snot out of Windows at both the server, and yes, desktop level because of being free, & around a decade ago imo, it should have, & yet? It hasn't... Which is a statement in & of itself, if you think about it:

I.E-> A freebie that cannot beat a payware...? Hey - that can only mean that there IS something about the freebie that is JUST NOT THAT GOOD, vs. the payware, is what it truly really comes down to then, because people are usually always about "saving a buck"...

APK

P.S.=> In any event? I'm again, going to take "the high road" here, and extend the olive branch man... no more trolling one another, deal? apk

Re:Why does Linux survive @ all, by APK... apk

[hairyfeet]

I can't believe it, the world must be ending as we actually agree on something. you'll see that I changed my sig, fair is fair. What pisses me off about the FOSSies is they act like nobody has ever tried the damned thing, and any and ALL problems are just bullshit! Do you have ANY idea how many times I bashed my head on a table because some nice off lease office machine I got set up with PCLOS or Ubuntu ran fine until the first update, which then promptly shit itself and wiped out more than half the drivers? No warning, no heads up, just BAM! I ended up taking a bath on all the machines I had to accept returns on, which by state law have to be sold as used.

As for the DNS thing, while I don't think HOSTS is the way to go the basic idea is sound, just not IMHO optimal for what you are trying to do. Have you thought about running your own recursive DNS? It would give you all the advantages of blacklists without the overhead and still give YOU full control. I use Treewalk to connect directly to the ARIN nameservers. It cuts the DNS time by a good 60%, lets you load any blacklists or whitelists, and because it is its own recursive nameserver you don't have to scan the entire list like HOSTS to get to an IP address. It also uses less than 1Mb of RAM and can be easily set up to feed your entire network, even remotely if you choose in case you are in the field.

So never let it be said I can't live and let live, or find ways to adapt differing viewpoints. besides anybody that can see if something free can't beat something that costs $100+ there is a serious problem with the free product, instead of hanging onto dogma and zealotry at least isn't blind like so many that lurk here.

I'd Put My List Ahead of Your List

[gadlaw]

Why does anyone want to put 'their' list of favorite Star Trek shows up? I either think you're a genius and as brilliant as me if you have the same likes and dislikes or I know you're a moron who has no clue as to the difference between good and bad television but either way you've watched too much reality TV where some idiot is thinking their opinion on anything from your dancing or your cooking, looks, makeup, or cake means anything other than to identify them as pretentious d bag and you as well.

Was excited to try out netflix...

[caseih]

Only after signing up did I find out it doesn't even support Linux (Hulu does and they are free). Silverlight? Are they serious? I hate flash as much as the next guy, but at least it runs on Linux. Why is this even on slashdot if it can't even be accessed from Linux anyway? I'll be canceling my account tomorrow (too late tonight now), fortunately it was in the trial phase.

Good on "fair's fair" & on HOSTS plus DNS etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I can't believe it, the world must be ending as we actually agree on something." - by hairyfeet (841228) on Sunday April 10, @01:07AM (#35772080)

Believe it. I am not against Linux, in fact, I quite like it (even for a desktop)...

However, what I do NOT like is the "ravenous zealotry" & outright F.U.D I see from some of the "penguins", because b.s. IS b.s. ...

E.G.-> This past month, I put up some posts on Linux 2.6x KERNEL ALONE showing 19 known security vulnerabilities (1 remote too) & that # goes "up, Up, UP & AWAY" when you toss on the known security issues in the other parts of Linux too as well, mind you... that's currently - this week & month, AND vs. the ENTIRETY of Windows 7 (which is NOT just the kernel alone) showing 6 known security vulnerabilities!

Yes, & of course, like clockwork, the "Pro-*NIX crew" around here went ape shit on me... documented facts from reputable source (SECUNIA.COM), or not.

(Imo @ least? That's wrong... way, Way, WAY, wrong!)

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"you'll see that I changed my sig, fair is fair." - by hairyfeet (841228) on Sunday April 10, @01:07AM (#35772080)

I don't see "sigs" here. I turn off OR filter out whatever it is that "serves them up" (or, something... not sure, but I do NOT see them in Opera, with most EVERYTHING "turned off" (e.g.-> Cookies, Javascript, + plugins, etc. & plus my use of .PAC (proxy auto configl) files + custom CSS sheets for added filtering/protection (vs. webbugs & such on the latter)))

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"What pisses me off about the FOSSies is they act like nobody has ever tried the damned thing" - by hairyfeet (841228) on Sunday April 10, @01:07AM (#35772080)

That does happen. Sometimes they're right... with the "general populace" mostly imo, but not about "the technically inclined"... it's their/our JOB to try it all & be aware of "what's-what" (if only for your own professional best interests, not merely curiousity)!

I also sometimes then find they don't know much about Windows too though, for all their critiques + comparisons, & especially current editions (they haven't used it regulary for example also, since Windows 2000 (which I always felt was pretty damned good & only got better with each successive descendant, gradually)).

That's where some of them "lose it", they're comparing older editions of Windows sometimes, vs. the "best & brightest" of Linux.

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"and any and ALL problems are just bullshit! " - by hairyfeet (841228) on Sunday April 10, @01:07AM (#35772080)

LOL - the ole' "deny, Deny, DENY" policy of customer service!

And, you're right - That's NOT true about Linux, it does get issues, even on UPDATES!

E.G.-> I had Linux (KUbuntu 10.10x) run GREAT for me, for 7 months ++ recently (ran it in Europe all last summer travelling (Czechoslovakia, Poland, Parts of USSR, & etc./et al in communist eastern european block mostly)) & I liked it, it really HAD improved, & especially on the desktop... I have to give it that (I like KDE).

However, when I upated it the very last time, out of its package manager (gui built in one), KDE 4.5 on update blew my desktop, & startx wouldn't "kick it in" again... yes, I have seen 2-3 Microsoft "down-dates" before since 1992 or thereabouts on Windows NT-based OS, but I don't recall any "blowing my desktop" either... not so I couldn't get it back @ least!

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"Do you have ANY idea how many times I bashed my head on a table because some nice off lease office machine I got set up with PCLOS or Ubuntu ran fine until the first update, which then promptly shit itself and wiped out more than half the drivers? No warning, no heads up, just BAM! I ended up taking a bath on all the machines I had to accept returns on, which by state law have to be sold as used." - by

I think they picked the wrong series.

[Vrtigo1]

Not to take anything away from them, because this is clearly a very cool development, but I have to wonder if they wouldn't have been better served by making a different series available, say...one who's fanbase isn't well versed in BitTorrent.

Now I can play catch up

[helix2301]

I never really got on the Star Trek kick until after the new movie. This is great for me now I can catch up on all the episodes. I been watching the episodes on sci-fi network when I can but now I can watch them in order and understand more of whats happening. From what I been told DS9 has to be watched in order.