• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

CBS All Access Image and sound quality

I watched the "Caretaker" and "Parallax" (two Voyager episodes) on CBS All Access, along with part of "Chain of Command, Part II". The film quality is dismal - it's dark and the resolution is far from crisp - and the first few minutes of each episode are marred by sound issues. I was disappointed to see that the TNG episode is not the remastered version - it is the older standard version. These issues, if they exist for Discovery, may drive viewers away.
 
I recently started using CBS All Access on my roku. Does anybody else find it weird that you can't pause during an advertisement?
 
I bought the ad free version to watch the pilot. The catalog is abysmal. There's absolutely nothing on here that I would watch that isn't already on another service. Didn't notice any film or sound issues though.
 
The film and sound issues I had on my Roku box were a lack of film and sound. The CBS app kept failing and giving me an error. So I figured, "hey, I'll just watch it on the website!" I logged in with Firefox, browsed over to Discovery, and hit play. I was told to watch my favorite videos on CBS.com. Then nothing. I tried this for more than half an hour. Finally, with a little nudge from tech support, they fixed whatever account issue happened on their end, but I still couldn't watch it in Firefox, Chrome, or Opera. As a last resort, I loaded up Microsoft Edge (ugh), and it started playing, but in 480p quality. Still, I got to see the second half of the pilot.

So, yeah, my experiences with CBS' program has been a pain in all of my access.
 
We watched last night on our Roku TV.

No problems at all.

We have the ad-free option. Looked and sounded terrific.

:techman:
 
I watched it through the CBSAA app on the PS4, and while the picture quality was fine (except for a few instances of less-than-HD buffering), the sound was not that great. I had to turn my receiver WAY up in order to hear things (especially dialog) clearly. Also, the app completely stopped working toward the end of the second episode, to the point where I had to completely close it and restart the app.

Hopefully they’ll work out the bugs going forward.
 
We watched last night on our Roku TV.

No problems at all.

We have the ad-free option. Looked and sounded terrific.

:techman:
I signed up for the basic free trial to watch the 2nd episode on the Roku app. Not a single glitch. I also watched on CBS.com on Chrome and it ran perfectly.

Sorry that some people are having problems, but it's fine here. :shrug:
 
Using a Roku Premiere+ here. I had a problem with CBS AA where the sound and picture would go out of sync when the episode was playing. The sound and picture would resync during the next commercial break, then it would slowly go out of sync again. Very annoying.
 
Discovery on Roku is very good. No image or sound issues. It was TNG that was very poor compared to same episode on Netflix. We need to remember, if all Access takes off, CBS will pull their content off other streaming services. Just like Disney plans to do with their catalog. Which includes Marvel and Star Wars. So there won't be another streaming source for Star Trek
 
I couldn't load the first episode in CBS All Access on a Roku 3 Monday night. Tried three times and the episode failed to load all three times. I rebooted the Roku, and it's worked fine since then. Picture looks great. Sound is meh, had to turn the volume up high to hear it well.
 
I can't seem to watch episode 9 of The Good Fight. I keep getting an error on my Roku, and the website on my computer is also giving me trouble (saying "The video you have requested is unavailable or may have expired. Please refresh the page and try again."). Edit: I found a browser that works, though I would prefer to watch on my roku. *shrugs*
 
Last edited:
What ticks me off is that CBSAllAccess is not an available app for my Samsung 4K Smart TV. I had to hook up a laptop via HDMI to watch. CBSAA seems to stream at 720p at its best. Picture was good, but not as sharp as 1080p or 4K.

There's a little "extras' icon on the video playback bar. When I clicked on it, It showed the player 'mode' and a graphic bar on "buffer". You can drop it out of 'auto' mode and force it to just stream at "HD" quality. It seemed to help the quality in my viewing, but it did cause the video playback to 'stutter' once or twice due to buffering issues. Perhaps forcing the best resolution of playback (manually) will help other folks picture quality issues....

Q2
 
Seconded :wtf::wtf:

What century are they operating from? Obviolusly you're limited to the original resolution of whatever show you're streaming. I would hope since DSC is 1080p or higher (4K?), they would stream it in it's native resolution.

If not, a good way to drive away even more potential subscribers. I'm waiting to see if DSC ends up on Hulu or Prime before I decide to wait for the blu-ray or maybe get Netflix.
VCR century? Why such bad quality?
 
I guess I have been lucky. I've had CBS All Access for about a year and a half and haven't had any issues, either playing in my browser or on the TV with a Chromecast. My TV only goes up to 720p, so obviously that limitation doesn't bother me much. However, when I watch TNG (doing a rewatch right now), I definitely go for my Blu-rays rather than watching through Netflix or CBS All Access.
 
CBS AA was better tonight, no skipping or sync issues at all. I was probably watching later than peak demand time, which probably helped.
 
We watched last night on our Roku TV.

No problems at all.

We have the ad-free option. Looked and sounded terrific.

:techman:

Well, scratch that!

Last night we could not get episode three to load. We tried 6-7 times, and then gave up. We were able to watch something on Netflix instead, so it wasn't our internet.

Having to pay for it, I expect it to work!

:scream:

Hopefully it's just a one-time thing. We'll try again tonight.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top