Streaming movies &TV shows ..Dish, Netflix, Hulu ???

[Sticklizard]

Same thing here except I can't even figure out where to go to view the movies we have downloaded...each time we clicked to view a movie it said it would be available in an hour or several days....but never told us where and it does not show up in our recorded movies on the DVR ..I must be missing something...

You are. Another part of their horrible interface. The movies show up under "My Rentals" when you go into the Movie pass/Dish Platinum section of the menus, not with your normal recordings (that would have made too much sense).

Also I found that their estimates as to how long it will take for a movie to be available to be way higher than actuals.

 

[brin]

You are. Another part of their horrible interface. The movies show up under "My Rentals" when you go into the Movie pass/Dish Platinum section of the menus, not with your normal recordings (that would have made too much sense).

Also I found that their estimates as to how long it will take for a movie to be available to be way higher than actuals.

Thanks Wayne...that really helps a lot ..I have not checked there...I was just checking " My recordings " ..the installer from Dish was just in and out and never stopped to explain anything and this new DVR 722K is so different from the last one we had , I am going through a learning curve and you just helped a lot...Thanks again, and you are right...it would have made too much sense ..

 

[dmccarty]

There seems to be a big learning curve....

The WD power line Ethernet network equipment showed up yesterday. There are several companies selling this stuff but I think they are all selling the same core hardware. From reading prior to buying, the hardware has to be plugged directly into the power outlet. They will not work if plugged into a power strip...

The boxes I received have plastic over the plug where the power cable connects to the box. The plastic tells you to direct connect to an outlet and not use a power strip.

So of course I had to try a power strip. :laughing: Well it ain't really a power strip, it is a dohickey that turns my two wall outlets into six.

The network did not work, as I expected but had to try, so I put the box on another outlet.

The network worked perfectly.

The DB player had Internet access and there was quite a bit of free content. Not enough to cancel our subscription but enough to try out the equipment.

Sound is not really right. Sound is played through the receiver and their might be a setting that improves the quality but I tried a bunch of things.

IF the kids where not on the Inet, streaming mostly worked. It hung up a few times. This was expected with our slow DSL.

What is now a major PITA is that I cannot get our Windows Media Center to stream to the BD player. The player is seen by the PC, sorta, but it will not play. Some people seem to have gotten it to work but others have not. Even with the latest firmware updates.

Registering the BD player with Amazon should have been simpler. It seems to be registered but I cannot seem to get video from Amazon to play. It might be that the registration needed time to go through. I will try again this evening.

Our BD player is a Sony. There was a story in the WSJ this week about Sony trying to bundle their content with other content providers like Discovery to allow Internet access to the content by passing cable and Sat.

The industry will have to make this MUCH simpler than it is right now for this to be used by many people. My BD player SHOULD do what I am trying to do but there seems there might be a problem with Sony's implementation.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

We spent the weekend streaming video from Amazon and Netflix to the BD player and TV.

It worked perfectly and we were very impressed. Not a single glitch when watching Amazon and Netflix. Ironically, the little bit of Directv we watched over the weekend, had a bit of a problem for a second or two.

Our DSL is only 1.5MB down. Even with that slow speed we were able to watch streaming video on the TV and to at least one computer while browsing. The streaming did not stall out at all.

I still cannot get the BD player to be seen by the Wndows streaming software. The PC sees the BD player, knows it is a BD player, but the Media Player does not see the BD. Given how well the Amazon and Netflix streaming is working this is not really important. We would like to stream our music and photos to the TV but we can do this with a USB drive.

Some of the "channels" on the BD player do not work as well as Amazon and Netflix. They would pause and the sound was not good.

Amazon Prime provides a bunch of videos as part of the service for no charge to stream. BUT not all videos are free. The Sony BD player's menu seems to change from power on to power on. Odd but not that big of a deal. The Amazon Prime menu leads one to believe that all of the videos are free. I THINK they have just linked to ALL of the Amazon video library which is fine but we did not expect to be charged for video listed under Amazon Prime.

So far the only video I want to watch that has a cost is a history program that covers Chesty Puller. I might have to break down and buy that one.

A problem with the Amazon and Netflix is finding content. It is not that hard and there is a search function but having to type in a name off of what is basically a phone key setup is a bit slow. It works though.

I have been rewatching the All Creature Great and Small series which I have not seen in years. I have wanted to by the DVDs but the series is very expensive. Like hundreds of dollars expensive. Over the weekend we watched Star Trek, Pink Panther, Fraggle Rock, All Creatures, Fraiser, and a show on Roman History. Not one blip.

We will use this setup for the rest of the year. If it continues to work as well as it has this week end Directv is gone. Amazon and Netflix is $16 a month vs almost $90 for Directv. It is MUCH nicer getting your show on YOUR schedule.

Our problem with the streaming is Disney content. There is some content on Netflix but not a lot. Worse case, we can just buy DVDs. The amount of money being saved per month over Directv can buy quite a few DVDs per month. This would not be a problem except for the kids.

The other problem is streaming the same content to two TV at the same time. Not sure if that can be resolved.

What is really obvious is that having a PC connected to the TV to provide content is likely a good thing. Searching for videos on Amazon, Netflix and our own music and photos would be easier from a PC connected to the TV. A dedicated PC to do this is about $400. We might buy one next year. Maybe.

Later,
Dan

 

[viceprincipal]

Sling products generally are intended to enable you to stream out things you have recorded. If I buy the Dish Network Sling device I'm thinking of, it would allow my to connect to my DVR from any computer/device on the internet, and watch the shows that I've recorded on my home DVR. Not sure if that is what is causing your confusion. I have Dish Network, and the ViP 722K DVR, but don't have their BlockBuster streaming, I use Netflix over our AppleTV, and as someone already mentioned, it is true streaming. I hit play, and within about 3 seconds the show starts.

 

[Rocksprings]

I have no idea what you all are talking about. I will have my grand son explain everything to me.

 

[MarkV]

I have no idea what you all are talking about. I will have my grand son explain everything to me.

+1 :confused2: Who would have thought that watching TV would become so difficult. Now I can hardly afford it and I can't hook it up. :ashamed:

MarkV

 

[brin]

Well, we have upgraded our Dish Network to the Blockbuster Movie pass and the 722k DVR and it still will not stream movies....we can see the offerings and they are marked free...so we click on it and a download button comes up..we click on that and a watch button comes up ...We click on that and it tells us it will be ready to view in anywhere from 1 hr and so many minutes up to 1 day or more...When we check back there are no movies there to view..nothing has downloaded ...I have called Dish and they act like nothing is wrong...What the heck they call streaming is much different than what I call streaming...streaming to me ...means I click watch and it streams right then and there and may have some pauses etc. but none the less it is at least streaming...not the case here...I will get to the bottom of it.

 

[cfabe]

Brin, your internet connection is too slow for Dish to stream. What type of internet service are you using? The Dish Online / Blockbuster content will stream with only a short (30 seconds) delay up front, if you have a fast enough connection. It can sense that your internet service is too slow to stream so it only gives you the option to download it and watch later.

I've monitored what mine uses, and it will use from 10-20 meg (megabits per second) to stream an HD movie. SD would probably be a bit less. Of all the streaming video services I've used, Netflix, Hulu, etc, Dish streaming needs the highest internet speeds. Netflix will work fine on a 3 meg connection.

If you have it hooked up via wifi, that might also be the problem. You can try running an ethernet cable right from your router to the DVR, to eliminate that possible problem.

 

[brin]

Brin, your internet connection is too slow for Dish to stream. What type of internet service are you using? The Dish Online / Blockbuster content will stream with only a short (30 seconds) delay up front, if you have a fast enough connection. It can sense that your internet service is too slow to stream so it only gives you the option to download it and watch later.

I've monitored what mine uses, and it will use from 10-20 meg (megabits per second) to stream an HD movie. SD would probably be a bit less. Of all the streaming video services I've used, Netflix, Hulu, etc, Dish streaming needs the highest internet speeds. Netflix will work fine on a 3 meg connection.

If you have it hooked up via wifi, that might also be the problem. You can try running an ethernet cable right from your router to the DVR, to eliminate that possible problem.

That well may be it ...I checked my Internet speed with the link Bird posted the other day and it was 3.3 bbps on the download and .65 mbps on the upload - I don't know if that is fast enough or not...but it is the best offered by Windstream, our local phone company. What do you think ?