CBS.com ups the HD streaming ante, offers 1080p HD gallery of full episodes and clips
By Richard Lawler 
posted May 14th 2009 1:24PM
posted May 14th 2009 1:24PM
[Via Video Business]
posted May 14th 2009 1:24PM
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I'd be happy if I could see the second season of The Big Bang Theory online. It's not even available in the iTunes Store.
Not Blu-ray but it looks pretty good.
I check out a clip of How I Met Your Mother in 1080p. It was very jerky. Looks like they need to work on their buffering a little bit more.
Anybody else have any better experience? My internet connection isn't really that fast...
It is sharp and clear though!
It doesn't help that flash is a CPU hog.
Flash should not be used for 1080p.
I'd settle for a decent selection of shows just in DVD quality here in Canada.
Lol, even cable/satellite doesn't deliver 1080p and they want me to believe that the same pipes can transmit such a signal through normal streaming?!?!?
What's next 2196p coming in 2013?!?!?
*yes, I am fully aware that the world will end in 2012*
My god you are clueless aren't you..
I really am quite shocked that the phrase "...a series of tubes..." didn't come up in your comment. These "pipes", as you refer to them are more than capable of transmitting 1080p video. My OnDemand rentals prove that.
Not sure what cable company you have but DirecTV has 1080p movies on demand
Some sanity: satellite has a very low bit rate compared to Blu-ray, broadcast, and cable; most internet video sources have a lower bit rate than satellite. All those kids in your neighborhood downloading movies and playing on-line games are further degrading your ability to download through your cable modem. Most DSL users are stuck at 1.5Mb/sec. Run an internet speed test on your home connection and then consider the difficulty in realtime streaming a multi-gigabit file.
Bit rate? Anybody know what it is?They recommend having 3.5mbps bandwidth but don't actually say what the delivered bit rate is.
When I try a video, the screen size on the page looks exactly the same for all 3 quality choices (HQ, HD, 1080P). I would think it would increase for the higher quality versions (like YouTube does). When I hit the full screen button, that's when I can see the difference in quality and yes - the 1080p looks excellent, and it's pretty smooth for me. I'm at work now, but I'm willing to bet the quality is just as nice at home with FIOS.
The problem, though, is that the screen is completely distorted when I go to full screen. I have a 22" widescreen at home - so I should be ok, but I have a measly 20" monitor with 1600x1200 resolution at work (actually 2 of them side by side, so really a 3200x1200 resolution). I imagine a lot of people have also a 4:3 monitor and resolution, so this can't be good. Maybe it's a Firefox thing, but with ieTab, it doesn't even play correctly at full screen. I guess I'll try IE.
Nope, same problem using IE. Very odd.
The problem is that Flash doesn't use your graphics card for video acceleration. Until then, 1080p (and even a lot of 720p) video just won't work well unless you've got a beefy processor that's not doing anything else at the time.
What's strange is figuring out why CBS would go with Flash for 1080p video, when Silverlight 3 supports GPU video decoding.
Why do people comment on something they have no clue bout.. Flash is using GPU and is hardware accelerated. Don't talk about something you have no knowledge about.
To watch a Blu-ray on your PC you need twice the horsepower.
Silverlight penetration is still well below 50% for most stats I have scene. While flash is at 90%+.
scene=seen
Doh! Guess I have movies on the brain.
The next time you see a flash video playing, right-click the flash and select "settings". Then come back here and tell me that flash doesn't use a GPU.
Bozster:
I see you're still trolling around and spreading FUD about Blu-ray. It's kind of ironic, but the article isn't even about Blu-ray.
I put it in your own words... why do you comment on something which you have no clue about? You DON'T need a PC that has twice the horsepower to play a Blu-ray movie! Flash movies are encoded in h264. This codec is also used in Blu-ray. Blu-ray also provides for VC-1 and MPEG2. They are no harder to decode than h264. So, you really need a PC with the same grunt as you'd need to watch a 1080p encoded flash movie. The only difference is that the video card needs to support HDCP (which is present in most cards released over the last two year). Next time, do your research before you post!
Think what he's trying to say is untick the GPU box and see what little difference it makes.
Flash is crap for this kind of stuff.
@antler
Nobody is trolling you freak-o.. To decode Blu-ray disc as HD requires more horsepower then with Flash. Don't talk about things you have zero clue about. I'm a Flash developer and I certainly know what the hell I'm talking about. It was not a diss towards Blu-ray it was just a comparison you retardo fanboy.
I'm running 3 Mbps (tested at 4 Mbps), and when I'm running 1080p, it's just not smooth at all. I'm getting large pixelations. What's even more annoying, is that it won't resize to 4:3, but instead stretches to your screen, thereby distorting the pixels.
With Hulu, the full screen will block out the edges to create 4:3 or 16:9 with no fuss. Though the image isn't as sharp as 720p or 1080p, it won't present me nearly as blurry video as the 480p on CBS. And, no large pixelations either.
And to be honest, it just does not compare to the OTA 1080p broadcasts that CBS does. Weird.
Did you mean OTA 1080i or 1080p broadcasts? I wasn't aware of anybody actually broadcasting in 1080p.
Someone should tell them that Time Warner Cable doesn't appreciate all that bandwidth they're asking their viewers to use.
Also, if you could tell Time Warner Cable to go fuck themselves, that would be great too.
Say folks, why not link directly to CBS.com instead of just your tag for it? That's linked below the post anyway.
I realize that CBS.com is very easy to type, but your post reminds me of the days when websites were paranoid to send traffic anywhere else. Bad form, Engadget.