Improving Dish online downloads

whatchel1

SatelliteGuys Master
Original poster
Sep 30, 2006
9,098
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Great High Plains
This is so that we have a thread that is directed at improving Dish Online. In another thread we started talking about the problems we have with using it. That it is so KLUGGIE and hard to find what one wants to down load. I'm including the suggestions TNGTony stated.
1) Organization.
It needs to have the ability to organize by by channel, program type (Movie, Documentary, Series, Sit-Com, etc.) Right now it takes me for ever to find a program.

2) Remembering user settings.
When I do a sort and select a program for download, the menu resets and I have to start all over again. That SUCKS! It should take me back EXACTLY where I was.

3) Ability to select multiple programs at once
There are times that I want to download all the programs of a particular series. It took me for ever to find and select the programs one at a time. (WW2 in HD and Pawn Stars).

4)Selecting/maintaining "search" results. This ties into #2 and #3.
You do a search to find a set of programs, you select one program and you have to do another search for the same set of programs to get more programs. That SUCKS!

5) The programs downloaded should NOT be segregated from "my recordings". All the programs need to be in the same pool.

6) The delete program option should be active on the downloaded programs.
Right now the "Delete" button is grayed out on the program menu. When I first saw this I thought I had committed the disk space on my drive to that program until the expiration date. It was by accident that I found how to delete any DishOnline program. You have to exit the program menu to the "my downloads" menu. Select Edit and select the programs you want to delete. STUPID!
 
The downloads are as fast as my connection right now (4.5 Mbps). I would think the bandwidth issue is with the ISP more than with Dish, or does Dish throttle their feed?

Does anyone else have any other suggestions?

See ya
Tony
 
That helps improve dish online? It's PPV of course they are going to charge for most of it.


That is a big problem right there. With cable most content is free. I also see no reason why Dish can't get deals with HBO, Starz, etc. to provide their full catalogs of on demand content to subscribers. DishOnline feels like nothing but an afterthought that was given life just to claim it as a feature. That is my main complaint with it.
 
As many of said, get it organized, break it down by channel, its to confusing to find anything. Also the few times I have tried it, I think it wont let you play what your downloading untill it completes, when I had Direct, you could start watching it as it was downloading.
 
The downloads are as fast as my connection right now (4.5 Mbps). I would think the bandwidth issue is with the ISP more than with Dish, or does Dish throttle their feed?

Does anyone else have any other suggestions?

See ya
Tony

I'm sure there are some lmits as when downloading on my 18M (which tests out at just below 18M on speedtest.net) connection the highest I've ever seen was 6.4M
 
As many of said, get it organized, break it down by channel, its to confusing to find anything. Also the few times I have tried it, I think it wont let you play what your downloading untill it completes, when I had Direct, you could start watching it as it was downloading.

It will let you watch programming while its still downloading ONLY IF the amount of time remaining on the download is less than the length of the program. In other words it will never let you start playing a program that will stop on you in the middle because you ran out of buffer.

With SD programming and a decent connection you can watch the program the moment you start the download. With HD it take a while before it will let you watch it because of the length of the download. It also tells you how long before you can start watching.

I think this is one of the few things they got right!

See ya
Tony
 
I'm sure there are some lmits as when downloading on my 18M (which tests out at just below 18M on speedtest.net) connection the highest I've ever seen was 6.4M

Oh, yes. Just because we have big pipe doesn't mean the server is going to spit it out like that. My biggest complaint is that despite us having great download bandwidth, the servers on countless websites still pretty much spit out a dribble. That where some leech technology does help.
 
I agree on all the suggestions. I am willing to live with DishOnLine not being instant, but it is now way too hard to use, and I do like some of the content on it, and have used it and enjoyed it, but I have also avoided it ONLY because of the lack of organization and cumbersome design.
 
There a good bit of free stuff that I have watched on it. I recently watched the 2 part Caprica that will premiere on SyFy in January. It was in HD and was 2 downloads.
 
Dish Online would be far more useful if it made program suggestions based on your viewing habits. We all know that Dish is collecting that information. Why not find a way to make it work for their subscribers?
 
Tivo

Dish Online would be far more useful if it made program suggestions based on your viewing habits. We all know that Dish is collecting that information. Why not find a way to make it work for their subscribers?

It would be another thing that Tivo would try to claim belonged exclusively.
 
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