Streaming with Blockbuster Thread

[harshness]

Can anyone suggest a better method without having to hard wire?

Homeplug should be more than capable of outrunning your broadband connection.

 

[Coach Knight]

I am kind of in the same boat. I can stream my PS3 Vudu account in HD just fine and dandy but with my 722k it says it will take over 2 hours for the new nightmare on elm street to be ready to watch. I dont think we are truly streaming yet. It is still going to download to receivers HDD then you can watch it. I hope they have true streaming available soon. Whether or not the 722k can handle that that is a whole other topic for discussion else where

That's really strange, and perhaps only on some movies maybe? Reason I ask is that I have watched a couple of movies and both started up within 10 seconds or so like Netflix. One of the movies played all the way through with no buffering at all...while another only buffered once for like 5 seconds or so, about 20 minutes into an hour and a half movie. I do realize it appears to be saving to the HDD as it goes along, but I have not had to wait at all for a movie to download in order to watch it.

 

[Jhon69]

1. Be Patient-Updates roll out to receivers in batches it seems. some people get it earlier than others.
2. Platinum was a package add-on that gave you over 20 great entertainment channels for $10.

BB movie pass is platinum +

• Over 100,000 titles available
• Stream thousands of movies to your TV or PC
• Unlimited movies, TV shows and games by mail(1 disc out at a time($10), or 2($15),3($20) with a plan upgrade)
• Unlimited in-store exchanges
• Plus over 20 great entertainment channels

http://www.blockbustermoviepass.com
Blockbuster - DISH Network

And no matter how anyone says it,that's one hell of a good deal right there.

 

[Jhon69]

I used to use a wireless-G router to connect to the Internet to stream Netflix and got "decent" quality on my TWC 10/1 connection. I upgraded to a Netgear wireless-N gigabit router and you would not believe the difference in quality. Netflix (and now BB/Dish) look absolutely fantastic streaming. I'd consider one of those routers, as it may improve your experience drastically since your speed down is twice what mine is and I get amazing quality.

Ever since we got our new HDTV that's another thing that had to be replaced as we had an older Netgear wireless router that would not work.But now with the new Netgear wireless-N everything works great!.


I am really starting to like going wireless.

 

[cdiddy]

Question regarding Blockbuster movie pass streaming

Hi,

I have signed up and linked my dish account with my blockbuster movie pass account.

Last night, I wanted to try out the streaming using my 722K. I pressed DVR, then selected Option #3 (Blockbuster Movie Pass), which brought me to a new screen where I could apply different filters to limit the number of movies displayed.

When I chose to display new releases, HD, it gave me about 65 options. However, when I selected several of those options (X-Men: First Class, as an example) it told me that the cost to rent was something like $4.99.

Why would it cost additional money to rent these movies if they are included in the Blockbuster Movie Pass menu and movie list? If I had selected to watch that movie, would I have actually been charged? I had thought that anything within the Blockbuster Movie Pass menu would be included in the $10/month that I am being charged on my bill. Am I missing something? I understand that there are other PPV options on dish network not included, but given I had specifically chosen the Option #3, it seems odd to me.

Can someone explain this to me?

Thanks in advance.

 

[thamac]

Some titles are not free. The system pulls every streaming on demand title available both free and PPV. You will get charged for the ppv if you order the ones that are not free.

You can display only the free titles by pressing the * key after your results are displayed.

I don't like the user interface myself...hopefully it will get better.

 

[Skee7ix]

Really not everything is free?
Then it is the same as the old On Demand?

That I don't use because almost nothing is free, just like 6 movies and rest has a cost... it is the same case here?

 

[gpollock87]

Really not everything is free?
Then it is the same as the old On Demand?

That I don't use because almost nothing is free, just like 6 movies and rest has a cost... it is the same case here?

seems about half and half

 

[RaymondG@Dish Network]

When you have the results up press the * button on the remote and this will filter the results to only show the Free movies.

 

[Mike_H]

but with my 722k it says it will take over 2 hours for the new nightmare on elm street to be ready to watch. I dont think we are truly streaming yet.

Not all on demand media is available for streaming. Avatar (in Spanish for some reason), Iron Man 2, Home Alone, Tron, all in HD, and all were available for streaming when I tested on my "Dish Platinum" 722k box yesterday.

 

[hammerdown]

Not all on demand media is available for streaming. Avatar (in Spanish for some reason), Iron Man 2, Home Alone, Tron, all in HD, and all were available for streaming when I tested on my "Dish Platinum" 722k box yesterday.

I cant even find these ^ Where are they? I signed up for BBMP, can add things to my queue on my PC, I can see "Movie Pass button" on my 722 but it doesn't go anywhere except what I had before with Platinum. All I see is the same old Platinum stuff and same "PPV". Are the BBMP streaming titles labeled as streaming? Are they free (once subbed)?

 

[MikeD-C05]

Not all on demand media is available for streaming. Avatar (in Spanish for some reason), Iron Man 2, Home Alone, Tron, all in HD, and all were available for streaming when I tested on my "Dish Platinum" 722k box yesterday.

" SI "

I noticed that yesterday when I tried to watch Avatar. Great picture Quality but I couldn't understand anything that they were saying.

 

[Elkview]

There is no movie in Platinum that plays without buffering for 2 hours. I have 15mbs and 2 Appletv's which play Netflix in HD with no problem. Is this all we get with Moviepass?

 

[stvlg1]

That's really strange, and perhaps only on some movies maybe? Reason I ask is that I have watched a couple of movies and both started up within 10 seconds or so like Netflix. One of the movies played all the way through with no buffering at all...while another only buffered once for like 5 seconds or so, about 20 minutes into an hour and a half movie. I do realize it appears to be saving to the HDD as it goes along, but I have not had to wait at all for a movie to download in order to watch it.

This is my experience as well. I have never had to wait more than 20 seconds for the movie to start. It is just like Netflix in that regard. Netflix is true streaming and I believe they cap their upload bandwidth somewhat. Even with a 12/2 speed tier Netflix buffered and the quality of the movie suffered. I actually prefer what Dish is doing. I am getting the movie downloaded faster than I can watch it. This means no buffering and the quality has been very good so far. Last night I wanted to be sure that the initial download speed I was getting a few nights before wasn't an anomoly, so I started 5 different HD movies and all of them started playing within 20 seconds. It probably would be quicker If I didnt have to navigate 3 menus before the movie started. Overall , I am very pleased. Hopefully this doesn't change when my receiver gets updated. I have the VIP622 and it still does not have the BBMP wording

 

[Mike_H]

I cant even find these ^ Where are they? I signed up for BBMP, can add things to my queue on my PC, I can see "Movie Pass button" on my 722 but it doesn't go anywhere except what I had before with Platinum. All I see is the same old Platinum stuff and same "PPV". Are the BBMP streaming titles labeled as streaming? Are they free (once subbed)?

I have the Free Starz thing still, as well as subscribe to HBO and Showtime. Some of these movies in my list may be from those channels. The list doesn't show the source and the only way you know is once the movie starts you'll see the banner for whatever channel the source is from.

There is nothing in the guide that indicates if it will be streaming or not. You only know once you click Watch and see what options are available. Not all movies have Watch Now as an option.

Steps I follow. Click on Dish Platinum. Choose HD/SD and select either HD or SD only, just picked HD. Go to Ratings and select only R and PG-13 (tends to limit it to more recent movies). Go to Critics Rating and set it to 3 stars and up. That shows me 86 results ( I may have only free button pressed). Page Down once and scroll to Apocalypto. Click Watch. Then choose HD Free. Click Watch Now. About 20 seconds later, Starz banner comes up and the movie starts.

There is no movie in Platinum that plays without buffering for 2 hours. I have 15mbs and 2 Appletv's which play Netflix in HD with no problem. Is this all we get with Moviepass?

I believe the point above is that even though the movie starts right away, it seems to take quite some time before the bar indicating that the full movie is available for Fast Forward is filled. In my tests so far, it seems the data rate is always around 8Mbps. Now that might be my cable operator interfering. Not sure. I've never seen the data come faster than 8.5Mbps which will always limit how fast the full movie can be buffered.

I also believe Netflix can seek into the buffer. So if you fast forward during the movie, it will go forward, regardless of the buffer then when you stop fast forwarding, rebuild it's buffer from that point in the movie. Dish, it seems, can't fast forward beyond the buffer. if you try, it just pauses and buffers again, never really moving past the point of the data it has downloaded thus far.

 

[dhageremtp]

Raymond, what is the incentive then to have the BBmoviepass if not all of the movies in it are free?

 

[TheKrell]

Excellent question. I think a rearrangement of those menus should be a Big Priority, most notably putting the BB free movies into the BBMP menu, and shoving the rest back into other menu items, such as Dish Cinema, where the "*" button could be used.

 

[hammerdown]

Steps I follow. Click on Dish Platinum. Choose HD/SD and select either HD or SD only, just picked HD... Click Watch. Then choose HD Free. Click Watch Now....

DVR
BBMP
select HD
select New & 2010s

Results 138
press *

Results 67 Free titles

Not any more titles after I changed my account from Platinum to BBMP. The selection seems identical, just the word Platinum replaced with Movie Pass in the menu (which happened before I changed my account). Why did I even change my account? I lost 5 months of Free Platinum I had left over and got nothing.

 

[harshness]

And from what I can tell, the movie can't be deleted until the 30 day rental period is up.

My ViP622 gives me an option to delete. I haven't needed to as the movies have all disappeared overnight for some reason.

 

[harshness]

There is no movie in Platinum that plays without buffering for 2 hours.

I've watched a couple of movies without significant buffering (no more than 10 seconds). Your statement is false.

That being said, one of the three movies I've tried, Weird Science, required download.