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Voom No More
RokaMoka writes "Today the world got a little fuzzier. Voom has announced thay they are shutting down. As a subscriber I can tell you they will be sorely missed, as they far better than the competition.
For those of you who are not familiar with voom, they had 3 times as many HiDef channels as the next competitor and a really nice remote control. It sure was pretty while it lasted." I think they died because they don't have a PVR. Hi-Def folks are early adopters and they want the technology. Of course, with all the mess swirling around DirecTV's move to Mpeg4 and the obsolesence of the HD-Tivo, it will be interesting to see what happens next.
simple as that.
It should have been known from the get go that they were to be the next primestar, pvr and hd aside they lacked over all crap channel capacity, and yes in TV its not just the quality its the quantity
Can someone clue me in about directtv and mpeg4?
Ironically, me and my Scottish friend were discussing this yesterday
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
More info about voom here.
And shit content, there isn't 3x more HD channels than the next provider, they had a bunch of homemade channels and they just aren't big enough to carry that. They'd need 10s of millions of subscribers to pay for all of that.
That sucks! I was looking into getting Voom's service this summer. Oh well, I guess I'll stick with my local cable company's service. I also wasn't aware that Voom didn't include a PVR service, so I can see where that was a setback for sure. Hopefully, DirecTV will start offering more HD channels and I will start using them!
"This bird wouldn't voom if you put 10 thousand volts through it!"
if their traditional business model was failing, they could have tried an online business model based on BitTorrent.
I regularly see thousands of peers on torrents for TV shows. If Voom offered HDTV rips of popular shows, they could have had a viable business model - a TV/media form of the clicks-and-bricks model.
The reason is simple: DirecTV has already publicly announced that they will launch more satellites to provide more 720p/1080i high-definition channels from both cable channel provider and local broadcast sources.
In short, by the end of 2007 your DirecTV receiver dish will get most (if not all) your local channels broadcasting in high-definition along with high-definition signals from the cable channel providers (ESPN/ESPN2 HD, Discovery HD Theater, HDNet, HBO and Showtime in HD, etc.).
and not the markets total ignorance of their existance.
http://voom.com/ It was like that yesterday.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
40,000 subscribers = $660,000,000 in losses last year. Currently only $285M in assets (of which about $200M is their satellite). It really is amazing that their parent company allowed it to continue for as long as they did.
Too bad there wasn't a larger customer base available for HDTV.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Article
It didn't die because it didn't have PVR. It's death could partly be blamed for the internal family conflict between the Dolans.
"Earlier this year Chuck Dolan lost a boardroom battle with his son, CEO Jimmy Dolan, that resulted in the company cutting off funding for Voom. "
and
"In 2004 Voom lost $661.4 million on paltry revenues of $14.9 million, including $354.9 million in write-downs."
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
I've read numerous reports that VOOM had terrible problems trying to connect people on the west coast, as their satellite supposedly is hovering over the east coast. This meant that their satellite service was more suseptible to rain fade and the like. Anyone have anymore info?
I don't understand why these new technology providers go belly up without getting sold to someone. There is a lot of value there and just throwing it away must be a big waste.
Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
I just don't think that the time was right for HDTV sateillite service. It would have worked if it was a few years now maybe.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
I have voom and I like it, especially the kung fu, equator and monster channels. You can watch HD content on voom that you simply can't get anywhere else. With my voom package I got all of their programming plus discovery HD, UHD, and a couple of others.
One problem I had with Voom was the local channel delivery. I live in a city where and local channel broadcast power is not strong so I've missed having Fox (That 70s Show) and a few other channels most of the time.
In any case, I will miss Voom. It was a quirky service but with relatively good HD content. Dish is my next choice but their HD service is crap. I hope the satellite companies get their act together with HD soon or I might have to jump ship to cable.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
Wow, you understood that all by yourself? Thanks for lying to us to force us to read obvious-101.
-1, Troll
we dont get this kind of service where i live, so this is more a question of interest than trying to propose any kind of theory, and im no rhodes scholar, and im ignorant, so im entitled to poor use of the english language ;) so bear with me...
;)
assume english is my second language and get over it
with HD customers being early adopters 9and tehrefore something of an exception to the rule) and wanting this kind of technology, youd really want them excluded them from any kind of 'target demographic' (from our, being technology oriented people, perspective).
my question is, is the failure of this kind of service possibily damaging in a longer term where it might discourage others from attempting to provide the same kind of service? it seems a little unfair to throw the baby out with the bathwater and set the technology back years in marketing terms (and in uptake) - but in recent years that seems to be how executive types have been thinking... conservatively!
Wow! This seems kind of sudden especially since I've seen their commercials splashed all over various cable channels recently.
Support bacteria! It's the only culture most people seem to get.
I thought about getting Voom, until I read that they not only pan & scanned widescreen movies (cropping 2:35:1 movies to 1:78:1), but they also did the same thing with 1:33:1 content. I think a good chunk of the HD early-adopter crowd feels the same way, so they alienated a lot of their potential customer base by doing that.
Voom? Mate, this parrot wouldn't voom if you put four million volts through it. 'e's bleedin' demised!
So, i guess they went out with a bang eh?
BA-BING!!
Thank you, you're great! I'm here all week! Try the shrimp!
Fear ye not those of you who want your HDTV from the skies above. Apparently, DirecTV has you covered:
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/10473
While you're at it, what is HDTV? A google search lead me to nothing... :/
I am a professional satellite installer. I work for a small independent company in Washington state. We install both Dish and DTV. We looked at Zoom to see if we wanted to install it as well. It is true that all of there channels were broadcast in 1080i or 720p but most of these channels source material was not HD. Anyone who has ESPN in HD knows what I mean, just about the only time you actually get HD is Sports Center. Also there only satellite being way on the east cost made it next to impossible to get it on the west coast, line of sight was only about 8 degrees off horizon. I have Dish myself but I cant wait for DTVs mpeg4 system to come online.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The reason I did not subscribe to Voom was that they required a land-line telephone for their equipment. I am not going to pay for installation and monthly cost for a telephone line I don't need. I am not alone, a lot of people I know use cell only, one of my friends didn't get the service for the same reason.
I work at a retail store that sells Dish and Voom... Voom was the laughingstock of the store the second it came in.
It had the feel of a "fly by night" organization... the contractors who came to install it for us hadn't heard of it... the tech support number we had for them was disconnected... their HD Box, which originally sold for 800 dollars (!!) plus installation fees plus 40 bucks a month minimum, was prone to crashing. Their satellite dish locked us out of everything except "demo" mode, which meant we could showcase the exact same stupid animation show every half hour.
Every time we had a customer ask about Voom, we steered them towards Dish. A shame, too, since we got paid more for Voom than for Dish... but we couldn't in our good conscience sell that piece of crap.
Did I mention the HD channels they offered were rotten? A Fashion Show channel (high def anorexia), a Moov channel (a Winamp vis set to music), a couple of black-and-white B movie channels, a few more shitty movie channels, high definition weather (wtf?), and so on. What a waste of bandwidth.
I laughed when I heard they only had 20,000 customers after a year.
Good bye, Voom.
hookers and grits.
As a subscriber I can tell you they will be sorely missed, as they far better than the competition.
Poppycock. The hardware was prone to failure, they couldn't get their billing right, and their hardware install techs were incompetent.
My father subscribed to VOOM, and the receiver unit would lock up randomly, forcing him to UNPLUG the unit to reset it. Hard lock. After that, the unit would have forgotten all of its programming information, and it would take 3 hours to download a new schedule. DISH boxes download a new schedule within minutes.
He's had to have the unit replaced three times. On top of that, whenever a tech was scheduled to come out, there were multiple times when they would either get lost or refuse to crawl up on the roof to adjust the stupid DISH.
I say good riddance.
If I'd paid money for your "business-101" class, I'd be yelling for my money back. You just spent 20+ words to say simply "they made no profit", which is not why dotcoms fail but how they fail. The key question is, why they make no profit.
I was going to get Voom but the constant turmoil left me on the sideline. I'm not buying a $500 set-top box just to have the company shut down por have an obscene price hike. Voom's demise started in the board room.
No matter where you go , there you are.
voooo-oooooooo-ooooooommm-mmm-mmmm.
Whoever modded that funny must have meant to laugh at you or something, because indeed it is laughable. Thanks for lying, idiot.
This is really hurting HD in general, and I'm sure Voom suffered from it too.
Over half of HD content is "cheap content". That is, it is made up of either pointing a camera of things that don't have to sign a release (animals) or converting old cheap film content to HD.
Every company wants to start their own channel. Look at Universal HD. They have very little content, why don't they sell it to someone else? Why don't they air it on UPN HD? Well, no one wants to buy their content (see cheap content above) and no one wants to sell it. They'd rather squat on a channel with absolutely lousy content and hope their channel (real estate) becomes valueable later. So they don't air it on a network, they air it on their own channel.
There are two ESPNs HDs now, even though neither shows HD much of the time. Discovery has their own channel and carries 4 shows of note in HD. "Trading Spaces", "American Chopper", "Monster Garage" and I forget the other. They don't even have "Mythbusters". One channel, 4 shows total? You could air those in an evening!
The problem with companies squatting on these channels is that DTV only had bandwidth to carry maybe 25 HD channels. Eight are HD "locals" that many people can't get. 3 are decent movie channels that carry movies in HD 50% of the time or more. And the other ones carry something worthwhile about 10% of the time. So it's like having 7 HD channels. That's a pretty tough sell.
More HD content is being made every day (mostly for the networks). These channels want to carry it, but they don't want to pay for it.
What will make HD go is content.
Anyway, back to Voom. As the poster said, they had a lot of homemade channels. These channels just carried cheap content. I just can't watch that much footage of fish and prarie dogs.
As a former subscriber . . .
Most of the HD content was 20+ year old B list movies and several channels of pseudo documentary fillware.
Sure there were pretty pictures and it was dazzling to watch but not enough.
The receiver would also lock up once or twice a week and need to be powered off and re loaded, about a 45 minute process.
Voom customer service several times blamed this on over the air "software upgrades".
Eventually I called them to come get their stuff.
If there had been an HDTV viewable media at HDTV introduction things would have evolved far differently. High-end equipment owners like myself would have bought HDTV content proving the marked for HDTV content. HDTV sets would have sold because even in HDTV signal deprived areas like the one I live in, people would still have had something to watch. And with more HDTVs, more OTA HDTV transmission would come quicker. With high end users and their larger amounts of disposable income watching mostly HDTV, advertising revenues would have switched to HDTV and again faster adoption.
Of course the poor choice of modulation scheme for US transmission didn't help. There were other more robust schemes, but ignored for cost cutting reasons (which by now would have made no difference I suspect as technology marches on and becomes more affordable).
Of course all this MPEG2 vs MPEG4 and obsoleted equipment that was suppose to be cutting edge HDTV, Joe 6-pack is going to be HDTV shy even longer.
Content providers are scared shitless of the digital age, they know that once this stuff is digital anyone that waits long enough will just be able to snare it for free at whatever quality he or she wants depending on download times. I suspect also that content providers are conflicted about providing upgraded broadband as it will start to eat into their content revenues. Why would I continue to subscribe to HBO when I can just download the episode for free off the same cable?
DirectTV is promising a shit load of channels soon, so maybe this did in Voom as much as anything else. If the DirectTV line is reasonable after the new HDTV channels come on line I will probably ditch Cable and go satellite. It seems I've made the smart move in the mean time with cable, the HDTV and PVR are very affordable, but probably aren't MPEG4 compliant. Soon I will have my Blu-Ray player, 20+ HDTV channels and viewing nirvana.
For those that think I'm a little over the top on my TV viewing, I suspect I watch an average or below average amount. But what I do watch is on a glorious 10-foot screen and I only want razor sharp images on it. I spent about $4000-$5000 putting my system together and I want to get the most out of it. I personally don't understand why people would pay $50-$100 a month for cable or $600-$1200 a year, and then watch it on a $200 set from Wal-Mart.
Letter To Iran
"... can easily attest to the reality that you can't create content where none existed."
A reality realized everytime there's "Amateur Hour" on cable.
What good is HD if the content sucks?
Why would I want to watch bad programing in HD when I can ignore more cheaply in SD?
It kind of sums it up when with 180 channels of DISH
the best thing on is curling on ExpressVu.
...station to Echostar (Cablevision is the parent of Voom, Echostar the parent of DishNetwork) due to mounting losses at Cablevision attributable to Voom. Echostar was preparing to put up another satellite and the cost of the Voom bird and ground station was comparable to an actual launch, and got the new broadcast capacity operational faster. Basically Cablevision sold the assets and is now down dumping the service.
e s/10204508.html
What Echostar has planned for the new satellite has not been announced (determined?), but the Apr 30 date seems to imply that we may have to wait until at least then to find out exactly what Echostar intends to do with the bird.
About the sale: http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/tech/georgemann
An overview of HDTV over satellite: http://www.cnet.com/4520-7874_1-5108854-4.html
Nobody offers what I want. And I think my want list is pretty basoc.
1. I want the standard channel lineup.
2. I want the local channels in HIGH DEF that broadcast in high def.
3. I want some decent selection in HD channels.
4. I want a highdef DVR that can handle all channels. Locals and regulars. Highdef and standard.
DirecTV can't give me my locals in highdef because, they say, I live in the city and need that precious waiver that I'll never get.
Dish Network can't give me my locals in high def. So I'd lose all high definition programming on network channels. Ouch!
Zoom is gone, but had no DVR.
Cox Cable meets all requirements except for HDTV selection. HD is local networks + HBO/Showtime (pay) + DiscoveryHD/ESPNHD/INHD1/INHD2 free.
Sadly, I'm stuck in bed with Cox once again until somebody gets me what I need. (Please don't read something dirty into that.)
Mate, this site wouldn't "voom" if you put four million hits through it! It's bleedin' demised!
(Sorry, that was necessary. British humour.)
I think they died because they don't have a PVR. Hi-Def folks are early adopters and they want the technology. Of course, with all the mess swirling around DirecTV's move to Mpeg4 and the obsolesence of the HD-Tivo, it will be interesting to see what happens next.
Voom died because they didn't know how to compete. They were the 3rd player in a 2 player race. If you want to break into an established market, you go back to the basics and compete on price. First and foremost, people are going to ask, "What does it cost?" You do what it takes to bring in the subscribers. Voom didn't do that. Sure, they had a big lineup of channels, but half of those channels, no one had ever seen. There's not enough marketshare to survive on HD alone. What incentive did Voom offer to switch? You couldn't walk into Sears, Best Buy, or anywhere and look at their lineup. Why? I've had an HDTV from the moment the 2nd gen Mitsubishis were introduced. I picked up a DirecTV HD receiver as soon as they offered service. I have no interest in the HD TIVO box because you have to reboot the thing EVERY DAY. What a piece of junk! It's more aggravation that it's worth. There aren't enough HD owners out there yet for a satellite company to survive. And HD owners that want TIVO? There's no way I'd gamble on such a specific audience. Your speculation doesn't wash.
The truth is, PVR, MPEG4 and the impending doom of the current HD-TIVO box have nothing to do with the decline of Voom. Voom never acquired enough subscribers to pay for their programming. And their programming stunk. They had a hodge-podge of everything, which meant they were excellent at nothing. If you want subscribers, you've got to go after the sports market first.
Their sports lineup stunk. Instead, Voom chose to compete with custom programming. Switching to Voom was a risk, and in the beginning, no one was willing to risk it because Voom wasn't willing to offer any fantastic deals. I would have done the opposite. I would have worked hard to get the sports market, and ALSO undercut everyone's prices... a lot more than what they were willing to do. Subsidize the hardware... from the beginning. And then word of mouth might have gotten them more subs. I don't have a single friend that asked me about Voom. Not one. And I'm the early adopter. No one was interested in trying Voom. I mentioned it. But no one cared.
-- No sig for you!
The reason I never Voom was that they required a credit card to order. Note that I mean an actual credit card, not a debit card. Since there was no way I was going to get a credit card just to get their service, I didn't get it. I couldn't really get why they needed a credit card as opposed to a card tied into my bank account, seems like they could go after me just as easily if I bailed either way.
I know that this comment is not going to be popular with the "bleeding edge" /. types but its got to be said.
HD is not that great. HD is not in great demand by the general public. HD will/would have never gained any market share unless forced upon it by the government.
While HD material that was filmed in HD looks really good it simply isn't necessary because in the end it's still just TV.
Most people don't feel that they need to be able to see every pore in Dan Rather's nose to be able to understand the evening news. Whatever entertainment value you get out of the O.C. does not depend upon being able to count Mischa Barton's arm hairs. The picture we currently have is more than adequate for general TV.
When you move on to DTV type services it gets even worse. Go into an electronics store and look hard at a HDTV picture (areas of large black are some of the worst) and you can see the individual blocks of picture information that are not noticeable on the non HD units.
Then add the fact that 99.9% of back catalogue movies and old TV shows were not filmed in sharp enough focus to gain anything from HD and you have to draw one conclusion:
HD is just not worth the effort.
I disagree. Watch sports or movies on a larger HD set, and you will see the need. As more and more big screen TVs show up in consumers' homes, more and more consumers notice how bad the picture on regular television is. Why would you think 720x486 resolution is good enough on a 50+ inch monitor when you demand a minimum of 1024x768 on even a 17" computer monitor?
I looked into voom about a month or 2 ago and I guess I'm happy I didn't go with them now, but what occured to me then was that it appeared as though many of the extra channels not offered by other services were custom made for voom? did anyone else get this impression? I never subscribed, so I don't if it was true but the HD channels that didn't line up with other services just didn't seem to be big players...
Because they got bought by Echostar (Dish Network) http://news.ft.com/cms/s/9269dc9c-a181-11d9-95e5-0 0000e2511c8.html/
College Humor at it's best
With the advent of Tiger and H.264 and Apple's deep knowledge of MPEG4 and its QuickTime APIs what are the odds that one of Apple's future Digital Hub Hardware products is a TiVO like box that DirecTV would license?
We already know they could pick Linux for their solution.
This is just highly speculative thinking here.
Sounds great. More action than baseball or golf, for sure, eh?
I reference the DVD upgrade, the 8-track crossover, the DSL switch, the use of the longbow after 1338, anything that is an upgrade in technology in our history.
Mens et Manus
"The picture we currently have is more than adequate for general TV."
The picture we had in the 50's was adequate for general TV, but I seriously doubt you'd want to go back to the crappy blurry B&W.
"Most people don't feel that they need to be able to see every pore in Dan Rather's nose to be able to understand the evening news."
Dan Rather isn't on TV anymore, and NO NATIONAL NETWORK does their evening news in HD. 99% of local affiliates don't do any of their news in HD either.
"Whatever entertainment value you get out of the O.C. does not depend upon being able to count Mischa Barton's arm hairs."
Correct. OC fans could care less about HD. Ditto that for Young and the Restless fans (believe it not, it's filmed in HD and shown in HD everyday on CBS). But HD enthusiasts watch these shows now that they are HD.
"Go into an electronics store and look hard at a HDTV picture (areas of large black are some of the worst) and you can see the individual blocks of picture information that are not noticeable on the non HD units."
Come on now. You should know better. Of course HDTV looks like sh*t in Electronics stores! The Best Buy's and Fry's of the world don't know what the f*ck they are doing. Go to a home of a Home Theater Enthusiast and have him show you HD. Only an nostalgic idiot would not be blown away.
"Then add the fact that 99.9% of back catalogue movies and old TV shows were not filmed in sharp enough focus to gain anything from HD and you have to draw one conclusion:"
You must be one of those nostalgic idiots. Try looking forward and you'll see where HD can take us.
Voom did NOT fail because "nobody cares about HD."
HD is growing in popularity like crazy. That's why you always hear about more and more HD channels being launched and more and more programs being filmed in AND aired iN HD.
Voom failed for many reasons, but it wasn't lack of HD content:
1.) Voom failed to offer the SD channels you expect from a DBS provider. I think Sci-Fi channel was not on their system either ever, or for a long time. Thus if you were an HD enthusiast, you were reluctant to go to Voom because you would miss some channels that carried non-HD content you wanted.
2.) Tied to #1, Voom should have tried to flat out compete with DirecTV/Dish. Get all the core SD channels. Offer a package of just those SD channels for non-HDTV people, and undercut DirecTV/Dish prices. Of course you'd have a package with the SD + all the HD for the HD people. That way you not only would get the HD freaks, but had some appeal to the masses looking for something cheaper than Cable/Dish/DirecTV.
3.) Voom initially required a customer to cough up lots of cash to get it (~$700), although Dish already had been successful with its (Essentially) no upfront cost program, where you had free installation, free receiver (now free DVR), etc. Voom later went to that model, but it was too late by then.
4.) Their WORST mistake: Signing an exclusive in-store deal with *Sears.* Best Buy is the #1 electronics retailer in America, Wal-Mart is #2 quickly gaining on #1. Voom went with Sears, which hadn't been a big electronics player since the 80's. Nobody goes to Sears, and nobody gets satellite service from there. On top of that, their Voom show-off setups were horrible and the people that saw it were disgusted by it.
Voom had its fair share of problems, and it deserved to tank. BUT lack of interest in HD was not one of them. They had great HD content and had 99% of HD networks available in the US.
If anyone else tries to set up a Voom-like DBS service again, they will certainly learn from those mistakes and model themselves after Dish Network.
The point of my post wasn't aimed at your "great" home entertainment system so you can zip up your pants and stop waving it around. It was intended to give you HD worshipers an idea of what the average person is going to think.
Are you going to invite 250 million+ people to see your home theater setup? If not, then the average person is going to be exposed to HD at Best Buy and Fry's and we both agree it looks like "sh*t" (your word not mine). You can't convince the average Joe to shell out money for it. His $250 dollar 27" is just fine like it is.
As for being a "nostalgic idiot" are you too ignorant to realise that most of everything currently broadcast on network, cable, and pay movie channels is back catalogue? It will take decades before that changes and till then old TV shows and movies that were not filmed in sharp enough focus to gain anything from HD will be the norm.
As to moving from black and white to color in the 50s it was an improvement the average Joe could see, understand, and want. That's why it happened. HD hasn't justified itself yet.
What you fail to see is that in the end it's just TV.
I chose to ignore Voom completley because of the dumb name and the Fisher Price type cartoony logo.
Scooty Puff Jr. (TM) also comes to mind when I see it.
When I spend a few Gs on AV equipment, having a remote and a box with cartoon logos on it just arent going to fly.
A better logo and name might motivate me enough to consider checking it out.
This is also why I completly avoid Tivo.
Electronics with cartoon logos are things that are difficult for me to take seriously.
My $0.02
(Which is probably what they paid for their name and logo)
What happens next? I bet Apple will come out with a PVR that will do for television what the iPod is doing for music. And then, goodbye ReplayTV.
..."How DMCA and DRM Murdered HiDef"
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
At the time, I was working at Sears, and we had Voom and Dish Network.. When the Voom went out because the dish on the roof got moved, it took months to get someone to come out to fix it.. The Voom rep even came by when it was broke.. it took three weeks after she saw it, realized we couldn't see it without a demo, before anyone came to fix it.
The remote wasn't bad, but there were so many little annoyances with the guide and other things, that it was a hassle just to use the system.
Sure Voom had more HD channels than anyone else, but they were almost like made up channels, just for voom.. It was nice watching Soccer from some other part of the world, but they only had so many games, and they looped. The art channel was sorta neat, random HD pictures of stuff.. But who really sits down and watches that stuff? Several other similar channels.. all neat in their own respect, but all with a major lack of programming did Voom in.
"VOOM IS AHEAD OF THEIR TIME" I live on the west coast and have had almost no problems with voom. I have read nothing but negative statements for the company but I would have to say that all you guys out there are going off of "OLD" information and memories about the voom service. Sure, Voom did not have the best system or service when they started but they were being a leader in a gap for alot of us HD enthusiasts. Do you guys remember when the world wide web came about, it was a world wide hell for awhile. I live on the west coast and have had 0 problems. Sure, I do have one bedroom with directtv so I can still get PPV events which Voom doesn't carry. My 60 inch sony on Direct TV is horrible for the standard channels but on VOOM it was spectacular. sure I had to live with some no name channels but just 3 weeks ago we received almost 2 dozen new channels which yes direct tv always had but trust me they weren't missed. I don't know where all of you get your information on their channels but I have been with them since December and they have all of the HD everybody else has and MORE. And, let me add they were cheaper for me than Direct TV. Sure I had to get a High Tech antenna on my room to get local in HD but man, those guys over at voom paid for it and got it installed within 7 days of the initial install. I am trully going to miss this service and especially my 60" too. Since I am working with a bigger TV, it is a HUGE difference on the picture with the feed that comes in. I can understand if I still had a 32" everthing looks good on it but if you compared them to a big LCD screen your mind would be boggled and you would take back everything you said bad about VOOM
Let's face it, not everyone has the equipment to view HDTV broadcasts. That's the main problem, that there isn't enough of a customer base to make a dedicated HDTV service do well. The numbers are growing, but it's not there yet.
How many more $200 27 inch conventional TVs are sold each year compared to HDTV ready displays? Until HDTV ready displays become the norm, HDTV won't thrive.
You can buy a 32 inch conventional TV new for $300 if you look hard enough. To get a 30 inch HD-TV you are looking at quite a bit more. Now, based on the lack of HD programming, do you spend the extra money if money is an issue for you? I'd love a nice flat panel display, but I can't justify the $2000 price for one at the moment.
AuctionHD (24 hours of AUCTIONS in HIGH DEFINITION!) .. oh wow! And lets not forget to mention GalleryHD -- an endless cycle of paintings in WIDE SCREEN. How innovative is watching paint dry? The list goes on and on.
However, if you couldn't get enough of the hard core porn between showings of Shriek on HBO, you'll love Playboy Hot HD...not all the satellite/cable companies off this yet.
It's just TV if you're watching it on a 27" inch set. It's fan-freaking-tastic if you're running 80" or better. I'm fond of FP DLP myself. For the record, HDTV is HIGHER RESOLUTION than DVD. Can't wait for the new DVD-HD format. Enjoy.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
I have a very hard time watching non-HD pictures now on a larger screen size (I'm spoiled rotten, I'm afraid) and will have to scramble to find another decent HDTV service.
I do agree that the marketing of VOOM could have been better. Also, for those on the west coast, -if your signal wasn't too strong, that of course is a valid issue. Oh well, as a subscriber, I will miss VOOM very much.
I wonder if I can keep the set-top box to continue to watch my local HD channels. Over and out! -Pete
Most Hollywood movies have been telecined to high resolution digital because its the best hedge against the unstable dyes in the film emulsions. A lot of these were done long enough ago that there wasn't a way to play them back in native resolution in real time. The resolution in film is there, and the resolution and clarity in nitrate black and white stock (used in early hollywood) is better than color. Sophistication takes time. A lot of people couldn't hear the difference between vinyl and CDs. A few more were happier with the hiss, distortion and noise than they were with quantization error from early A/D conversion. And in the 40s and 50s, the difference between AM and FM couldn't be detected by most radio listeners. But their ears somehow got better, and the same will happen with our eyes. I'll zip my pants too if you'd like. But I can tell you that a lot of people who lost their virginity in our living room now own HD sets of their own.
I've had Voom (and been had by them) for about seven months and have enjoy most of the programming... but not all. My installation was somewhat of a problem, with three service calls, plus one more to replace the receiver. The dish had to be mounted on my neighbor's chimney, in order to shoot through some trees. The bird is very low on the eastern horizon, because of it's East Coast position. My signal strength, however, was at 95+. Voon had announced a soon to be available PVR some months ago, but time ran out. I also have DirecTV, with an HD recorder/receiver. Hopefully some of Voom's stuff will migrate soon. As a foolish early subscriber to Voom, I purchased the receiver outright, in good faith. Now I'm stuck with about $500 worth of Motorola junk. Anyone want to buy it as a souvenir?