# HD on demand internet



## buggs1a (Oct 27, 2007)

What the heck is this requiring you to have a fast connection to the net to use On Demand? That should be via the sat, not yer own internet. Will this mean no HD OnDemand? HD is huge.

I love Comcasts On Demand, so hopefully DTV will have it as good as Comcast. But yes I know Comcast OnDemand has been out a long time now.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

buggs1a said:


> What the heck is this requiring you to have a fast connection to the net to use On Demand? That should be via the sat, not yer own internet. Will this mean no HD OnDemand? HD is huge.
> 
> I love Comcasts On Demand, so hopefully DTV will have it as good as Comcast. But yes I know Comcast OnDemand has been out a long time now.


How do you propose, that they stream.. individual DoD requests via the SAT, to a possible several different million DVRs out there?

HD OnDemand has already been available on the DoD system...
And it does work.

Dependent on your internet connection, will dictate how long it takes.

Some get the full movie in just over in real time...
Others it takes a lot longer.

But to do it via SAT, in still an OnDemand model... just is not really practical at this point.

As for COMCASTs model..
Since they have a head end in each area (Aka not one point that everything comes from).... that are many things they can do that DirecTV can't.

And basically... they ARE using the broadband connections to get it there...
Just a segment of THEIR broadband network, that is PRIVATE and specifically for them.


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## buggs1a (Oct 27, 2007)

Yeah, I know Comcast is using broadband, but you don't have to have the internet to use it. That's why I am curious about it with DTV. 

Being that connections are not 20mb/sec as the norm etc, then I would wonder how they can do HD OD when HD is huge compared to SD. 

I just am wondering about this stuff, not complaining or anything. 

I'm about to get an upgrade to DTV HD and OD is one thing I said I needed to be able to get. So I'll be getting an HR20/whatever they send. Hopefully the black one.

I currently have an 8mb/768k connection with Comcast.


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## davring (Jan 13, 2007)

With your current DL speed you will be able to watch SD content in real time and HD content should require maybe a 20-30 minute head start before you could start viewing it.


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## buggs1a (Oct 27, 2007)

Ok, that's fine with me. No prob. 
How big are the HD content on DTV OD? I am curious because high def dvd's hold so much more data, 50gb and 25gb or so. Even if it's only the movie the HD movies on dvd's are much bigger then SD would be.

So maybe to be more percise would be to ask it this way and look at the question this way.
HD is how many mb per minute?
1080i is how many per minute and 720p is how many mb per minute because those are the 2 HD resolutions used on TV currently?


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## davring (Jan 13, 2007)

HD content is limited as VOD is still in "beta". I don't know the bitstream rate, I'm sure it could be figured out. I downloaded only one HD movie, it played indicating 720P and the picture quality was very good.


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## tooloud10 (Sep 23, 2007)

davring said:


> With your current DL speed you will be able to watch SD content in real time and HD content should require maybe a 20-30 minute head start before you could start viewing it.


Well, I'm just going to come out and say something that has to have crossed the minds of more than one forum member:

Strictly talking HD content, how is this considered to be an "on demand" service? In the case of HD programs, it's not so much "on demand" as it is "available in 20-30 minutes so the download can get ahead of you."

That said, my 15/1 cable connection has no problem staying ahead of SD programs, but waiting 20-30 before watching an HD program isn't realistic--more like 60-90 minute wait for me.

No offense to D*, as I understand what they're up against here and I DO like the DOD feature, but it IS a stretch to call the HD programs an on-demand service. I would have called it "Downloads by DirecTV" or something that doesn't imply that you can truly watch something on-demnand. Lastly, this problem is only going to get worse before it gets better--how many people are like me and rarely even watch any SD programming anymore?


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## venisenvy (Nov 1, 2007)

The service is not as good as the ondemand I had with charter in terms of not getting it on time. But the way it is going it will be better in terms of content which is more important to me. Plus I much rather get ondemand than not get it and except for HD, you just have to wait like 5 minutes before you can start watching the show and it will download as you watch.


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## buggs1a (Oct 27, 2007)

On Demand means when you want it. Even though you may have to download and wait 20 minutes to me it's still on demand because you get to choose what to see and when. Not like with not on demand when you have to watch it when they show it.


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## bakerfall (Aug 23, 2006)

venisenvy said:


> The service is not as good as the ondemand I had with charter in terms of not getting it on time. But the way it is going it will be better in terms of content which is more important to me. Plus I much rather get ondemand than not get it and except for HD, you just have to wait like 5 minutes before you can start watching the show and it will download as you watch.


It's all a matter of your connection speed. I can watch all SD content immediately, no problem at all. Gotta wait for HD though.


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## tooloud10 (Sep 23, 2007)

buggs1a said:


> *On Demand means when you want it.* Even though you may have to download and wait 20 minutes to me it's still on demand because you get to choose what to see and when. Not like with not on demand when you have to watch it when they show it.


OK, I want to watch an HD movie NOW. I know what to do to watch it NOW from my local cable provider. What do I do to watch it NOW from D*?


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## bakerfall (Aug 23, 2006)

tooloud10 said:


> OK, I want to watch an HD movie NOW. I know what to do to watch it NOW from my local cable provider. What do I do to watch it NOW from D*?


Put on an HD movie channel. If you can't wait for it to download enough to buffer, don't watch it.

Seriously, the bandwidth isn't there yet (via your ISP) and all the *****ing and moaning isn't going to change anything. It's really the only option as it is IMPOSSIBLE for DirecTV to provide HD OnDemand via satellite for immediate playback, which seemingly is what you want them to do.


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## vollmey (Mar 23, 2007)

bakerfall said:


> Put on an HD movie channel. If you can't wait for it to download enough to buffer, don't watch it.
> 
> Seriously, the bandwidth isn't there yet (via your ISP) and all the *****ing and moaning isn't going to change anything. It's really the only option as it is IMPOSSIBLE for DirecTV to provide HD OnDemand via satellite for immediate playback, which seemingly is what you want them to do.


Agreed, it's just not possible to watch it real time. Even if you have 20mbps down it does not mean that there sending data up that fast. Microsoft uses Limelight as does Direct TV, I have always needed to wait 30-45mins. before I start an HD movie. Is that a bad thing, not to me. I am happy to have the service available, as I am with Direct TV.


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## tooloud10 (Sep 23, 2007)

bakerfall said:


> Put on an HD movie channel. If you can't wait for it to download enough to buffer, don't watch it.
> 
> Seriously, the bandwidth isn't there yet (via your ISP) and all the *****ing and moaning isn't going to change anything. It's really the only option as it is IMPOSSIBLE for DirecTV to provide HD OnDemand via satellite for immediate playback, which seemingly is what you want them to do.





vollmey said:


> Agreed, it's just not possible to watch it real time. Even if you have 20mbps down it does not mean that there sending data up that fast. Microsoft uses Limelight as does Direct TV, I have always needed to wait 30-45mins. before I start an HD movie. Is that a bad thing, not to me. I am happy to have the service available, as I am with Direct TV.


Fellas, I completely understand and follow what you're saying, but I think you're missing my point; I'm not complaining about having to wait for the HD program, I'm complaining that they're advertising it as high-definition On Demand, seemingly in an effort to redefine the term "on demand".

As I've said, if you can't click "play" and start watching the HD movie, it's not an on-demand service, it's a download service. The whole point of referring to something as "on demand" is that it implies that you can have it immediately, and I'm not sure that Limewire even serves it up fast enough to watch in real-time even if you have a fast enough connection.


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## tonyd79 (Jul 24, 2006)

Well, it varies.

SD I can watch and if I don't trick play forward, it actually downloads faster than I watch it with my connection.

The only HD movie I downloaded competed pretty much in real time. It was within 2 minutes of real time, so I could watch the movie in real time. Even with Comcast, it would take a few minutes to get started.

Anyway, a slight correction to Earl's post about cable using their internet connection. Not quite. They are using their own bandwidth but they are not using internet (at least not here with Comcast). They are using random QAM channels, which are regular video channels. You can see local (neighborhood) DOD if you have a QAM tuner as they are in the clear.

Also, the only HD movie I downloaded was the same size as an MPEG4 HD movie of the same length and looked as good as the MPEG4 PPV version of it. So, I assume it was full HD (1080i).


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Given that cable companies must position servers at each head-end, often their selections are more limited in some/most areas than what DIRECTV could theoretically offer nationwide from one or two server farms.

That is, until cable starts to use the internet to serve HD too... 

Cheers,
Tom


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## buggs1a (Oct 27, 2007)

How is the content added to on demand and who decides it? Is content licensed for a specific time too like it would say expires or available till?

I wonder because Comcast on demand is awesome and has a few 80s shows that i like like whos the boss, silver spoons, different strokes etc. i want the same content on DTV on demand.
i also want tons of HD content on demand so hopefully they'll add a lot soon. 

I'm just afraid that DTV will be extremely slow in this OD stuff and afraid they won't add anything good and won't take requests and honor them.

I'm afraid of the I'm the company and yer the customer. I have your money and will do what i want. you don't matter.


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## BobLablaw (Jan 21, 2008)

buggs1a said:


> How is the content added to on demand and who decides it? Is content licensed for a specific time too like it would say expires or available till?
> 
> I wonder because Comcast on demand is awesome and has a few 80s shows that i like like whos the boss, silver spoons, different strokes etc. i want the same content on DTV on demand.
> i also want tons of HD content on demand so hopefully they'll add a lot soon.
> ...


I've only been a customer for a few days, but it appears to me that Directv is one of the better companies in this regard. Look at all the feature upgrades for the HR20/21 that they've put in since the beginning. Look at all the HD programs they've added in the last year. Of course, it's all about the bottom line and competing with Dish/Cable...but I was with cable my whole life and I don't think they've really once listened to what the consumers were saying. I had a DCT6412 HD DVR and they NEVER added features to this thing in the 2 or 3 years I had it.


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## gfrang (Aug 30, 2007)

On demand might not be as good and fast as cable but i find it very useful.
I always look for programs that i might find interesting add them to the que
and when they are in my play list i consider the programs to be on demand.
Dvr works fine wile downloading still have 2 tuners. Works for me.


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## tooloud10 (Sep 23, 2007)

BobLablaw said:


> I've only been a customer for a few days, but it appears to me that Directv is one of the better companies in this regard. Look at all the feature upgrades for the HR20/21 that they've put in since the beginning. Look at all the HD programs they've added in the last year. Of course, it's all about the bottom line and competing with Dish/Cable...but I was with cable my whole life and I don't think they've really once listened to what the consumers were saying. I had a DCT6412 HD DVR and they NEVER added features to this thing in the 2 or 3 years I had it.


Yeah, you'd almost think they rushed the darn thing to market with some of the features missing.


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## buggs1a (Oct 27, 2007)

How is the content added to on demand and who decides it? Is content licensed for a specific time too like it would say expires or available till?

I wonder because Comcast on demand is awesome and has a few 80s shows that i like like whos the boss, silver spoons, different strokes etc. i want the same content on DTV on demand.
i also want tons of HD content on demand so hopefully they'll add a lot soon.

I'm just afraid that DTV will be extremely slow in this OD stuff and afraid they won't add anything good and won't take requests and honor them.

I'm afraid of the I'm the company and yer the customer. I have your money and will do what i want. you don't matter.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

My general impression is that DIRECTV is actively pursuing good quality content and working on the agreements all the time. They can't tell me about specific negotiations (not even as a whisper).

I'm expecting a fairly large and comprehensive library as they work out all the kinks in delivery to customer, delivery to DIRECTV, review processes, etc.

Cheers,
Tom


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

one problem with d/l by satellite only and not using your internet connection is that your dish would then need to transmit the receive packets. 
direcway internet got away with it their one way dishes through an NOC that you dialed into but it was unreliable.
utilizing the customers broadband connection is the only reliable way. even in heavy snowstorms with a bad signal if I can access the guide I can d/l and watch something.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

dmacleo,

Downloading via satellite had better be working...  We all would have problems watching our daily shows. 

Yes, the file format needs to work with small "burps" in the data just as it does now, but doesn't need TCP ACKs on every window of data. DIRECTV won't do resends for every box that needs a block resent. 

That said, of course DIRECTV has to have a billing communication path. Either the phone lines or (for those boxes that support) an Internet connection. 

Cheers,
Tom


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## buggs1a (Oct 27, 2007)

I have an HR21-700 and the CE firmware from 10 days ago Friday Feb 1st. On Demand is now active!! It wasn't before today Monday Feb 10. Awesome! I need to connect my ethernet cable though first. 

I was just curious how DTV goes about choosing what they want in On Demand. I would like certain shows and so forth so that is why I am curious. I did look at 2 pages in the On Demand browse by all showings and didn't like anything on the first 2 pages. I browsed by all and then hit the channel down button once to see more shows and didn't like any up to that point. 

So now I'm nervous/wondering if I'll like hardly anything. Is there a way to request movies or shows etc to be included in On Demand? There's a few 1980's shows I want them to have. Comcast On Demand has Silver Spoons and Different Storkes plus a few other cool shows that I want DTV to have. So how can we request stuff and does anyone have any idea how DTV chooses the material?

Thanks.
Joe


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## ralphfurley (Jun 12, 2004)

just downloaded ratatouille in HD off ch 1001...test for free...less than 2 hrs. looks awesome. tried to get Chuck and Larry and Mr Woodcock, but channel is gone


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