DirecTV Question, About "On Demand"

MIGrandma

Lives in the middle-of-the-mitten.
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Aug 12, 2009
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Sunday morning our DirecTV box bit the dust. DH called customer service and a service technician came out yesterday morning. We upgraded and can now watch DirecTV in the bedroom as well as the family room. The system has "On Demand" capabilities. Now I understand that, with movies. You will be charged if you watch one.

But, what about TV shows? Last night I discovered under the "list" that there are programs we recently watched that are now available for a certain time "On Demand." If I choose to watch one, is there a charge for it?

And DH discovered this morning that he can't rewind the local news in the morning. Before, we would always leave the channel set on our local channel then in the morning he could rewind (up to an hour and a half I think) the local news so he could watch. This morning it wouldn't allow him to do that. Is there a setting or something that we can change so he can rewind a local channel?
 
There are some changes with the new box...we have our old dvr box upstairs now, and I can rewind House Hunters when I turn the tv on. Downstairs in the morning though, the new dvr only starts when you turn the tv on. A work around for this would be to set the morning news to record. Then your DH could replay the part he missed when he gets up.

Regarding on demand - yes, it is different than pay per view. When you are on the guide, arrow over all the way to the left, where you see the channel name and a + sign. Hit select and your options will come up. You can select a show for on demand. There is no charge at all for this.

Now, its not "real" on demand. You can't watch it instantly (at least we can't), but it will record for later and be in your play list. This is handy if you forgot to record one of your usual shows. The drawbacks though, are that these on demand shows you record have an expiration date, and most of them can't be fast forwarded when you watch.

Hope this helps!
 
There are some changes with the new box...we have our old dvr box upstairs now, and I can rewind House Hunters when I turn the tv on. Downstairs in the morning though, the new dvr only starts when you turn the tv on. A work around for this would be to set the morning news to record. Then your DH could replay the part he missed when he gets up.

Regarding on demand - yes, it is different than pay per view. When you are on the guide, arrow over all the way to the left, where you see the channel name and a + sign. Hit select and your options will come up. You can select a show for on demand. There is no charge at all for this.

Now, its not "real" on demand. You can't watch it instantly (at least we can't), but it will record for later and be in your play list. This is handy if you forgot to record one of your usual shows. The drawbacks though, are that these on demand shows you record have an expiration date, and most of them can't be fast forwarded when you watch.

Hope this helps!

That's weird. For our On Demand we CAN watch right away - not DVR it for later. We have AT&T though, which has now taken over Direct TV, so not sure why it would be so different. OP, unless it says there's a charge, there is no fee. They also have lots of old movies available through On Demand in addition to the shows that are free.
 

That's weird. For our On Demand we CAN watch right away - not DVR it for later. We have AT&T though, which has now taken over Direct TV, so not sure why it would be so different. OP, unless it says there's a charge, there is no fee. They also have lots of old movies available through On Demand in addition to the shows that are free.

AT&T is fiber (or cable) and their on demand is streamed over your high capacity cable.

DirecTV uses your internet connection to download shows so there is a longer delay before you can start watching it (if you don't want to catch up to the download). DirecTV also holds aside about 1/3rd of your DVR capacity so they can download via satellite (much slower) a bunch of PPV and store it on your DVR for immediate access (if you are spending $$$, they don't want you to have to wait at all).
 
With DTV any OnDemand programming that costs money you'll know about because you have to confirm you're buying it. It will also have the $ symbol next to it.

The 1000-1999 are regular channels (ie, ABC, HGTV, A&E, HBO) OnDemand programming. Want to watch Chopped? Go to 1231 Food Network channel and you can find a couple episodes along with Cutthroat Kitchen etc. If it's a channel in your package then the OnDemand channel is free.

DTV rocks with OnDemand compared to regular cable companies. You can binge watch many series. Love my DTV. :lovestruc
 


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