Demand Five. But you’ll have to wait.
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Posted by James Kilgour | Posted in TV, Technology | Posted on 19-07-2008
Tags: 5, Demand 5, James Kilgour, Television, TV, VOD
Here in the UK, we have never have to miss any TV program, thanks to VOD (Video on Demand) services, available for BBC, ITV and Channel 4 programs. Now to join the band wagon is Channel 5. That channel that nobody really watches, (except for Neighbours obviously).
Demand Five is essentially the same as the other Catchup services, except for one difference. Speed. It takes a few extra seconds than normal for the video to start, but worse. Once the program of choice begins, it starts to stutter and freeze, and the audio has a slight Internet-style tinge, which is annoying.
More to the point though, what are people actually going to watch on it? In my opinion, the only program that Five actually show than anybody watches is Neighbours (which Five don’t actually produce). Who bothers with ‘Fifth Gear’, which really is just a bad, cheap version of ‘Top Gear’ on BBC 2, or ‘The Gadget Show’? The only other good thing on Five is the movies they show at the weekend (again, not produced by Five). Unfortunately, these aren’t available on the VOD service.
One of the big problems with Five though is signal quality. Half of my neighbours even can’t get Five anyway! Watching any Five produced program, it is obvious of how low budget they are. The presenters are usually rubbish, and the ad breaks last for an eternity! Someone could die during one of them!
JK
In my experience I have not experienced any problems with Demand Five or Channel Five. Sure, you get to enjoy a short advertisement, and watch you desired content stream with quite fantastic quality as good as BBC Iplayer. At least Demand Five quality is better than ITV and 4oD.
I quite enjoy the Pay content also as I get to watch my favorite American Import episodes such as Grey’s Anatomy and CIS for no more than £0.99p per episode, you can also sometimes enjoy the luxury of watching it before its actually shown on TV, when you are so busy to watch it on TV or even when you have PROBLEMS receiving the channel on your TV!
From what I gather Demand Five gives you an option of downloading some chosen series/episodes in HD format, if you prefer watching it on with perfection for £1.99 but not really my cup-a-tea I think the quality is excellent for their normal download even on full screen.
=)
SZ
[...] 8, 2008 You may have read my article: Demand Five. But you’ll have to wait. The other day, my Spam filter flagged this comment on the article: In my experience I have not [...]
i total agree and know they have changed it so that there is adds in the middle of Neighbours cus i had been watch ondemand as this ment no brakes like it use to be on bbc