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I've been playing around with the new On Demand feature from Cox cable and my first impressions are that it's pretty cool.
Oddly, I received no notification from Cox that they had activated the program in my area, I was just channel surfing and discovered it on Channel 1.
They have a bunch of SD movies but I started with the HD section. They offered about 50 choices and I rented "The Bee Movie". The nice thing about On Demand is that you pick the movie and it starts immediately (contrary to Pay Per View) and you can start and stop it as you please. The movie is available to you for 24 hours.
I thought the HD picture quality was excellent. I don't have a blu-ray player(yet) to compare it with, but it sure looked good to me. Sound was typically good 5.1 Dolby Digital.
Downside (especially to my wife) is that the movie cost $6.99. I assume the SD movies aren't this much, but that seemed a little high to us. She kept reminding me that net flix was cheaper through out the movie.
Another feature that was kinda neat is that you can select something called "Freezone" which allows you access to a wide variety of programming that is frankly too expansive to cover completely here. This section, obviously, is free. For example you can pick programs that you wish to view from many channels including HD channels and "kids" programming (nickelodeon,PBS, nick jr, and many more---very, very cool for those of us with little kids!).
You can go to health and fitness channels and work out with Bob and Jillian from the Biggest Loser or watch Carmen Electra work out (took a quick glance at that after the wife went to bed
). You can go to the Basic Guitar channel and learn how to play or pick a celebrity teacher to give you a lesson.
If you want to see a concert or musical artist you can go the list and pick from a wide variety....Sheryl Crow, Paul Rodgers, Steve Winwood, etc., and watch some or all of their shows.
Movies, music, TV programs.....it's all there and "On Demand" for your convenience.
Just the tip of the interactive tv experience iceberg, but still pretty cool :T .
Oddly, I received no notification from Cox that they had activated the program in my area, I was just channel surfing and discovered it on Channel 1.
They have a bunch of SD movies but I started with the HD section. They offered about 50 choices and I rented "The Bee Movie". The nice thing about On Demand is that you pick the movie and it starts immediately (contrary to Pay Per View) and you can start and stop it as you please. The movie is available to you for 24 hours.
I thought the HD picture quality was excellent. I don't have a blu-ray player(yet) to compare it with, but it sure looked good to me. Sound was typically good 5.1 Dolby Digital.
Downside (especially to my wife) is that the movie cost $6.99. I assume the SD movies aren't this much, but that seemed a little high to us. She kept reminding me that net flix was cheaper through out the movie.
Another feature that was kinda neat is that you can select something called "Freezone" which allows you access to a wide variety of programming that is frankly too expansive to cover completely here. This section, obviously, is free. For example you can pick programs that you wish to view from many channels including HD channels and "kids" programming (nickelodeon,PBS, nick jr, and many more---very, very cool for those of us with little kids!).
You can go to health and fitness channels and work out with Bob and Jillian from the Biggest Loser or watch Carmen Electra work out (took a quick glance at that after the wife went to bed
). You can go to the Basic Guitar channel and learn how to play or pick a celebrity teacher to give you a lesson.If you want to see a concert or musical artist you can go the list and pick from a wide variety....Sheryl Crow, Paul Rodgers, Steve Winwood, etc., and watch some or all of their shows.
Movies, music, TV programs.....it's all there and "On Demand" for your convenience.
Just the tip of the interactive tv experience iceberg, but still pretty cool :T .
Works for me! Anyways on demand works and looks great especially the HD stuff. At least as good as it can look over cable. I definitely don't like the compression but I can live with it its not so horrible that I can't watch. It's kind of like a good HD DIVx compression. My biggest complaint with on demand is that Showtime has HD on demand but HBO doesn't... not sure if thats due to Comcast or HBO.
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