On Demand
How it Works
With On Demand, the program you want starts whenever you press "play." Choose from movies, current TV hits and enduring classics. All it takes is Digital Cable service and a button on your remote control. Like magic, you can select, pause, rewind, fast-forward and enjoy the programs you want, whenever you want. No late fees, no waiting for DVDs in the mail, no hurried trips to the video store. On Demand is the at-your-service way to enjoy television more than ever.
Sound too good to be true? Not this time. With On Demand, you can select, watch, pause, rewind or fast-forward your program whenever you're ready.
For some movies and selected shows, there's a viewing charge (typically cable companies charge about what you'd pay to rent a DVD at a local video store). For a growing number of On Demand programs, however, there's no charge at all (no kidding!). And another popular option lets viewers who subscribe to premium channels like Starz!, HBO or Showtime watch movies and shows from those TV networks On Demand. In other words, if you subscribe to HBO and you have On Demand from your cable company, you can watch HBO movies and current episodes of programs you want. They're stored in the On Demand library for you.
Of course, cable companies aren't about to stop delivering channels the old-fashioned way. Most TV watching still happens in what industry participants call a "linear" manner: A network presents a show at 8 p.m., and you tune in to watch. But On Demand is growing fast. The largest U.S. cable company, Comcast, says its customers have now used On Demand more than 13 billion times since 2003. Those are the kinds of numbers that indicate On Demand is here to stay.
On Demand connects your TV sets to a library of movies and TV shows that are stored by your cable company. Think of it as a huge “bank” of movies and television shows. Each of the shows or movies is stored in digital format (many are now even in HD!) to preserve perfect reproduction values. The beauty is in the convenience and choice. On your schedule, you select your show from a menu that appears on your TV screen, and within seconds, the program begins to play. Using your remote control, you can pause, rewind or fast-forward at any time. It’s TV your way.