VOD : BBC CatchUp

[japitts]

Can't help but have noticed lately, that the reliability of BBC CatchUp OD especially has gone noticeably downhill.

A few weeks ago, "Britain & the Sea" was available on "series stack" for the first few episodes in SD as expected, with the HD equivalent each week. 2 episodes from the end, the SD version stopped being loaded and was never resolved. Faults were logged, and the HD episodes were ok.. but that's not the point if you don't have an HD-TV. Also that series-stacking failed outright.

"All Aboard now" on Sky 1 (Sky OD), episode 2 in HD never appeared, despite faults being logged - not critical, it was available in SD ok, but again...

Currently, "The Great Train Robbery" from earlier this week. There's a thread about this on the VM Support site, but I fully expect this to not be resolved intime and for people to miss out.

Episode 1 is available in SD & HD but cuts out after 35-odd minutes (it's a 90minute show) so actually isn't available, Episode 2 is only available in HD.

I've also noticed Newsnight is available in HD for Monday 16th, but not the rest of the week - only SD. This is the first time that it's been available OD in HD, so fault or "testing"?.. No idea.

What makes this worse is the CS process to report such errors. The forum team do their best but simply don't have the response times to deal with these faults in a timely manner. The phone team simply are not geared up for it, and seem to initially insist on rebooting your box until that doesn't fix it, then become fixated on the idea that your program is a known fault and that's it. Invariably it either isn't, or the fault never gets fixed and "times out".

Just a feeling at the moment, that if OD is supposedly a great USP of VM... they're not really delivering the goods at the moment. I've got V+ and with the exception of Newsnight, I had all these shows recorded anyway. But again, it's not the point.

Sorry to rant.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by japitts

Can't help but have noticed lately, that the reliability of BBC CatchUp OD especially has gone noticeably downhill.

A few weeks ago, "Britain & the Sea" was available on "series stack" for the first few episodes in SD as expected, with the HD equivalent each week. 2 episodes from the end, the SD version stopped being loaded and was never resolved. Faults were logged, and the HD episodes were ok.. but that's not the point if you don't have an HD-TV. Also that series-stacking failed outright.

"All Aboard now" on Sky 1 (Sky OD), episode 2 in HD never appeared, despite faults being logged - not critical, it was available in SD ok, but again...

Currently, "The Great Train Robbery" from earlier this week. There's a thread about this on the VM Support site, but I fully expect this to not be resolved intime and for people to miss out.

Episode 1 is available in SD & HD but cuts out after 35-odd minutes (it's a 90minute show) so actually isn't available, Episode 2 is only available in HD.

I've also noticed Newsnight is available in HD for Monday 16th, but not the rest of the week - only SD. This is the first time that it's been available OD in HD, so fault or "testing"?.. No idea.

What makes this worse is the CS process to report such errors. The forum team do their best but simply don't have the response times to deal with these faults in a timely manner. The phone team simply are not geared up for it, and seem to initially insist on rebooting your box until that doesn't fix it, then become fixated on the idea that your program is a known fault and that's it. Invariably it either isn't, or the fault never gets fixed and "times out".

Just a feeling at the moment, that if OD is supposedly a great USP of VM... they're not really delivering the goods at the moment. I've got V+ and with the exception of Newsnight, I had all these shows recorded anyway. But again, it's not the point.

Sorry to rant.

Yes, very annoying. On demand has always had issues with it, which has deterred me from relying on it. I make use of it from time to time, but I would never use it to follow a series because (a) the episodes are not always complete and (b) the programme can be withdrawn from the system without notice.

As I had run out of tuners recently, I was unable to record the first three episodes of 'Revolution' from Sky 1. Mistake! Episode 2 never made it to the system.

If Virgin Media want to remain ahead and encourage people to use On Demand, the quality control needs to be a lot better. Blaming the programme provider for these problems just doesn't cut it I'm afraid. If it is not reliable, people won't use it so much.