# Rogers On Demand Services



## Beej (Sep 10, 2005)

I'm looking at switching to rogers digital (not HDTV) to, primarily, get rogers on demand services. Options from other companies aren't on the table for a number of reasons both subjective/personal and financial. 

The menu options of digital are nice and I'm still considering PVR/no-PVR based on whether or not there's enough I care to record. That said, this is about the on demand.

I'm looking at the Movie Network and Anime Network. The Rogers on Demand looks ok too, but is priced similarly to DVD rentals, so that's not very interesting for now.

So, how good are the Movie Network and Anime Network offerings? 

According to the website, they're flat-fee on demand so no charge per viewing: have I got that right?

For the Movie Network on demand, how do release dates compare to standard DVD rental places and how does the coverage of releases compare (small delays, months of delay, etc.)?

I am also interested in their television series stuff (from 24 to Dead Like Me, only the good stuff  ). How does the selection and timing compare for those types of videos or is there another service for this interest? 

For Anime on demand, is it a wide selection of relatively recent items or just a small selection of top hits that they keep for years and some golden oldies? As a reference, the anime selection at standard rental places (e.g. Blockbuster, Rogers) is not close to recent enough or extensive enough for my tastes.


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## Vandave (Feb 26, 2005)

Beej... to answer your question, yes you can rent porn with on-demand.


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## Beej (Sep 10, 2005)

Vandave said:


> Beej... to answer your question, yes you can rent porn with on-demand.


That's why I got cable internet. Streaming, so to speak.


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## MACSPECTRUM (Oct 31, 2002)

macdoc would be an authority on rogers on demand
might want to email him, but don't expect a quick reply as he's in South Africa


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## Beej (Sep 10, 2005)

MACSPECTRUM said:


> macdoc would be an authority on rogers on demand
> might want to email him, but don't expect a quick reply as he's in South Africa


It's his vacation time and I'm not in a rush. But thanks for the tip.


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## Macified (Sep 18, 2003)

I tried The Movie Network for a while but after a few (very few) movies, you will have run out of decent stuf to watch. Movies aren't released into the Movie Network for quite a while, way longer than PPV.

The benefit to The Movie Network is the series that they have available like The Sopranos and Rome. Don't know what else.

I don't watch the series so for the $20 per month I found myself scraping the bottom of the barrel to get value in the second month even using the on-demand aspect.


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## Vandave (Feb 26, 2005)

The PVR function is really nice to have. A one hour show gets reduced to about 40 minutes. I sometimes start watching a show late and do something else with my extra 15 minutes.

If money isn't a big issue and time a premium for you, then DO IT.


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## teeterboy3 (May 22, 2005)

Beej, we got the Rogers PVR setup a few weeks ago and we're really happy with it. We opted for the non HD version cause we don't have an HD set and don't plan on getting one in the near future. The On-Demand was the biggest reason we switched over from Star Choice being that we have a little one due any day now, and realize that we're going to need to record a lot of shows, and catch them as we can between pausing them, *a lot*.

As for the TMN stuff… no, it's not as current as the current release aisle in the DVD rental joint, but I will tell you it's super handy. And as pointed out already, the series are what really make the On Demand awesome. If you get it, make sure you warch Dexter... it is a super great show! The movies and shows they have on there are free. The On Demand stuff on the regular stations has a mix of free content, and pay for content. The free stuff is interesting enough but nothing to write home about.

As for the anime station… don't know, haven't even really watched it - in fact I just noticed it the other day.

At any rate for the ability to pause a live show, wait five minutes, and then start playing it and being able to fast forward through commercials makes this service worth it's weight in gold.

We had Star Choice for a couple years and by far and away this better than that. And we left Rogers before because we weren't happy with their prices or the options and both have since drastically improved.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

On Demand is a treat and soon HD on demand.
I can usually find something to watch.
Can't comment on anime but Movie and series are good - the magazine helps you see what is coming up.
I like the fact you can pause and rewind etc.
More channel content is coming - something like Nat Geo on demand would be ideal - and I notice they are opening up the movies on demand to categories.

I NEVER buy online movies. When it gets to $1 a flick - then I would.


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

I Haven't checked out the on-demand stuff much. I can't remember which are free (paid by channel) or which you have to pay-per-view. 

But generally, regarding the Movie Network, it seems to work that movies appear first on PPV when they are available on DVD, then 2 or 3 months later they premier on the Movie Network (at which time I assume they appear on the on-demand as well). That seems to be what I calculated roughly.

And as the other have said, I'll never give up my HD PVR, but it could use a bit more storage. Having PIP, the ability to rewind and pause "live" TV, and the other features is excellent. One "feature" I'd add though, is a dynamically updated TV guide when programs run over their time or some other fix.


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## Beej (Sep 10, 2005)

From what I'm reading, it seems like PVR is one of those things that you don't want to go without after you've tried it. When I do switch, I'll go with it. I was just thinking how I needed to get addicted to another piece of technology. 

I checked the sites for Movie Network and Anime Network, and they also look worthy of at least trying, but I can see how their appeal could wear thin quite fast.

Thanks for the advice, ehmacers. 

Now to wait for a nice deal. They offered a decent standard deal, but the design wasn't flexible to allow for me to spend more and still get the same basic benefit. Bad promotion design but not unusual for such large corporations. 

Meh. Luckily I have not become pre-emptively addicted to PVR.


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

Beej said:


> From what I'm reading, it seems like PVR is one of those things that you don't want to go without after you've tried it. When I do switch, I'll go with it. I was just thinking how I needed to get addicted to another piece of technology.


Just to clarify one point I made... I watch a lot of (non-on-demand) TV in high-definition (HD), so a HD PVR is the easiest way you can record HD content and watch it later. That was the biggest selling point of an HD PVR to me.


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## Beej (Sep 10, 2005)

On a lark, I checked the rogers retail store while renting at the attached video store. They had the deal I was looking for (note: woefully under-trained staff, perhaps they're only drilled on cell phones) so I got the PVR and am quite happy with it so far. 

Total cost for all the add-ons was not much more than my current bill (basically added my specialty channels plus a few bucks). There's a risk that the staff mistakenly said the deal is for a year, so we'll see how that works out.

Tried Dexter and, so far so good.

Recorded SNL. The show is quite good once reduced down to 15 minutes + fast-forwarding.


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## teeterboy3 (May 22, 2005)

Yah Dexter is fantastic. I heard a lot of good things about that show back when we Star Choice but that was when the season was already in progress. I tried with little success to find torrents to get me caught back up. Imagine my delight when we switched the Rogers setup to find the series in On Demand format.

And SNL… omg we watch it every week in that exact way. Fast through all the crap and catch all the good. Last week The Shins were on which I surely would have missed by falling asleep like I always do.

And as for pricing… our pricing because of the signup incentives means that we are getting more channels than we did on Star Choice with the PVR added for slightly less than what we were paying with Star Choice. So it was win-win for us all the way around.

Congrats and enjoy.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Rogers and Future Shop had a promo that when you bought a HD TV you got 10mo. of Rogers HD Digital programming and a PVR for free. I installed the PVR unit yesterday and I'm getting myself acquainted with all the offerings. 

To be honest with you, so far I haven't seen anything worth my while unless I pay extra, YMMV. The offerings run from free, 99¢ to $9.99 and perhaps more. Most movies run at $5.99. I haven't really dug deep enough as there are way to many channels. 

After the 10mo. free period, this package would cost me $25 for the PVR and $6 for the extra channel package. That would bring my cable bill to just under $100. Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen.

The one thing that I am looking forward to, is using the PVR to record shows and pause 'live' tv. This PVR unit can connect to an external FW drive, so I may be able to transfer shows and later burn them. Don't know yet if that's possible...but it should be.


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## Macified (Sep 18, 2003)

Check again on the external HD. The Rogers PVRs have a firewire port but it has always been dissabled. Down in the States there are cable providers who don't block the port but all you get out of the port is a real-time data-stream which requires real-time recording on your computer then compression.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Good point and for all I know at this time the FW port may be disabled. I'll check when I have some time.


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