CBS Hosts Ad-Funded TV Series, Incl. Original Star Trek 276
eldavojohn writes "On Friday, CBS launched a TV Classics section to their ad based online service. Which means that Trekkies can now watch all three seasons of Star Trek: The Original Series online at the expense of a few commercials. Alongside this CBS is offering all of MacGyver, Twin Peaks and even three seasons of the original Twilight Zone. A side note, they seem to work perfectly fine in Linux. "
Outside the US? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Outside the US? (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it hard to believe that they don't have control over their own copyrights.
Star Trek should be required in schools. (Score:5, Interesting)
And by that, I mean, classic Trek. See, the current vogue is that every character has to have faults and be greedy and weak somehow... I mean, in the new Galactica everyone has more issues than a Windows Beta, and its like, it sucks. Men are all crying, cheating, pathetic, and I'm supposed to draw some moral lesson from these people? What a joke.
On the other hand, there's Captain Kirk, decorated, confident, successful. Now, he goes and tells me that there is a better way, that, I don't have to be a big jackass and we can solve social problems, learn about the world around us, and not be sissies about it, that's all good.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
I have been using Chrome + Privoxy for weeks and havent seen a single Hulu add. Recently I don't even have the 30 second delay, just a 1 second jump where the advertisement should be.
Try it out if you want to avoid the adds.
Gotta love TV networks (Score:5, Interesting)
It won't let me watch from Puerto Rico: "The video you have requested is unavailable. Please visit www.cbs.com for current videos."
You really gotta love these TV networks. Here we have a global network -- the modern wonder that is the Internet -- and the TV networks can't think of anything better to do than to impose the same old territorial divisions through entirely artificial means. Reaching a global audience used to be a technical challenge, but with the Internet there is no longer any need for that. I can't wait for the day when these "old fart" networks are displaced by their modern counterparts.
Then there's ESPN, that wants to impose the cable TV model upon ISPs...
I say again... I can't wait for the day.
Re:Outside the US? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, and that's exactly why Bittorrent is the mechanism of choice for many. What CBS is doing is the future, and it's a pretty good future, where Bittorent isn't needed -- once they figure out that they can solve so many problems by making shows available to the entire world.
Low ratings in the US? Not such a problem, if your show is available globally instantly. Plus, your ratings aren't based on a Neilsen sample, they are based on hard numbers from actual views. You can make more than 100 times the revenue from advertising to a global audience -- there's plenty of global companies (and I'm sure it's possible to have local ad partners providing local feeds by reading IP addresses). There is no reason whatsoever that CBS is not a Network that broadcasts to every English speaker in the World simultaneously.
Yes, there are rights and distribution issues with the current system that prevent that from happening. Which is why that system is outdated and must be changed. Just as the world no longer needs record companies, the world really no longer needs distributors.
Once the Networks eventually figure this -- very obvious -- fact out, then we will see not only real progress, but perhaps we might actually get to see complete seasons of the shows we love. Firefly, for example, would never have been canceled if it was distributed under this model.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Interesting)
Kaspersky's firewall automatically blocks the ads and instantly jumps back to the show as well. I haven't taken the time to investigate exactly how it does it, but I'm sure that any firewall could be configured to do the same.
FYI: Can't have any adblocking (Score:4, Interesting)
I tried to fire up one of the episodes in Opera, only to be met with the message that the video was unavailable because I had ad-blocking software installed. Thinking it was some browser detect issue, I tried FireFox. No joy. Google Chrome, no luck. I sighed and fired up IE thinking this was one of those IE-only sites... no such luck.
Then I remembered that I have a pretty comprehensive ad-blocking HOSTS file.
If they want to get around ad blocking via a hosts file, they just need to deliver their ads through the CBS domain. Don't require me to open up to other sites' content to view yours.
Re:indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it would mean more to the viewer if they realized that the original series was written with both the Vietnam War and Summer of Love in plain view. Among all the firsts that the original series created they also created true science fiction; they created stories that told of the issues of mankind in a setting that is in the future and beyond our technology. It was a brilliant series that addressed issues of the day that were addressed in no other way that was as illuminating or cogent. They truly deserve the accolades they have received since.
The stories they told were bold and still apply to today, having stood the test of time even if the technology portrayed leaves a bit of questioning to a modern viewer. As an atheist I truly appreciate how they handled religions. Faced with racism every day I truly appreciate how they handled racism, and have continued to handle it in other series.
If we as a society follow what we are shown on television, I truly hope that we can follow the examples set by the Star Trek series.
side note: I don't wear red shirts anymore ... just can't do it.
I'm tired of TV networks like this. (Score:5, Interesting)
Boo! Put it on Hulu so Canadians can watch it too!
I don't understand these networks. They don't seem to understand that the internet is a global community. With TV there's no guarantees that you're hitting the correct audience, so the desire to filter the audience(so that it is "correct") is understandable when the opportunity arises - but what they seem to forget is they lose out on evangelical advertising because of that filtering.
I'm Canadian, but I spammed all my American friends about Hulu, and now they all watch TV there. If a show isn't available on Hulu, then we'll look for it elsewhere. If we have to jump through hoops to watch it(AOL, ABC, CBS, BBC, etc. etc.), then we won't; we'll just torrent it.
I think they'd be best off streaming it with or without ads to other countries, just to capitalize off word-of-mouth advertising. Stuff that can be watched by anyone on the internet spreads rapidly - See: Dr. Horrible [sitepoint.com], Monty Python [slashdot.org]
Networks like this will never get my endorsement - but not because of me; it's because they block me.
Re:indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
TOS was campy and the special effects didn't quite match those of Enterprise, but it was the 60's! More importantly there was no Wesley or Riker!
Re:Gotta love TV networks (Score:2, Interesting)
What amazes me is that some ISP's according to ESPN have drank the cool-aid and are paying the extortion fee. I suppose it's good to try new revenue models, but I sure hope this doesn't catch on.
Reminds me a project I was working on years ago where we had a device that processed video signals thought a pc. Someone engineer brought up the issue of macrovision (or product stripped out macrovision as a side-effect). So someone (engineer) checked it out and found out that we would have to pay the macro-folks many $ to *not* strip the encoding. "Well that's a no-brainer, we're done!" all the engineers thought... until the lawyers got wind of it, paid the extortion fee, we made sure to implement macro-vision on the video out, and the product quickly flopped. I wonder if the ISP's lawyers are also somehow involved in this...
Re:I'm tired of TV networks like this. (Score:2, Interesting)
You don't seem to understand the internet is a global community either. Most of Hulu isn't available in 99% of the worlds countries.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly I'm kind of bummed that these work-arounds to sites like Hulu exist. Finally I have a means of watching TV where i don't feel like I am wasting too much of my life on commercials while those that make the shows that I enjoy are able to make some money. Now that we're seeing a move back towards a reasonable level of advertising for TV we've got people abusing the system to the ultimate determent of us all.
I like the fact that I can honestly watch these shows without watching 8 - 9 minutes of commercials for every 21 - 22 minutes of show. It's really disappointing to find out that there are those that are actively ruining this for the rest of us because they can't be bothered with 2 - 3 30 second advertisements so that those who make the TV we like can make a bit of money.
Re:cat and mouse (Score:3, Interesting)
My guess is that there's absolutely no margin for CBS in trying to block proxy users. The only reason they block is due to the demands of advertisers and/or foreign licensees - if a user works around that block CBS wins an ad view.
Another abuse of the WWW URL. (Score:1, Interesting)
This doesn't work in the here in the UK and I suspect doesn't work anywhere outside the USA.
Re:indeed (Score:2, Interesting)
Star Trek was the first television show to try and treat seriously science fiction as opposed to shows like Lost in Space [imdb.com] that were clearly space operas. I wasn't really aware of "Tom Corbert, Space Cadet" as a series as it was before my time (and most /. readers as well).
One thing that did work in favor of the Star Trek original series is that they had three seasons worth of material.... which was just barely enough to be worth putting the series into syndication during the 1970's as airtime filler for local television broadcasters. While most /. readers likely don't remember the original airings of these episodes, there certainly are many who remember when they were late night re-runs (still are in some markets).
BTW, of the "classic" science fiction programs that pre-dated Star Trek, my absolute favorite is X Minus One [wikipedia.org] that was broadcast on NBC radio during the 1950's. Scroll down to the bottom of the wiki page if you want to listen to them.... genuine classic hard science fiction that still hasn't been dealt with on television except for perhaps the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica or Firefly, and certainly surpasses the quality of Star Trek.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Interesting)
For me it's a mixed thing.
I want to support the site and would happily watch the ads. Ads are NOT why I rip Hulu video for later viewing.
Unfortunately, Adobe's Flash player is AWFUL and requires 2-3 times the CPU power of any other method to play back the same videos. My HDTV is fed by a somewhat older HTPC system that can happily play back most content I want to watch. This system can play back Hulu and CBS ripped FLV videos with 20-30% CPU usage at worst. The same videos played "legitimately" stutter with Hulu's player and are effectively a slideshow for CBS online videos.
Same content, different player. If they embedded the ads inside the main video stream I would not mind at all. They'd get the money for ads they want, I'd get video that played back on my living room PC. Right now with the sorry state of Adobe's flash video player, it's a choice of one or the other but not both.