On Demand Listing

[Miller426]

Hello all,

I am considering Directv. One thing I would miss about Comcast is the On Demand service they have. I see where Directv has picked up something similar to on demand. I would like to see the current listing for Directv on demand. Does HBO, Showtime, Starz! and so on participate in this? How does the selection compare to Comcast? Also what is the file size for the average movie? I wonder how quickly I would hit my new internet download limit.

Also any idea where I could find Dish on demand listings or should I start a thread in the dish section?

 

[CorpITGuy]

DirecTV has decent on demand content...
https://www.directv.com:443/DTVAPP/listing/dodMovies.jsp?category=All

Dish's On Demand is pitiful.

You'll hit any download cap very, very quickly. Those files are huge.

 

[goober22]

To add to what CorpITguy said, I don't think you'll hit a cap with Comcast. They recently set their cap at 200GB. That's 3-4 HD movies a day for a month.

The actual file size depends on HD or SD, some add fluff (commercials) to the beginning/end. Some are short, some are full episodes. It just all varies.

 

[Miller426]

Please understand, the last thing I want to start is an E* vs D* war. I had E* back in 97 then went to D* in 99 until a couple of years ago when I couldn’t pick up the HD sat from my apartment. I have since moved so reception shouldn’t be an issue. I learned so much from Dan Collins on DBSFORUMS but that site seems to be shutdown these days. I almost feel like a noob even though I went through all this 11 years ago but so much has changed.

Thanks a ton for the link. D* does seem to have a good amount of On Demand content and I am glad to see much of it free. I was hoping to see HBO, Cin and Showtime in the list but Starz! Is nice and I like the “Record” option from the web page. Which DVR would I need to have this capability? I liked my Directvio and UltimateTV DVS, have they changed that much? What size HD should I expect in the new DVR’s? As for the cap limit, I should have 250 GB from Comcast so I could be ok if the DL’s aren’t 10 GB per movie/show.


Mods, would it be ok if I put the same post in the Dish forum?

 

[CorpITGuy]

I had Dish Network for a very long time and it was great service. Their DVRs are much better than DirecTV's, and at least as good, IMO, as HD TiVO. If On Demand is what you want, though, Dish just won't work.

The HR-series DVRs from DirecTV will be what you want. I think there is a different in HD size between the different models (HR-22, HR-23, etc.) but you aren't guaranteed any specific model. DirecTV considers them all interchangeable. You can only be guaranteed the newer model if you purchase the DVR at Best Buy. It's not worth the space for me. In December I got an HR-22. I believe it has a 500 GB HD, which is good for about 100 hours of high-definition MPEG4 content. Not sure about the HR-23.

As I mentioned before, DirecTV's DVR isn't as good (no multi-room viewing, no dual live buffers, no picture-in-picture) but it is improving quickly. The ViP 722 from Dish Network, on the other hand, is faster, more stable and has PiP. I'm with DirecTV because I wanted the On Demand content, Fox News HD, Spike HD, Speed HD and a few others. I tolerate not having Travel Channel HD. And yeah, the cool thing about D*'s On Demand selection is that most of it is free.