will we ever get shows on demand?

[gashead]

Will we ever get TV shows on demand like the cable companies offer?
I'd like to catch up on mad men, breaking bad, sons of anarchy, homeland etc.
All shows I never started watching and would now like to get involved in. I was checking
out my parents on demand availability from cable and it is really impressive.
I don't want to go the Roku route, as I have the full boat package with Dish already
and really don't want to spend anymore money on my tv bill.

 

[garys]

Sons of Anarchy is streaming, although not the complete series. On Demand already has episode 301 of the Walking Dead and since AMC was recently added back, it may take a little time to get their rest of AMC series on as well. Showtime's programing has not been available for steaming through OnDemand or DishOnLine either. I'm not sure what would be holding Showtime up.

 

[Mochuf]

Sons of Anarchy is streaming, although not the complete series. On Demand already has episode 301 of the Walking Dead and since AMC was recently added back, it may take a little time to get their rest of AMC series on as well. Showtime's programing has not been available for steaming through OnDemand or DishOnLine either. I'm not sure what would be holding Showtime up.

Showtime is owned by CBS. They're famous for holding out their programs from streaming services. Showtime does have Showtime Anytime, which is like HBOGO. But I know of only three providers who have it (Verizion Fios, ATT U-Verse and Xfinity). My mom's cabelco does have Showtime On Demand though. Since that provider is small, I'm sure most cabelcos have it.The biggest problem for Dish On Demand is that they don't own any landlines to provide it. You must connect your HD DVR (only) to the internet to get that programming. But between Dish Online and their On Demand, there is a good assortment. For example, Starz through Dish Online has far more programming available than Starz On Demand has on the local cabelco. It's too bad that Dish Online can't be accessed through Roku players. When Dish was giving them away, I was hoping that it would soon be possible. But nothing yet.

 

[Jim5506]

Because of the way it is delivered, there will always be a deficit on on demand programming on satellite.

With cable there is the possiblilty of two way communication through the cable itself from your set-top-box to the headend, allowing cable to "customize" your offerings so much easier than satellite could ever hope to.

Satellite could use broadband for such communication, but then there is the limited bandwidth problem - satellite is essentially serving the entire nation from 3-6 satellites whereas each cable co has a limited number of customers to serve and therefore that smaller subset of cable viewers can be more customizable.

 

[GaryPen]

Because of the way it is delivered, there will always be a deficit on on demand programming on satellite.

With cable there is the possiblilty of two way communication through the cable itself from your set-top-box to the headend, allowing cable to "customize" your offerings so much easier than satellite could ever hope to.

Satellite could use broadband for such communication, but then there is the limited bandwidth problem - satellite is essentially serving the entire nation from 3-6 satellites whereas each cable co has a limited number of customers to serve and therefore that smaller subset of cable viewers can be more customizable.

Dish's OnDemand offerings are quite robust, and utilize broadband quite effectively. How well it works for individual subscribers depends on their Internet connection bandwidth.

 

[GaryPen]

Will we ever get TV shows on demand like the cable companies offer?
I'd like to catch up on mad men, breaking bad, sons of anarchy, homeland etc.
All shows I never started watching and would now like to get involved in. I was checking
out my parents on demand availability from cable and it is really impressive.
I don't want to go the Roku route, as I have the full boat package with Dish already
and really don't want to spend anymore money on my tv bill.

Dish already offers quite a robust OnDemand selection. Whether you have access to it depends on the model of receiver you use. The quality depends on the speed of your broadband connection.

Unfortunately, the interface on the VIP-series of DVR's is pretty horrible, making navigation painful. But, it's not too bad on the Hopper. You can easily browse by network, such as FX and AMC. If you have HBO, you have a selection similar to HBO GO, which is almost every series ever made by HBO.

 

[mike123abc]

Showtime seems to be lacking from Dish Online via the web or the receivers. One would think that as a premium Dish would have more incentive to come up with an online connection. Starz, HBO, Epix and Cinemax are all supported, just leaving Showtime the odd premium out...

 

[jerryez]

My problem is looking through the selection on Dish (BB@H) and finding a program. I sorted just the Epix movies and got 2284. At four per page, it takes forever to just get through the "A"s. Dish has got to make there search engine(since they have none) more user friendly. It is impossible to look through their listings now, the way they have them set up. Dish your movie system SUCKS!!!!!

 

[satjay]

My problem is looking through the selection on Dish (BB@H) and finding a program. I sorted just the Epix movies and got 2284. At four per page, it takes forever to just get through the "A"s. Dish has got to make there search engine(since they have none) more user friendly. It is impossible to look through their listings now, the way they have them set up. Dish your movie system SUCKS!!!!!

One big improvement with VOD/hopper set up is very clean, broken down by channels and movies, really nice set up