How will VOD work with Satellite?

[hornmdt]

Doesn't VOD require a two way street? For example, say I want to watch a particular movie. It's not on PPV and I don't have it on DVD, etc. Would I possibly key in on my STB the name of the movie I want to watch and the STB dials home and then the movie is up-lifted to the sat from the movie archives and my STB is authorized to receive it? With 13 mil subscribers now and only growing that would have to take a bank of telephone #'s large enough to fill a high rise to take care of the demand.

Or would we all be required to switch to one of those Directway two-way dishes that D* uses to provide Internet service to people out in very rural areas?

[LonghornXP]

I've been told that DirecTV might design a sender that would plug into the dish that would send the request from the box and a signal would be sent to the box to tell it to look for incoming data.

Basically that is how they plan on doing SVOD for the most part.

[agregjones]

It would make more sense to have D* send the movies to all, store them on the hard drive (pay attention to the fact that it mentions these) and then unlock them when the viewer wanted to watch them. If it's a VOD subscription, then the user would just be billed each month, if not, the same mechanism that is used for PPV would be used.

This works already with STARZ on Demand.

[aristotlewilde]

I have no phone line installed (never have). I have the ability to do PPV from my box. How does this work?? Is it similar to how the VOD would work??

[minorthr]

I think it would make much more sense and I think more cost effective for them to give everyone a DVR Tivo or NDS with a large drive and reserve part of it for "VOD". Then as some have mentioned encrypt it and when you watch it if there is a fee you get charged for it. You would then be billed just like PPV. I think the only way around the phone line issue is 2 way communication with the sats or no phone line no VOD like PPV is now.