Demand Five

Demand Five

Je ne suis pas impressionné…

Every since Neighbors started airing on FIve I’ve started watching more and more of the channel.  I find that watching House in the early afternoon really chills me out and in the evenings there is often a good documentary or film showing.  However as I often forget about the channel, I have found myself missing shows and wishing for a Video On Demand service, one not dissimilar to BBC iPlayer or the offerings from Channel 4 and ITV.

As you can imagine, I was overjoyed when I caught a trailer for Five’s ‘Demand Five’ video on demand over IP (or VoDoIP for short – you can quote me on that) services.  With both download and streaming versions of the show I felt fairly sure they’d support Mac – after all the other big players implemented streaming support to facilitate the Mac users.

After rushing to the site, watching a flash trailer for a show and creating a user account the Five website finally tells me that because I’m a Mac users I won’t be able to play.  Geez, way to go.  At least Channel Four told me as soon as I landed on their websites – not after I first invest fifteen minutes of my time an forfeit my privacy.

Demand “Five Demand” for Mac!

12 Responses to “Demand Five”

  1. mel 8 September 2008 at 1.28am #

    I love the fact you watch House. I love the dry humor on that show. Thank goodness for “on demand” video. Life is too crazy and hectic to plan around a specific tv show time.

  2. Rogers Starks 8 September 2008 at 6.19am #

    Demand Five; with House in the morning. Looks like a very good lineup. Here again, new technology at its best. Need it, just need it badly.

  3. Matt 8 September 2008 at 12.18pm #

    Who does not love Deman five, along with house. Thanks to VOD we are able to watch such things at anytime we want.

  4. Ganj 29 September 2008 at 7.50pm #

    It all sounded good, then nothing actually works on it at all, for me anyway. The only things I’ve been able to watch are the adverts before the programs. Then nothing. The live chat keeps being aborted by my internet explorer (I haven’t got round to installing firefox yet) and the send email option takes me back to the login page forever more. Frustration!!

  5. Kyri 5 December 2008 at 8.05pm #

    How long does it take to sort a FLASH PLAYER out for demand five!!!!!!!!!???? BBC have got it sorted with their iplayer as it allows ALL its users to watch what they want and not just people with windows PCs!!!!!!!

    Five have been saying, for a while now, they’re doing their best to sort it out when, CLEARLY, they’re NOT!!!!!! If they were trying their best, it would have been sorted a long time ago now!!!! I mean….if it was that difficult….how come BBC managed to do it!!?? (They, OBVIOUSLY, care A LOT more about their viewers)!!!!!!!

    Just scrap this player and put in flash player!!! SIMPLE!!!

    If they actually cared about their viewers they’d have got it sorted by now!!

    I actually can’t believe how long it’s taking!!!!

    When I first tried using demand five, it told me, because I’m a Mac user, it wouldn’t work but rest assured, they were doing all they could to sort it out!!! (That’s MORE THAN fair enough)…. but I come on…. OVER HALF A YEAR LATER, and still doesn’t work!!!!

    If that “isn’t giving a crap about your viewers!!!” I don’t know what is!!!

  6. Margot Fee 1 January 2009 at 9.21pm #

    Disappointed not to be able to use ‘Demand 5′ on my Mac. I live in an area that does not receive Channel 5. I was hoping to watch the Christmas lectures. Why Is this so?

  7. Laurence Mettam 3 January 2009 at 10.27am #

    Apple UK should throw some of its marketing money at these issues and ‘help’ Channel 5 and Channel 4 to get their acts together. It is crazy that C5 and C4 haven’t sorted out a Mac solution yet. The BBC’s iPlayer works brilliantly – even though the Mac version is limited to browser-only play back – so there really is no excuse for the other channels to get something working.

  8. christine c 9 January 2009 at 7.41pm #

    it would be nice if the episodes played properly instead of freezing all the time

  9. karl 11 January 2009 at 1.38pm #

    it doesn’t even work for windows users so your not alone

  10. Jaime 13 March 2009 at 2.45pm #

    This is a very poor video on demand site!!!!! Compared to BBCi player it comes no where near!! Unable to play video and I am very frustrated at watching the adverts beforehand over & over again!!! Why am I always able to watch these and not the program?

  11. Tommy Wingerson 2 February 2010 at 7.16pm #

    Very good text. I’ve found your site via Yahoo and I’m really happy about the information you provide in your articles. Btw your sites layout is really broken on the Chrome browser. Would be great if you could fix that. Anyhow keep up the great work!


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