Yes, and so I am wondering why Dish doesn't just use the same AVC codec that they use for Dish-HD, instead of VC-1 ?
The only answer that seems likely is that the VOD service is provided by someone else, who is already using VC-1. VC-1 is less efficient than AVC, so the files are going to be larger and take longer to download.
I have to say that the idea of downloading movies over the Internet is contradictory to the whole idea of Satellite TV. If your broadband feed is that fast, then why not get everything over IP?
Also, the number of people with a sufficiently fast broadband to download HD movies in VC-1, and who don't already have a 722, is probably not more than a handful...
This is a very interesting point. The total bandwidth from all of those satellites is huge--as a rough estimate say 6 satellites times 16 transponders (plus spot beams) per satellite times 30 mbps per transponder gives roughly 2.8 Gigbits/second. But this bandwidth is shared by everyone in the country (again, ignoring spotbeams). For the model of delivering the same thing (or same sets of programming) to lots of people at the same time, it's a very efficient system.
But the bandwidth
per user isn't that big--divide the 2.8 Gbps by say 10 million users, and you get 280 bps--a tiny number. If you wanted to provide internet access to every by satellite, it wouldn't be very good. I'm of course ignoring here that the average user bandwidth is vastly lower than the peak speeds we pay for. Without video downloads, a subscriber maybe downloads 1 Gigabyte per month. Since a month is about 2.6 million seconds, the average subscriber's usage is only about 1.1 kbps. Video changes that equation, as does what time of day people want the bandwidth--few people want to download video at 3 AM, but lots would at 8 PM. But this is enough to get my point across--a satellite network isn't very good at providing different content to every user.
Let's go back to the point about ignoring spot beams. This does change the equation, but not radically. How many spot beams could a satellite support? Clearly this has been growing with time, so let's pick a number that seems crazily high--say 100. That would increase the average per-user bandwidth to 28 kbps. I don't have a simple way to model the different times people want content, but since people want to watch video at similar times in general, it can't be a huge factor--maybe as much as a x10 improvement in my wildest imagination.
At first glance this makes it look like satellite is doomed--but that requires the assumption that everyone wants different content at the same time. This is a very poor assumption. Clearly there has been a trend for more content to different subsets of people over time. But also clearly people like watching similar things--otherwise everyone would rent movies, and no one would subscribe to satellite or cable TV.
But given the trend for increased specialization, and also given that downloading a movie is more convenient than going to a video rental store, and given that the movie rental business is big bucks, it seems like the idea of a video provider creating another revenue stream, as well as going along with the trend of increasing specialization, as well as movie downloads from other sources, makes a ton of sense. Now it's a question of convenience, quality and price.
And don't forget regulation--the whole "network neutrality" debate has been key for the satellite providers. Without it they wouldn't be able to provide video through the Internet at a low delivery cost--the other nework providers (cable, DSL, and fiber) would be able to charge an extra fee for video delivered by other providers. I find it interesting that these services (VOD through Internet to satellite boxes) are being rolled out shortly after the FCC came down on the side of network neutrality--I can easily imagine that the satellite people were waiting for that to happen before rolling out a service that depended on network neutrality.
