# Can somebody tell me: VOD - how long should it take?



## ergodic (Oct 14, 2010)

We got DTV about two weeks ago. There are two HD DVRs in the network, all connected over DECA with whole-home and Internet. Everything is working fine as far as I can tell.

Except.

How long should it take for VOD downloads to start downloading? Everything I've tried is stuck "download pending" in the playlist. For over 2 days now. My wife wants "Martha Stewart On Demand" (for whatever reason) and I can't get it to work. Per some suggestions I tried removing all VOD downloads, resetting the DVR, recording something, and rescheduling VOD, but it's still been stuck.

I called DTV and asked the question and got basically "it takes as long as it takes." I said: "2 days, 2 years, 200 years, there has to be some timeframe when you know it's not working." To which the previously-nice lady hung up on me. Fooey.

So, how long? I don't even know: do the DTV VOD transmissions come from the satellite on some sort of wait-for-it basis or really on-demand over the Internet? Should they really take several days?


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Welcome to the forum.
It can take "awhile" for VOD programs to show up, but once you have them, clicking on them should start the download fairly quickly.
I've got DECA & a connection to my router and last night selected a show off 1101 and it started in just a moment.
You might try rebooting your router or delete this request and try another show just to see if it will work.
It may not have started because of a mix up between "the list" and what's on the server [ie this recording wasn't there].


----------



## liquidctv (Oct 14, 2010)

If the downloads don't start, it means it's not working. Downloads generally start within a minute and stream at about the speed of the show (~2hrs for a movie, of course it depends how fast your internet is). 

I've seen this a couple times but not enough to know what's causing it. Maybe Network Services (not the same as Network Connection) needs port forwarding through your router on the 2 ports it uses.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

liquidctv said:


> Maybe Network Services (not the same as Network Connection) needs port forwarding through your router on the 2 ports it uses.


"Nope" that has nothing to do with it. Wild goose chase/red Herring.


----------



## ergodic (Oct 14, 2010)

Thanks for your replies. I very much appreciate the help.

Would you know if there a way to reach anyone at DTV who knows/cares anything about this? The nice-then-not-nice-lady in Mississippi I reached was clearly totally clueless and running off some half-understood script (mostly consisting of: "I'm going to put you on hold for two to four minutes.")

The VOD item appears in the playlist pretty quickly - almost immediately after I select it. The odd thing is that it perpetually shows "download pending" as the status, but if you go in to it, it says it was "recorded" at the date-time I selected it, but there is no "play" option.

I tried resetting the DVR and re-doing the satellite/DVR/network setup again. It picked up the VOD channels after about 30 minutes so I tried one again. So far that doesn't doesn't seem to have had any effect though it's only been a few hours more so I'll check again tomorrow.

My understanding is that network services currently doesn't have any use, but I did install port forwards in my firewall anyway for both DVRs so that wouldn't be an issue I don't think.


----------



## smallm (Oct 25, 2011)

hello:
I have the same problem you are having ever since May firmware upgrade. Worked fine till then,Funny thing is system says I am connected to DTV but still will not download. also I can use new Apps menu without any problem . See if you can access this by right arrow on remote. We are not alone with this issue . I have tried every suggestion but no luck.
Hope issue gets resolved soon.
Regards Mel


----------



## wahooq (Oct 19, 2011)

ergodic- the dl speed depends upon your internet speed ...for instance mine is 14Mbps broadband....i can dl an hd movie in around 45 minutes...i can start watching it in around 10 minutes without catching up to the buffereing...i used to have 6 Mbps dsl and it wasnt suitable for on demand so i changed carriers....what is your package speed?


----------



## poppo (Oct 10, 2006)

The package speed will have nothing to do with it if it hasn't started downloading in 2 days.


----------



## ergodic (Oct 14, 2010)

In my case, there turned out to be two problems.

One was that I have a Sonicwall firewall as our Internet router. By default these devices do deep http header inspection that will interfere with DTV VOD. You have to turn off this option on the hidden /diag.html configuration page of the firewall. (It is the "Enforce host tag search for CFS" option checkbox.)

This obviously just applies to Sonicwalls of course and so I'd hazard a guess that isn't likely to be your problem. But other firewalls may have analogous problems.

In the worst case you may have to hook up a packet sniffer to ferret out what is going on - which is how I discovered my little problem. Another avenue would be to buy or borrow a completely different make/model of router and see if it performs. If you have a basic wireless router, you could try DD-WRT or some similar firmware to change things up.

Regardless, I think it would be wise to at least eliminate your router and any access points you are relaying through as the possible source of the problem as best you can. It is the most likely source of the issues.

The other problem turned out to be with the install. I have structured cabling, so dual wired gigabit sits at each plate. The DTV installer hooked up the Ethernet jacks in addition to hooking in the DTV DECA . That turns out to be a Big Bozo No-No. Once I pulled the Ethernet cables and left DTV to the DECA interface alone, VOD all came up.

VOD downloading generally starts almost immediately for me. Seems to download about 2x real time speed. We are happy with it overall, though most of what we want (tv shows) comes in non-HD. DTV VOD movies seem a bit overpriced, so we have Roku and a Tivo for the HD d/l rentals from Amazon, etc.


----------

