Comcast Tries to Boost VOD Use With a 'Watchathon'

Who cares? I do VOD and so called watchathon with the massive DVD collection I have.

Me too, Netflix, PBS.org and astraweb...

"We need to justify the cost of providing this service. Heavily promote the use of VOD and see if the service takes off!"

At $3.99 to $4.99 a movie, I'll stick with RedBox and the wait.

Well while it's free it's going to get a lot of use, but at those prices, unless you had just missed an episode or two OR were under house arrest I can't see any regular usage for TV series and GOOD movies seem to be 3-4 times that price so a rental or a month of Netflix per movie or amazon or iTunes or just buying the disk make more sense.
Pay per view COULD work at a much, much lower price point

Free means that everyone is going to look at it and most will stop when they see how much it really costs.

You are right. At a MUCH lower price point, it might be worth it but we know how that song plays.

Just for clarification, part of the VOD service is if you subscribe to the channel, you get the VOD service. So, for instance, if you have at least the starter package, you can stream all the VOD off of NBC, ABC, and so on. If you subscribe to Showtime, you can stream all the showtime channels.

By offering this for free, its really a benefit to those who have Comcast cable and who don't subscribe to the premium channels already.

But is all that content in 5.1 audio like the original broadcast? I know it didn't used to be.

From what I've seen yes it is. Maybe not all, but the shows I've played were.

It's kind of odd though as the program is usually in 5.1, but the ads or "pre-program" stuff is in stereo.

My parents have this service and yes it is.

some is, some isnt. it seems to depend on the network that is offering it. i know game of thrones last year wasnt 5.1 ondemand, so i had to DVR it.

It was in 5.1 for me.

When starting playback with the "previews" it starts in 2.0, but once the title screen for GOT came up and the opening music started it switched to 5.1.

A watchathon? With the way they put ads in pretty much EVERY VOD stream i dont use it. It is a lot easier to download it using my sprint LTE and then watch it from my Blu-ray player.

blame the networks. they control the content, comcast just delivers it.

Well its a good thing Comcast doesn't own any Network conglomerates then right?

If not, this is worthless to me.

Why would you need to record it? Record the original show and you don't need VOD. Its good for those of us who are too cheap to pay for a DVR.

Why would you need RECORD an ONDEMAND product? It's not like you need to watch it at a different time....

this post is worthless, do you understand how this works?

I pay $7.00 a month for Netflix streaming but Comcast wants me to pay $29.00 to 69.00 extra for cable so I can get VOD. Sorry think again Comcast.

It's a good idea to give people a taste of all the premium shows. It could result at least in up-selling of HBO, Showtime, Cinemax or Starz.

However the cable guides are so last decade, back when VOD wasn't available. Its hard to navigate a spaghetti mess of bland menus to find anything. Who knows whats out there because its presented in such a boring, poor and cluttered manor.

I know when DirecTV released their HDUI, at an investor day presentation they stated PPV/VOD sales went UP because of the poster art and high resolution graphics.

Make it look pretty and make content identifiable by its poster art. You go to a redbox or a bookstore or whatever, you browse books or movies by looking at the cover. Something looks interesting you start reading the description on it and may find what you like. A lot of marketing goes into cover art for books and movies. Makes sense to update the UI on these providers as well as providing fast google like search capabilities. You should be able to search by actor, genre, keywords or titles. It should be smart enough to recognize the type of search. Like if you type "Kevin Bacon", a list of his movies should show up.

Also maybe offer a streaming package like Netflix. Say for an additional $x a month, you can watch up to 10 new movies per month. If you don't get to all 10, the MSO makes out. If you watch all 10, then you saved over the $4.99 or whatever per movie you would of paid individually.

Also don't charge more for HD VOD. I've already seen some new movies cost $3.99 for SD but $5.99 for the HD version (Blue Ridge Cable). It should automatically just play the HD version at the same cost if its running on an HD box. And HD boxes can downconvert to SD anyway if needed. At least you get a less compressed, better picture and sound off the HD stream.

Even my kindle fire Hd has the covers for the moves, tv shows, books and apps that are on it or that is in the kindle store. The old kindles had everything in a boring set of menus and lists like the cable guides. The kindle fire is like the dirctv Guide. The kindle fire also looks a lot better than the old kindles because of the new GUI.

I could use all the entertainment right now as I have been spending most of the time sick in bed. I have a TV right next to the head of my bed and I've been watching a combination of Weather Channel, Fox News, and listening to Music Choice.

I currently am taking antibiotics for an ear infection and I hear news reports about overuse of antibiotics.