Curious as to people's opinions on the On Command Movie System which is at most Marriott hotels.

I'll start: I think the remote control is really bad. Movies are overpriced - to say the least.

I can use it in the dark so it can't be that bad.

Not if people are willing to order them, as thousands do every day.

I don't watch the movies. For the prices, I'd rather go to a theater.

I do hate the remote control. And the fact that the TV comes up on the barker channel every time you turn it on.

I've never bought a movie at Marriotts--don't enjoy movies nearly enough to spend the money. And the remote is terrible--no "last channel" button? Almost enough to drive me to RI's!

I dislike the fact that, in order to get the bandwidth to offer Pay-per-porn, they have to limit the choice of basic cable channels. Some FI and CY properties used to offer the full (60+) channel basic cable but now offer OnCommand with much fewer choices of other channels.

The OCV system movies and television programming are completely separate entities. The television programming is coming from one source (satelite or cable) and the movies from another. The decrease in cable channels is primarily due to them switching over to a DirectTV or similar service from the standard cable that is offered in their respective locale. This decision is based on a number of items. Obviously, cost is one. Cable companies are raising their rates significantly in many markets. The second item of note is that their is a dual responsibility for the reception of cable channels when dealing with both OCV and the cable company - each one wants to blame the other for poor reception. Having two vendors with interfacing technology prohibits the hotel from dictating liability in the contract(s) for this. Having one vendor (OCV in this case) to provide both services (PPV movies and television programming) is the answer (OCV guarantees and is responsible for both picture quality/reception/etc.).

Hope this helps out a bit.

I agree,

Seasons Greetings....

While I sincerely appreciate your detailed answer, in the final analysis, the guest gets the short end of the stick.

I would respectfully disagree with your point re: "decrease in channels due to switch to Direct TV" - for years (way, way before Direct TV), the number of channels offered at a lot of full-service Marriotts has indeed been (imho) extremely limited.

One needs to look at this on a hotel-by-hotel basis.

At one time, a fair number of properties utilized the local cable provider for video content. Often that was 30 channels or more. Over the years and with the expansion of DirecTV, most of those hotels migrated from cable to satellite. At those properties, this led to fewer channels.

Most of the hotels that had a limited lineup prior to DirecTV relied on large dish (e.g., C-band) satellite programming, which was HLN, HBO, ESPN and not much more. At those properties, the switch to DirecTV led to more channels.

I really like the On Command movies, particularly in bad weather when you are stuck in the room. What I don't like about the remote is that it is the dirtiest, most germy thing in the room.