Rogers On-Demand Online Coming Soon!

Yesterday, Rogers held an event to showcase its upcoming online on-demand service which would deliver a variety of TV programming to customer’s computers.

Currently, it is in closed private beta-testing and is slated to launch to the public on Monday November 30th with approximately 1,500 videos and 15 content providers.

Content providers include Rogers-owned media such as SportsNet and CityTV along with TVO, Treehouse, and SuperChannel. Rogers is aiming to add a new content partner every single week for the next twelve months.

Rogers cable and wireless customers (as well as Fido wireless customers) will require a username and password to access to the portal and customers will only get access to content they subscribe. If you do not subscribe to a channel through Rogers cable, you cannot access it through Rogers On-Demand Online (RODO). (Fido wireless customers will get access to the equivalent of basic cable.)

Rogers will allow simultaneous concurrent logins (since many people may live in a household with a single cable account) but says it will be monitoring accounts for abuse. e.g. giving out your username/password to too many people.

RODO will be ad-supported but unlike US-based services like Hulu (which are unavailable in Canada), online viewers will be required to watch commercials and will not be able to fast forward through them. The content portal will also display banner ads and other online promotional material. Once the specific show being watched begins, commercial programs, such as those seen on CityTV and Sportsnet will also air with commercials.

Consumers will be able to search the portal by genre, title, top rated, etc. similar to other online video sites. You will be able to rewind, pause and fast forward through shows (but not 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 on television, which is typically 12 to 14 Mbps per second just for video (add in more for surround sound). As such, this online on-demand service is aimed at computers and mobile devices like smartphones.

The only caveat is that RODO will count towards the traffic allotment of Rogers cable Internet subscribers (if viewed through that connection) meaning a high quality feed could use up a gigabyte of bandwidth in just over two hours. This is a definite downside and hopefully Rogers will address this issue with higher traffic limits. The only solace is that overage fees are capped at $25/month for most cable Internet tiers.

The Rogers On-Demand website is located at http://www.rogersondemand.com/

Let the time-shifting, location-independent TV-viewing begin!