Comcast aiming for 6000 on-demand movies per month, half in HD

by Darren Murph, posted Jan 14th 2008 at 11:53AM

Comcast had a fairly large presence at CES this year, but somehow this tidbit managed to slip through the cracks. Nevertheless, we felt it prudent to point out that the cable company is apparently looking to offer up some 6,000 movies per month through its On Demand service, and best of all, over half of those will be available in high-definition. Currently, "just" 1,300 selections are being made available each month, and while a definitive date isn't given, we are told not to expect the increase (at least in full) until sometime "next year." We've got it marked down Comcast -- and we'll be holdin' you to it, capisce? [Warning: PDF read link]

Filed under: Cable, New content

Tags: ces 2008, Ces2008, comcast, expansion, hd vod, HdVod, video-on-demand, vod

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Highly Ranked

Big Wizz @ Jan 14th 2008 2:04PM

I think Comcast might fall a bit short of their goal if Rob Schnider appears in the majority of the movies...

Neutral

Todd @ Jan 14th 2008 2:33PM

When will I be able to watch that On Demand content through my Series 3 TiVo with Cable Cards (tru2way) or whatever they are calling them these days? I don't want to have to pay to rent a cable box and switch inputs to watch On Demand content and the Comcast TiVo solution doesn't cut it for me. I don't want the Motorola DVR with 2 minutes of High Def storage and a Java app slapped on top, I want my fully fledged eSATA upgradeable, TiVoToGo capable, Multi-Room Viewing, Season Pass editing, Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down rating, TiVo Suggestion recording, TiVoCast downloading, plays music from my iTunes library Series 3 TiVo. Thank you very much!

Comcast bring us On Demand to our choice of CATV tuning devices via Cable Card.

Neutral

MegaZone @ Jan 14th 2008 5:11PM

Todd - Right now there are no plans to bring VOD/PPV to unidirectional CableCARD host devices, like the TiVo. The Tuning Resolver, which is due 2Q08, will give such devices bidirectional communication, but currently it is only being developed to support Switched Digital Video tuning.

TiVo and CableLabs have come to an agreement on a compromise which would see a TiVo/OCAP hybrid model: http://www.tivolovers.com/2007/11/28/tivo-to-embrace-ocap-on-their-hardware/

The classic TiVo interface would be used for all linear content, while OCAP applications would be used for VOD/PPV. It isn't clear if this would require a new hardware platform from TiVo, or if this could be done on today's S3/HD hardware with a software update and a Tuning Resolver to handle the communication.

And EngadgetHD - Nice use of the Comcast TiVo screen. ;-)

Neutral

Marrvia @ Jan 14th 2008 7:36PM

I think this is good and all, but I would prefer more HD channels. On Demand is good, but I don't really use it that often, I like just tuning into channels. And On Demand would be way better if you could continue to watch what you are watching on TV while you browse, instead of that very annoying E! network shit that pops up. I can't stand that.

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