Cable companies are trying to convince me OnDemand is better than Netflix, because I can rent, say, Sherlock Holmes right now.
It’s true, I can. I have to wait a month for Netflix. I also don’t have to pay 7 dollars for the movie when it comes out, fight through the awful OnDemand interface, tiling, and every other problem the cable company can throw at me.
You know what else is shitty about OnDemand? EVERYTHING.
In my attempts to watch The Ricky Gervais Show on it, the episode listing is as such.
The Ricky Gervais Show: Episo…
The Ricky Gervais Show: Episo…
The Ricky Gervais Show: Episo…
The Ricky Gervais Show: Episo…
The Ricky Gervais Show: Episo…
The Ricky Gervais Show: Episo…
Seeing the problem here? No? That’s because you use common sense. You presume the episode listing is number one at the top and six at the bottom, or reverse depending on how they sort. But you, sir, are wrong.
The current order is 4, 3, 6, 5, 2, 1. You can’t tell, however, without another menu dive, and then backing out of it, which takes you back to the HBO series menu, then back to Ricky Gervais, then down to the next episode. God forbid OnDemand actually remember where you were in a menu. Or work. Episode six is actually episode four right now. And for some reason there’s no HD option for HBO. There’s no HD option for a lot of things, but as HBO costs good money, I’d expect it.
But this is the same company who’s DVRs forget to record all the time, and whose buffer is randomly deleted. For those not in the know, the DVRs are supposed to record the last hour of TV on the channel you’re on, so you can rewind or replay. Great idea, right? Doesn’t work. Cox sends out a signal bump three or four times a day that deletes the buffer. If you’re behind you’ll be shot up to the live signal, and what you were watching is gone. Hopefully you didn’t start recording late, because if you did, the end of it just got cut off. For some reason, the software acts like its copying from VHS rather than a digital source, committing information to the drive in real time. If you start recording at 7, you’re done at 8. If you start recording at 7:05, however, even if you’re watching live, the recording ends at 8:05. It’s the same data was was from 7 to 8, but it’s off by that amount of time. And if the data gets reset at 8, you just lost the last five minutes. It’s one of the many, many things brought to you by shitty Scientific Atlanta programming and Cox’s insistence that the box they’re charging you $12 a month for is high quality.
I’ll have more examples of how this is the opposite of truth soon, I’ve got a nice notepad file of notes growing.