Direct TV Battle in the On-Demand Market Set
Direct TV is officially their "on demand" service in the second quarter, so it should by the end of this month. As the product with the true video-on-demand (VOD) products, from cable TV companies like Comcast will be made available to compare?
A window for review is The beta test phase, which has been going on with Direct TV "On-Demand." Ongoing testing by users since August 2007 has been done, and ratings were fairly evenly service divided. Some customers have found the video-on-demand service for a great improvement, while others are disappointed in the service so far.
The original on-demand service is offered by cable operators like Comcast and Time Warner customers the flexibility to upgrade their remote control and clock shows at their convenience to . pick In a sense, on-demand like a TiVo or a digital video recorder, the end user has control on when they want to watch the program.
The Difference with On-Demand, however, that the cable company holds the programming for you, rather than the customer taking on their own device. A central group of servers holds the programming for cable customers to access a program menu. Cable companies have therefore the claim that they have more high-definition programming.
This claim is disputed, since they are measuring their HD by the number of available programs, not the number of channels. For example, Comcast Project Infinity HD-1000 HD rollout promises decision by end 2008. Cable companies have them in place so the actual number of HD channels they have promoted. During Direct TV currently has the lead with 95 national HD channels, cable companies have between 20-60 channels depending on the company and region.
So how is Direct TV in On-Demand Arena to compete? The company has put into play two different delivery methods to reach their customers with this service.
The first method uses the end DVR and their high-speed Internet access. The customer connects to their broadband provider, usually cable or DSL. Customers download speed must be faster than 750 kbps, and should be higher for truly effective service. Content is downloaded to the DVR, and then the programming can be accessed from there.
The first Obstacle here is that it's not really true, video-on-Demand. If a Direct TV customer wants to see an on-demand program, he has to wait for some of the content to the DVR, before they begin to download to watch. Some beta-testers download times for an entire film have reported between one and four hours on the customer's connection speed.
The second method is Direct TV has formulated sending movies and other content directly to the DVR customers. The content would be available for subscribers where they are at a later Access time will be saved.
This method certainly solves the download issues previously referenced, but brings the question of how much content is pushed to the customer to accept their DVR?
While DVR capacity is generally around 50 hours of HD or 350 hours of standard definition content, have to keep that far from thousands of hours of programming on cable.
Use the transmission of the content on the DVR, the capacity and the customers are very protective to their DVR space. Most Direct TV customers would prefer to capture the space for content that they have decided, not what Direct TV wants to see them.
Thus, in matching cable TV Direct TV is successful on-demand services? Certainly time will give us a better answer. Must wait to receive, what will not make an on-demand content in the future, most Direct TV customers happy.
About the Author
Jeff Buckley is a freelance writer covering Dish Network and Direct TV. Check out the latest news on Satellite TV.
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