What Does CBS All Access Have to Offer Besides Star Trek?

How does "On Demand" actually work as a service?

 

Seemingly The Good Wife is getting a spin-off on All Access starring Christine Baranski.
Also Variety suggested the other day that it would not be surprising if a new version/spin-off of CSI appeared on it at some point.

 

Shows are placed on a server with a release date and time. After that date and time, it will browse on your streaming device. When it appears, it can be selected to play any time you want. There is no "air" date or time - just a release.

 

So you can't buy and keep them?

 

It's CBS's version of Netflix. As long as you pay for the subscription, you get access to the content. They are offering a backlog of episodes of CBS shows as well as airing new episodes of primetime shows on the next day

 

Ah OK..........

I was thinking along the lines of a service where you download the show to your hard drive and can keep it and buy your programs that way, and keep your own catalogues of stuff.

 

https://www.myuv.com/ (UltraViolet) does that. You can redeem your digital copy codes there. We'll see if CBS is forward-thinking enough to offer the series on optical media with digital copies.

 

It would be cheaper to skip the optical media and offer them as direct downloads that you can keep.

 

Not really, but I am interested in how you believe it is cheaper. It is easier to maintain optical than magnetic when accounting for data migration as devices fail or are replaced. Optical doesn't eat up hard drive space. Storage costs money - it's not free. Optical does decay over time, but magnetic does too - more quickly - and there's greater risk of catastrophic loss of ALL downloads when they sit on one device. If the cloud is your solution, you are still slave to the service. The company can go out of business and their servers with your data can disappear. Optical is still my choice because it is cheaper, I physically own the media, and it is more secure in the long run.

 

I just thought that by converting shows or movies to one file you can download and save to watch any time it would not need an optical disk but if it's one file of a reasonable size to it wouldn't need that much hard drive space either.

I am surprised we still used mechanical media for movies like blu ray or DVD. and why no one ever considered solid state cartridges for movies. Has that ever been tried?

 

NBC will be making their own app like CBS All Access later this year.
Maybe CBSAA will have a little competition to do more now before January.

NBC to Unveil OTT Product ‘Soon’
http://www.cablefax.com/programming/nbc-to-unveil-ott-product-soon

 

Why do they call it "over the top"/OTT?

 

Yeah, all the major CBS shows are pretty terrible. It makes me nervous about what they're going to do with Discovery.

Honestly I'll pay whatever they charge-- that's not an issue (for me at least). But it had better be really, really good.

 

http://digiday.com/platforms/what-is-over-the-top-ott/
or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-top_content

CBSAA has access directly to Star Trek fans and will have great metrics for watching episodes. How many times an episode is rewatched, what time of day, when stopped and picked back up. What day of the week? This may all contribute to future choice in day of the week and time of the primetime schedule that decisions are made for similar programming on their CBS-owned linear channels.

 

^Okay, that explains what "over the top" refers to, which I could've guessed from context, but my question was why that particular phrase is used to refer to online broadcasting. I'm asking about the etymology of the phrase, not its definition. What is "the top" in this metaphor, and why is streaming video "over" it? Neither of the linked articles explains that.

 

This won't completely satisfy you, but I have two entries after a brief search:

1. "Over-the-top - (OTT, Over-the-top Video, Over-the-Internet Video) - Over-the-top is a general term for service that you utilize over a network that is not offered by that network operator. It's often referred to as 'over-the-top' because these services ride on top of the service you already get and don't require any business or technology affiliations with your network operator. Sprint is an 'over-the-top' long distance service as they primarily offer long distance over other phone company's phone lines."
http://www.itvdictionary.com/definitions/over-the-top_definition.html

2. It's a sexual metaphor for the missionary position merger between the television and digital video industries. I'm guessing digital video is on top because it's TV that is submitting to the future of consumer desire.

 

To answer the topic's question, you also have some classic series that are on CBSAA. I've been able to call up episodes of the original Twilight Zone, Mission: Impossible and others, not to mention every Trek series is available via CBSAA. Since I only have TOS on DVD, it's great for me to be able to watch favorites from the other series.

Beyond that, I'm a fan of Elementary, so I've been able to watch that as much as I want when I want.

I originally subscribed because of Star Trek Discovery, but I find it more than worth the monthly fee for the other series that I love being available on there.

 

How much are you enjoying the commercials? Is there a tier without commercials yet?

 

Would you hold out until they have a free service with commercials (just like TV), and eliminate commercials for paid subscriptions with a flat rate instead of a tiered system?

 

Netflix, HuluPlus, and Amazon Prime were all at one time pretty lame. When Netflix's streaming service first began it had no original programming and its television content was at least one season behind. It wasn't until Netflix started with its original content that it really began to grow as a powerhouse. HuluPlus is unique in that it offers current programming, but unless you pay the additional $4 per month that has commercials you also cannot skip through. Amazon Prime offers a lot of unique streaming shows, but until very recently you had to pay for an entire year up front. Now you can pay for it monthly. I know that currently All Access, in addition to regular CBS programming, offers a wide variety of old shows that CBS has the rights to.

As for new content, the only other new show I've heard of is the spin-off for 'The Good Wife.' 'Supergirl' has been moved to the CW, where it should have been all along (considering the three other super hero shows in that universe are on CW). New programming for All Access will grow, just like Netflix and HuluPlus grew. It can't be expected that All Access will skip the growing pains the current streaming services experienced.