Starz on Demand discontinued

[rcoleman111]

Anyone know why DirecTV is dropping Starz on Demand? There is nothing on the Starz site that indicate it is being discontinued, so DirecTV must be dropping it.

[bjflynn04]

Directv has never carried Starz on Demand. Starz on Demand is a CABLE ONLY channel where cable subscribers can start or stop any movie that is on starz any time they want.

[Mike Richardson]

No. There is also a Satellite Starz on Demand which operates on DirecTiVos using the extra hard drive space.

[bjflynn04]

oops I was wrong sry.

[BobMurdoch]

I can't fathom why cable thinks VOD is going to be their savior. Between DVRs and DVDs, many people just aren't interested....... ESPECIALLY if there is a fee involved

[ddobson]

They kept rerunning the same movies, When I originally signed up for it they made statements like this.... "Movies on Demand weeks before they appear on Starz". Well a year after it had been on Starz, Demand had Sweet Home Alabama and had it every couple of months.

Demand would have been fantastic if it had some priority setup in the software. Of the 5 movies each week I would want one or two and those were almost never the ones I wanted that actually got recorded.

Finally until I dropped Starz completely, I would manually record them. Since the movies were already on Starz prior to appearing "on Demand" there was no value to the service. I could just manually record them from Starz with no difference.

They runined it themselves because it never lived up to it's promises in my opinion. As for Starz, I won't add it back until they add Starz Family and Starz Comedy to the lineup.

[ddobson]

I can't fathom why cable thinks VOD is going to be their savior. Between DVRs and DVDs, many people just aren't interested....... ESPECIALLY if there is a fee involved

A LOT of people rent movies at the video store. With cable they anticipate a HUGE library of movies, similar to NetFlix or something like that. You can demand almost any movie available and if they can do that at a price similar to the video store they'll have something grand.

I think that's where they're laying their cards. NetFlix has over 2 million customers. Imagine taking that a step farther, now no mailing. Decide you want a movie tonight at 7:00pm, search for the title and watch it at 7:05, all without going to the video store or without putting it in your NetFlix list.

Very intriging possibilities. That's where they're going and if they can do that for the same or less than video stores, they will highly succeed. But unlike Starz on Demand, there have to be large selections of movies and/or available before they're on the movie channels.

[pez2002]

my brother has on demand i think its cool but i still wont go back to comcast not unless they pay me alot of money but that wont happen

:) smile its just 2 days before the weekend

[joebird]

I think it's very appealing if (for instance) you want to watch a particular movie or TV series. An example would be the first season of The Sopranos. If I could just punch that up on VOD, it's a very convenient thing to have vs. Netflix or the video store.

I don't, however, understand how satellite companies are going to make this work by using extra space on the DVR. There's not enough space to satisfy everyone. One could make the argument that since I have a DVR, just record it and watch when I have time. That makes sense for recent shows, but I don't think HBO is re-running the first season of The Sopranos very often (if ever, anymore). Cable has the advantage of HUGE servers and addressable customers vs. the satellite broadcast paradigm.

Dish Network seems to want to park some PPV content on the disk, which I don't understand. If I have a DVR, I've only got to wait maybe an hour, or otherwise just schedule a recording of the PPV in off-hours. Not a huge difference to me.

[Mike Richardson]

Eventually though if DISH could move everyone to DVRs using the on demand PPV, they could shut down the regular PPV channels and regain about 3 transponders worth of valuable bandwidth.

[KingLoop]

Dish Network seems to want to park some PPV content on the disk, which I don't understand. If I have a DVR, I've only got to wait maybe an hour, or otherwise just schedule a recording of the PPV in off-hours. Not a huge difference to me.
Wish Charlie could see that.

[rcoleman111]

Since the movies were already on Starz prior to appearing "on Demand" there was no value to the service. I could just manually record them from Starz with no difference.

Not true. There are some older movies, but most of the new releases have been appearing on Starz on Demand before they show up on the regular Starz. An example would be "Thunderbirds", which was downloaded to my DVR earlier this week.

It is also not true that there is no difference in just manually recording the movies. The Starz on Demand movies are often widescreen versions (e.g., there was an early-premiere widescreen version of "The Alamo") that are never shown on the regular Starz channels. They also don't have the annoying split-screen ending credits where they tell you what movie you've been watching and shrink the credits down to a fraction of the screen to make way for cast interviews.

[jpurkey]

The satellite companies would need to come up with some type of system where users could select the type of On-Demand material (such as movies, TV shows, sports, etc.) they might like to see. Then only material that fits their interests would be downloaded to their DVRs for possible On-Demand viewing. It could even be limited to a specific gener of movies like Sci-Fi.

[crkeehn]

When you compare Starz on Demand as outlined on their website, to what is offered on Satellite, the satellite offering pales in comparison. I know I found myself tremendously let down when SOD was finally activated on my receiver. Most movies are erased immediately, I can only think of three or four that I actually watched and in a few cases, the movie was recorded first on Starz before I ever saw it on SOD (the Alamo for example.)

[rcoleman111]

I can only think of three or four that I actually watched and in a few cases, the movie was recorded first on Starz before I ever saw it on SOD (the Alamo for example.)

Not true. "The Alamo" was an early premiere on Starz on Demand - it appeared there before it was on Starz. Also, it was the widescreen version, which was not shown on the regular Starz channels.

[Paul Secic]

Not true. There are some older movies, but most of the new releases have been appearing on Starz on Demand before they show up on the regular Starz. An example would be "Thunderbirds", which was downloaded to my DVR earlier this week.

It is also not true that there is no difference in just manually recording the movies. The Starz on Demand movies are often widescreen versions (e.g., there was an early-premiere widescreen version of "The Alamo") that are never shown on the regular Starz channels. They also don't have the annoying split-screen ending credits where they tell you what movie you've been watching and shrink the credits down to a fraction of the screen to make way for cast interviews.
How old are you Mack? The Thunerbirds was a kid's movie.

[rcoleman111]

How old are you Mack? The Thunerbirds was a kid's movie.

What difference does it make how old I am? I cited "Thunderbirds" as an example of a movie that was shown on Starz on Demand before the regular Starz channels. I could cite a number of other examples - "The Alamo", "Dawn of the Dead", "Butterfly Effect". The fact is MOST of the new releases on Starz have early premieres on Starz on Demand.

Most of the complaints I've read here are based on older releases showing up on Starz on Demand. That's because 5 movies are downloaded every week and there just aren't that many new releases to show every week.

My original question was: "Why is DirecTV dropping Starz on Demand", not "What do you like or dislike about Starz on Demand". If anyone knows the answer to my question, I would certainly be interested.