Changes to "Dish on Demand" on screen menus

Callisto

Member
Original poster
Jan 2, 2014
10
4
Atlanta
I am aware that nothing lasts forever, ever changing consumer and market forces account for many changes, others may be security or technology driven. Regardless of what the underlying reasons may be, it seems that Dish continues to hammer additional postmortem nails into the coffin of the brand once known as Blockbuster.

As a long time Dish subscriber I took advantage of the 'Blockbuster at Home' offering a few years back when they had expanded their service to include DVD and BluRay disks. Of course disks were discontinued and the service reverted to what it had been before I joined. Though I didn't like it, I understood what was happening and decided to stick with it.

Maybe I am one of the very few who use the "Dish on Demand" menus (the ones accessed via the DVR button on the satellite remote) in conjunction with BB at home but in recent days things have changed for the worse. Dish has eliminated or crippled two of the most useful features within those menus. I don't mind sifting through the BB at home titles on a computer, but I definitely prefer to stream movies through my Dish receiver rather than on/through a computer, which means at some point I have to find the title on the satellite via the remote.

I use a 722 receiver, but I don't believe these to be issues specific to that and I've listed the receiver in case the menu context differs on other receivers. Only a few weeks ago it was possible to browse titles that were grouped by the network ( ie, Epix, Sony or, MGM )which provides it. That capability has now been removed. To make matters worse, Dish has ruined the 'All Movies' (Option 2) 'Search Movies' (Option 2, sub option 4). This search requires using an onscreen keyboard to input my search criteria, usually the movie title. Not ideal, but it beats paging through thousands of titles I'm not interested in, to find just one using the remote. This was my preferred on screen method. The functionality has not changed, but library of titles which that feature can search upon has been changed from thousands - presumably all- to only about eighty, by now limiting searching to only "New Releases." Meanwhile I have no choice but to page through thousands of titles, if I am to use my remote.

If Dish wishes to offer a streaming service and has a receiver capable of delivering that service, then it seems to me that Dish should do all it can to encourage the use of their hardware, but that is certainly not the case. Other tedious, time consuming and very aggravating ways to find and select a desired title are still available via the Dish remote, but why cripple rather than enhance that interface so as to make it more difficult to find my desired titles? Even the ability to queue movies in 'My rentals' from selections made via computer would be a nice improvement to the service.

I'm wondering whether anyone else has noticed or used those functions and the recent changes?
Of course the easiest thing for me is to simply scrap BB at home. This isn't the sort of thing for me to dump Dish over altogether, but it's one more among various changes they have made in recent months that have me considering that more and more. The capability was there only days ago, if Dish's best solution is a fee upgrade - otherwise known as an equipment upgrade, I would prefer to drop Dish entirely.
 
Huh. Hadn't noticed any change. So, if I understand what you are saying, you can still search (as I did last night), and the search still works. But the searchable titles are only a tiny subset of movies available via browse?
 
Huh. Hadn't noticed any change. So, if I understand what you are saying, you can still search (as I did last night), and the search still works. But the searchable titles are only a tiny subset of movies available via browse?
Specifically the subset of "New Releases" which at the moment lists 80 movies. Dish has bound my searches to only those 80 titles.

I will add that I don't normally use "Search TV Shows" but I just tried it moments ago prior to this post. Interestingly enough that search was also limited to "New Releases" and care to guess how many new releases there are to search from? Once again 80.

I'd appreciate any observations from you or anyone else that uses search and it differs from what I've described.
 
Would any of you good people share any of you own observations that would confirm or dispute my observation regarding the on screen search?
I am still only seeing 80 titles available to search from and no way to widen that scope. I did contact a DIRT member, and I realize that this might be isolated to me, though I suspect not. So any additional feedback to that end could help. Thx.
 
Hi - haven't been on this site for a long time but here goes. We have been subscribed to the Blockbuster (or whatever it is) at an extra $10 a month for at least a year and I didn't understand what it was - asked my son and he told me ... so I have been downloading movies I would want to see at some later date (it was called my rentals) ... well apparently that no longer works - you have to watch the movie at the same time you are loading it (doesn't work for me as our connection isn't the greatest and I'd rather watch the movies later at night) ... my son got in touch with Dish and they told him they were aware of this 'little' glitch and were maybe working on it - as to your question (callisto) ... I have never seen more than the '80' for new releases .. but then I've only been accessing it for about two months now ... I only check the 'freebies' (can't really afford the others) and have noticed that they are mostly 'crap' and available on the epix stations anyway. A little disappointed at paying an extra $10 for nothing.
(as a side note - my former manager in IT at another company which I will not name - is now working for Dish - so it doesn't surprise me at this crap ...)
 
Search by Network is still there for TV Shows. But I'm seeing the same behavior as the OP for movies. Search by Network is gone, and By Title only uses 80 New Releases. Even Midnight Lounge does the same.

Hard to believe they could make On Demand even harder to use than before, but they've done it!
 
Thanks for the replies. I wasn't aware that the on demand queuing - watch later/my rentals - had been affected as Kamikaze described, but then again I haven't felt like trudging through that mess.
 
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