Our family cut the cable TV cord years ago. Not that we don't watch TV anymore today. We just leverage our Internet service for it now, shown on the big screen via a Mac mini. This means using a combination of services (some paid, some free): Netflix, Hulu and iTunes mostly, but we also watch some TV shows on the network's site. See, some networks are doing their own thing instead of allowing Hulu to host their shows. This fragmentation is an annoyance, something that apps like Boxee are trying to fix (but so far, not quite there).
One of the networks doing their own thing is CBS. There's really only one show we watch on CBS today: CSI (original series only). The CBS video player is better than most self-run network video players — video quality is good, the CBS logo is relatively small and not obnoxious. But the commercials are the problem.
It's not the quantity of commercials — typically just one or two during a break — but some escape out of the full screen mode when playing the show. This happens with ads that have a mix of images and interactive elements. And when those ads end, the episode you're viewing resumes, but it's no longer shown full-screen.
I realize that there are limitations in place for Flash that prevents a Flash object from switching to full-screen mode programmatically. A user has to deliberately click on the full-screen button to cause that transition to occur. And if you think pop-ups and pop-unders are bad, imagine not having that protection... web ads would be taking over your screen all the time (so thanks for that, Adobe).
CBS should take a closer look at how Hulu does this. Hulu will sometimes show an interactive ad during a commercial break, but you never leave full-screen mode. That's because the ad is still all-flash, not a web and Flash hybrid ad. So there is no transition out of full-screen. It makes for a much better viewing experience. Remember folks, TV viewing is supposed to be as passive as possible.
So CBS (and many others, such as the player at cwtv.com, which deserves a much longer post all to itself), please fix that.
