Rogers on Demand online launches next week
Last week, Digital Home told you about a new online on-demand service from Rogers which would deliver a selection of TV programming to customer’s computers.
Last night, the company announced the online portal would launch next Monday November 30th with approximately 1,500 videos and 15 content providers.
Content providers include Rogers properties such as SportsNet and CityTV along with TVO, Treehouse, and SuperChannel. Rogers cable and wireless customers will require a username and password to access to the portal and customers will only get access to content they subscribe.
Simple speaking, if you don’t subscribe to a channel such as Sportsnet through Rogers Cable then you won’t have access to it on your computer.
The company says it will allow concurrent logins raising the potential for abuse, however, Rogers says it will be monitoring accounts for abuse. The company did not say what criteria it would use to establish when customers are “abusing” the service.
Unlike most cable on demand services which remove advertising, online viewers will be required to watch commercials and will not be able to fast forward through them. While navigating the portal, users will be required to view banner ads and other online promotional material. Once the tv shows begin, commercial programs, such as those seen on CityTV and Sportsnet will air with commercials.
The shows will be streamed at a low quality 480 kps with an option to be delivered at a higher quality 1 Mbps. Although more than twice the low quality feed, the 1 Mbps option is still much less than the high definition video you receive on your television, which is typically 12 to 14 Mbps per second. Clearly this online on-demand service is best used for viewing on your computer or your wireless phone.
Rogers High Speed Internet customers should note that the Rogers On Demand online service will count towards their bandwidth cap meaning a high quality feed could use up a gigabyte of bandwidth in just over two hours.
Discuss in our Rogers Digital Cable forum.
I was looking forward to this but some if the things here make it seem less appealing: Ads (We’re paying for this, for crap’s sake!), lack of HD, this going towards the bandwith cap (granted, I might be more pissed if it didn’t and Rogers went against net neutrality). I just want to confirm: do we need to be at home with a Rogers web modem to use it, as I have heard before? Or can we use it anywhere?
Speculation originally was that authentication would be through the cable box (very secure) but its actually just a username and password (not secure at all)
This means you can watch it anywhere inside Canada. IP addresses outside Canada will be blocked.
Seems silly to block non-Canadian IPs if you need to log into your Rogers account to watch. If you have an account, wouldn’t it be clear enough that you’re Canadian?
That said, I am happy that they aren’t doing modem authentication. Yet, since I only have basic cable and CityTV already shows their shows online, I have to wonder what use this might have for me.
Not really considering that content rights are limited to regions, not users.
Horrible concept rogers. Just even more gouging. Besides having to subscribe to their cable packages consisting of mostly cbc and ctv in different time zones (which rogers itself doesn’t pay for but charges you anyways) you have to use your monthly allotment of data to view it. Thats double dipping. Its like subscribing to cable and then having to pay extra to see it. Only an idiot would see this as something good. You can get it for free without subscribing to cable by going to ctv or cbc directly on the web and watch what shows you want without all the commercials.
great more to against the bandwidth cap. if you want media to flow freely online you must remove this cap. if i am already paying for the tv program why must i pay for it again online. give me one data source that covers itnernet and cable all at one, digitally. There is no need for two services, it is esentially one service packaged nicely to rip you off.
I only have rogers cable i have bell as my isp.Will i be able to access tthe ondmeand service with sympatico.
Now I know why Rogers throttles the internet, to make way for their own content.
Free eh? They are really sneaky. They will get people to rely on their programming again, then turn on the meter just when you get hooked! …. oh and guess what, Hulu is now starting to charge for it’s content.
Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Just dl using torrents, commercial free and better quality
Just go to HULU.Com and save yourself the headache. (remember to use a good proxy server)
hahahahahha, gay!
usenet binaries ftw!
I wish the telecommunications providers would focus more on the commodity they are in – namely providing reliable, fast means for customers to transfer data. In my eyes as a consumer, this is another way to waste money on redundant services that I have little interest in, instead of upgrading or improving the actual network. This is made worse by the fact that mobile telecom in Canada is an olygopoly with little to no competition. Sigh…