CBS Interactive, the growing Internet segment of CBS Inc., has ramped up what it calls its “CBS HD Gallery” online. The network is providing a lot of its primetime and daytime programming fare for free viewing, with video quality that appears to at least mimic 720p (depending on one’s computer, monitor, and broadband connection).
Maybe as noteworthy as CBS’s enhanced online offerings is the fact that it has secured Intel as the exclusive sponsor for its HD Gallery. Intel’s logo is being prominently immersed within key areas of the CBS video site.
Included in CBS’s offerings on the new Web site are remastered episodes of the original “Star Trek” series (but beware, the Starship Enterprise looks a lot more like a studio set than it used to!).
The CBS HD Gallery had been available as a beta test venue for several months, prior to its going up officially.
ABC/Disney, for its part, has been offering so-called “HD quality” video on its own dedicated Web site for several months, and various NBC Universal shows (such as “30 Rock” and “The Office”) are featured in near-HD quality via the Netflix movie Web site for subscribers. (Perhaps ironically, while NBC and Fox provide their own programs to their own viewing site, Hulu.com, the video quality on Hulu does not appear to match the video quality of their same content on Netflix.)
