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Review: CBS All Access a bad fit for me

We cancelled our cable a few years ago, opting instead for a digital antenna and a Roku streaming player, reducing our monthly bill to just the cost of Netflix and HuluPlus, which gives my family and me access to the shows on ABC, NBC and Fox we enjoy (and a few other networks, to boot).

Netflix and HuluPlus, for us, are great, and local channels through the digital antenna were much crisper (though we have to reposition it every few weeks to keep channels. I still don't understand why.) But every now and then, I'd feel a little nostalgia for when we had more viewing options. So, after several months of seeing the CBS All Access app in our Roku Channel Store, I decided to give it a try. Overall, I figured we'd get enough use out of it to justify $5.99 a month.

As it turns out, though, we didn't. We watched a few episodes of "The Big Bang Theory," but then sat there looking at it thinking, "Now what?" In the time we'd been watching CBS via digital antenna or computer only, we hadn't found any new can't-miss shows.

Despite that, I still might have considered keeping CBS All Access, because it would be nice to watch "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," "48 Hours" and a few other shows that interest me every now and then, if it weren't for the following:
  • It shows commercials. Since the app charges me $5.99 a month to watch what I could watch over the digital antenna for free, I expected no commercials. Yeah, HuluPlus shows commercials, too, and I pay for it anyway, but for the $7.99 a month Hulu charges, I get a lot — and I mean a LOT — more options. For just one network, CBS charges more than half the price Hulu does for a handful of networks.
  • The app is clunky.* When it goes out for commercial, it often stalls. When it comes back from commercial, it repeats the last 10 seconds or so from right before the commercials started. Also, some commercials buffer every time they're shown (and the same ones are usually shown every break). A commercial for Target that plays the 1980s song "I Can't Wait" by Nu Shooz was the worst. I had to mute the TV every time it came on because the "stuttering" it did while buffering was just so damn annoying. And while we're talking about annoying ...
  • The commercials are LOUD. Remember a few years ago when the FCC said TV networks couldn't jack up the volume during commercials anymore? Well, apparently, that regulation doesn't apply to streaming video. If I set the TV at a volume that's comfortable for me when a program's on, I have to worry about it waking up my daughter sleeping in the next room when the commercials begin. (That is no exaggeration. The commercials are that loud.)
The app did do one good thing for me. It helped me see that my family and I were doing just fine with our somewhat cantankerous digital antenna, Netflix and HuluPlus.

Have you tried CBS All Access? If so, what's your opinion of it?

*I have tried the CBS All Access app only on a Roku 2 player, not on my smartphone or any other streaming devices. The app could function a lot better on a different platform.
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