Imagine, if you will: It’s a nice quiet Sunday at the Sweet household. I’ve got decent internet speeds. I always get sustained transfers of 60-75Mbps and bursts much higher. If it’s just me at home then I don’t have to worry about anyone else sucking bandwidth. It should be the perfect recipe for getting streaming 4K content.
I’d been keeping a Vudu gift card around for a while, not knowing what to do with it. This would be the day I decided to use up that gift card. I hadn’t yet seen Bohemian Rhapsody, the film everyone was talking about. It’s full of songs I like and I know the story. So why not watch?
I sat down to rent it from Vudu and everything was just fine…
Until.
As soon as the songs started playing, the audio started dropping in and out. I even got the dreaded “buffering” message. Needless to say I was embarrassed. I’d invited friends over to watch with me and to have this happen. What could I do? After trying a few times I had no choice but to manually step the quality down to HD and enjoy the rest of the film in glorious 1080p. (Just now, I heard that “Debbie Downer” sound in my head.)
What went wrong? I had plenty of bandwidth. My connection was solid. None of my friends were playing on their phones. The only possible answer is that Vudu’s own servers couldn’t put out data fast enough. That’s pretty depressing. Worst of all it was totally unnecessary.
Choose DIRECTV for 4K pay-per-view
When you get 4K pay per view from DIRECTV, it comes one of two ways, depending on your choice. If you just tune to the 4K DIRECTV Cinema channel, you can watch the movie live. You’ll get perfect picture and sound, plus a rock-solid picture that won’t drop or buffer, ever. However, if you think heavy rain is on the horizon, you can choose option 2. By choosing the movie on demand, it will download over the internet instead of using your satellite connection. Many popular films actually pre-download so you don’t have to wait for them.
With 4K downloading, there’s never any drop in quality. You start recording a few minutes before you want to start, to build up a little bit of a pad. Or, you can even plan ahead and download the whole movie ahead of time. Usually you have 30 days from the time you download to actually purchase.
Either way, you get the clearest picture, the best sound, and it’s not going to leave you in the lurch and give your friends the opportunity to make fun of you. Oh DIRECTV, I should never have forsaken you. I’ve learned my lesson though… it’s DIRECTV from now on!
Not getting 4K yet?
If you have a 4K TV and you don’t have 4K DIRECTV equipment yet, you’re only seeing half the picture. Our Signal Connect team can get you upgraded in a flash, send you equipment and, if you want they can even arrange installation. It all starts with a call to 888-233-7563 or just fill out the form below.
