Buffering Dish On Demand

[whatchel1]

This was 1st for me. I decided to check again the On Demand section. Well they have some free HD stuff again. Thought cool will watch some of it. Selected several and was playing a Bikini Destination episode. Reason for that is the banner came up and said it was ready to be watched from the download. So it get about 2/3 of the way thru it and up pops a screen Buffering Dish On Demand. So I check the length of it. It hasn't downloaded the whole show yet. So why did it "tell me" it was and when did they start this buffering?

[TheKrell]

I imagine that the download started out fast, possibly even faster than the real-time playback rate. Then the receiver tells you you can start to watch. But then the data rate slows way down and playback catches up to the end and then it has to stop to buffer more data. Just a guess.

[3HaloODST]

Think of it like YouTube videos... Half of the time it can buffer the whole video, the other half, it buffers a little, then stops, and gives you the infamous "spinner" icon to indicate it's buffering again.

Now, my question is, why isn't DISH On Demand faster than it is? In my (small amount of) experience with it on my 24/3 connection most of them only downloaded at 4Mbps... Pretty slow, especially for HD stuff...

[Hall]

If it buffers, that's news to most of us, isn't it ? I was under the impression it downloads the whole thing to the hard drive and tells when it's *done*, not far enough that it thinks you won't catch up.

[DishSubLA]

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If the content is long, such as a full TV episode or movie, I NEVER bother watching it while it is being streamed. I regularly check out the DishOnline or go their specifically because I missed an episode, and I just let it download to the HDD and view it later or in the future. I think of it like a "per-order" service and enjoy it as such.

Now, I understand that ideally, one should view it while streaming as a flawless experience, but that isn't the current internet technology (cable, Uverse, and FiOS don't have4 this problem) and the same choppy streaming experience occurs on other devices such as TiVo, and even the best streaming media players. I prefer the Dish and TiVo experience because by loading the download to the HDD, one can view it as a flawless experience. That's just the way it is today.

[whatchel1]

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If it buffers, that's news to most of us, isn't it ? I was under the impression it downloads the whole thing to the hard drive and tells when it's *done*, not far enough that it thinks you won't catch up.

What I thought to that's why I was so surprised when it happened.