Good luck and good bye

Silly Rabbit

Active SatelliteGuys Member
Original poster
May 23, 2004
19
0
I've had HD for 2+ years now and when Voom came along, I thought it was something I had to get in on. The insane cost at the start kept me away until the free install/ rental plan. I took the plunge in what I guess was the height of the Voom install rage. I was given an install date about 2 weeks out. The day before the install, I get a call from the local installer telling me that they don't have the hardware and don't know when they will get more. No biggy, I was running on OTA with my Toshiba box and it was summer, so TV wasn't a big deal.
Two weeks pass and I finally get a call to set up an install. Install shows up right on time, even calls me at work to tell me he is on the way. I have nice OTA antenna, rotor, and amp already set up, so he skips the antenna install and puts up a new dish. The cables all run through the crawl space and I figured I would take advantage of the deal and get new cables with this 'free' install. Installer won't go in a crawl space unless I pay the extra fees. I think he wanted $25. I told him to go ahead and reuse the existing cable. Installer was satisfied with a 85% signal strength, I let it fly and later tuned it myself to 96%. Rain fade at 85% was terrible.
During the install/set up call, I asked about making sure my DMA was not based on my zip-code because that would leave me with no OTA locals. I knew this from reading the forums. He asked the Voom rep and came back with some BS about they can't do that because of the FAA. End result was I was only able to pull in one local OTA because of my mapping. After several requests through this forum and directly with Voom, I have tried to have my DMA changed with no results. The new software did give me the ability to scan for channels and I am now able to watch them, but my guide if populated with (no info). When I called Voom, they basically said , too bad, print a guide off the internet.
Yesterday I received a call back from Voom about my DMA issue. There was a short message on my answering machine that basically told me that I can only get 1 local OTA for my area. I'm thinking that's funny, I've been watching 8 OTA channels and their sub channels for long before I even heard of Voom, but now the Voom gods have decided I must be nuts. To me this is crazy and I really don't understand the limitation that Voom put up for their customers. The big catch for VOOM is HD and if they are screwing up with the OTA HD. The 30+ exclusive channels have turned out to be a major disappointment. The HD channels of value are available at D*, E* and cable.
So as of yesterday, my service with Voom has come to an end. And the $25 programming credit offer to keep me was almost laughable. I really wish it would have been better. For Voom to service they will need to step up to the features offered by others. The program guide is about worthless, an eye sore, gives very limited information, and not customizable. I was hoping to 'just get use to' the menu and guide. It never happened. Maybe it is not a priority for a HD provider, but PPV and on-demand type features are not something that should be left out. Maybe the DVR will become a reality. Not sure, but I do know my local cable provider has HD-DVR, PPV, On-demand, ALL my local OTA HDs and costs basically the same as what I was paying Voom.
Not all with the service was terrible. I didn't have any problems getting in touch with Voom, just never got any results. The picture quality was good to excellent and I did enjoy a couple of the specials on Rave and the sports on Rush. I'll miss moto P.I.G. Outside my rain-fade trouble until I adjusted the dish myself, the reception was not a problem. The two upgrades I received went flawlessly and the OTA scanning works great. My billing to date has gone by without any problems. Now, I just hope I don't run into the nightmares that others have when they canceled.
My end opinion of Voom is they jumped the gun. They are still not ready for prime time and the group they are focusing on won't let it slide. Voom's main audience is the leading edge group that wants the latest and the greatest. Most of us are not new to HD and the initial wow feature isn't as intense. The new people to HD are not going to settle for near perfect or even a perfect picture if the majority of the programming is not worth watching. I'd give Voom a 6.5 on a scale of 10. Anything supposing HD is worthwhile and I wish Voom the best, you've got a rocky road to travel.
 
Good luck, you are lumping everyone into your category which is not true, I am new to HD getting my HDTV and joining up with Voom in May, this forum is a great resource though. You are basically quitting Voom because of OTA issues it seems. Voom has 21 exclusives, not 30. As far as I know only cable and Voom have/are trying to have RSN in HD.

You are another person that quits Voom when there are solutions for the problem, I'm sure e-mailing Sean Mota with your address the station informations would have accelerated having your OTA PG info available. However I see the logic in canceling Voom and moving over to cable if they have an HD-DVR in your area, they will still have less HD but you can always come back to Voom in the future. Or you could have just gotten cable basic for your OTA anyway.

Best of luck, I'm in this "rocky road" with Voom until someone else comes along and says "Hey we got 10 more HD channels than Voom and an HD-DVR!"
 
yup, that seem to be the trend

Voom is a bit ahead of the field, the the HD field also require programming from stations.

What is really irking me about Voom right now is lack of channels, HD or Not.
 
Lack of channels????? Are you missing the 13 Home Shopping Networks that are on Dishnetwork? Securing channels takes time, it involves contracts and lawyers. The local cable companies in my area still do not carry the NBC digital affliate due to negotiations that have been on going for 9 months now. Relax and be patient.
 
Not for nothing but WE, QVC or Home Shopping, and game shows in HD would start getting women more into HD I think, and start pushing for the technology more.
 
Hey! I'm not leaving!

Why does every Joe that cancels VOOM feels the need to let us all know about it?
If VOOM doesn't work for you then just cancel and be happy with your degraded E*, D*, or cable system. Most issues can be resolved if you just research the threads.
It's your loss not VOOMs. Their upcoming DVR will beat anything out there today.
 
Dvlos said:
You are another person that quits Voom when there are solutions for the problem, I'm sure e-mailing Sean Mota with your address the station informations would have accelerated having your OTA PG info available. "

I am not sure this is true anymore. I do not think that VOOM is willing to change or add to "maps" for individual customers. Has anyone who asked for a change (through Sean or Wilt or VOOM) since the new software gotten the new program info added? I know I haven't. If I hadn't bought my system this may have made me quit VOOM too.


Joseph
 
I am not leaving either - far from it - but I think Silly Wabbit's post was constructively written and worth posting. Good for us and Voom to hear clear reasons why Voom customers get fed up and quit. The posts I don't like are the flames that waste everybody's time.

I guess everybody has a different goal with Voom. Why anybody would quit Voom over OTA is beyond me. No OTA channels here, and I couldn't care less!! Who wants to see those OTA network channels with all those annoying and constant commercials?? Gag!! :eek:
 
1080iBeVuMin said:
I am not leaving either - far from it - but I think Silly Wabbit's post was constructively written and worth posting. Good for us and Voom to hear clear reasons why Voom customers get fed up and quit. The posts I don't like are the flames that waste everybody's time.

I guess everybody has a different goal with Voom. Why anybody would quit Voom over OTA is beyond me. No OTA channels here, and I couldn't care less!! Who wants to see those OTA network channels with all those annoying and constant commercials?? Gag!! :eek:

Sports and CSI in my case, BUT thanks to Voom I can switch to Rave/RUsh real quick (no commercials there) and watch something while the OTA channels spam you with ads.

Maybe the channels will never be mapped that are out of your DMA, no big deal, I think TV guides are $1, Zap2it is freaking free. If all you do is watch OTA all day long you don't need Voom you need a TV Guide and a tuner. Wasn't someone on these forums talking about VOom possibly working on Dynamic DMAs?

Honestly I prefer having an OTA antenna with an STB that can tune the channels, why? My local cable still broadcasts analog stations, blah.. the OTA antenna that I have now tunes stations out of my area, and much better quality than analog of course. I don't even have to wait for Comcast or D* to update a station to digital or make the broadcast HD ready. If the station broadcasts HDTV and is within 50-55 miles of my house.. bam I have HDTV through them. ENd of story.
 
jnardone said:
I am not sure this is true anymore. I do not think that VOOM is willing to change or add to "maps" for individual customers. Has anyone who asked for a change (through Sean or Wilt or VOOM) since the new software gotten the new program info added? I know I haven't. If I hadn't bought my system this may have made me quit VOOM too.


Joseph


There are various issues at hands:

1 - First PG information for OTA channels out of your DMA will not be added until Late September or Early October. Voom is working on a Super DMA map that will take care of this problem.

2 - Yes, they are still mapping your DMA channels if you don't have them. Check the local forum for the last list added this week. Again right now, the scanning function should take care of this problem unless your station is missing PSIP data in the stream.

3 - If you don't get your OTA out of your DMA with the scanning software because the stream is missing PSIP data, the Super DMA map will most likely take of this problem.

This is not the first time that this information has been posted. Last, they are bunch of people working on this. This is non-stop. Just because we don't hear about it does not mean that VOOM has stopped working on this since all of this is going to be needed for any future stb including the DVR.
 
txcruiser said:
Hey! I'm not leaving!

Why does every Joe that cancels VOOM feels the need to let us all know about it?
If VOOM doesn't work for you then just cancel and be happy with your degraded E*, D*, or cable system. Most issues can be resolved if you just research the threads.
It's your loss not VOOMs. Their upcoming DVR will beat anything out there today.

Why do you continue to read it and then bitch about it? If the DVR will be made by Motorola, I would run like hell to cable too.
 
1080iBeVuMin said:
I am not leaving either - far from it - but I think Silly Wabbit's post was constructively written and worth posting. Good for us and Voom to hear clear reasons why Voom customers get fed up and quit. The posts I don't like are the flames that waste everybody's time.

Thank you. This forum is turning into a hangout for fanboys who shout down any criticism of Voom. yeah. that's the way to improve service.

1080iBeVuMin said:
I guess everybody has a different goal with Voom. Why anybody would quit Voom over OTA is beyond me. No OTA channels here, and I couldn't care less!! Who wants to see those OTA network channels with all those annoying and constant commercials?? Gag!! :eek:

I guess some people prefer to watch football over skateboarding, the Simpsons over ice cream melting. Go figure!
 
1080iBeVuMin said:
I am not leaving either - far from it - but I think Silly Wabbit's post was constructively written and worth posting. Good for us and Voom to hear clear reasons why Voom customers get fed up and quit. The posts I don't like are the flames that waste everybody's time.

I guess everybody has a different goal with Voom. Why anybody would quit Voom over OTA is beyond me. No OTA channels here, and I couldn't care less!! Who wants to see those OTA network channels with all those annoying and constant commercials?? Gag!! :eek:

Ditto
 
On the contrary criticism is good. But it is not constructive when the same criticism becomes personal attacks by a few (I am not saying that you are barth2k or pointing fingers to anybody. Just talking in general.). In the past two weeks, I had to delete more posts that never before. We all understand the frustrations and pains that Voom can create when something has not worked properly (problems with billings, hardware, software, PG with wrong information, etc). Our first reaction is to scream loud and clear (which is natural).

In my opinion, I think all the criticism can be heard or written in a manner that it is civilized and it is non confrontational. After all, most of us are here with one goal to let Voom know where faults are.

Everytime I have deleted posts, it is looked at like I am a "fanboy of Voom". Not quite. There's a difference between "me" the person and "me" the moderator. Yes, I moderate a VOOM forum for which I also subscribe (how else can I talk about Voom; believe me there are people who never subscribed to it but are in every conversation on the net about VOOM) but that does not make anybody blind to the problems. I mean sometimes people may get the impression that I or any moderator here gets paid by VOOM (in programming subscription or other method) just because we try to maintain threads and posts in a way that is consistent to why everybody comes here. To tell you the truth we do not need that. We are like everyone else here. We are paying a VOOM bill and therefore we just want to report the goods and the bads.

Everybody has a right to an opinion whether negative or positive. Nobody has the right to insult anyone here. We moderators moderate this. This is what we do to maintain some type of sanity because otherwise it will be pointless to come here. I wouldn't.
 
1080iBeVuMin said:
I am not leaving either - far from it - but I think Silly Wabbit's post was constructively written and worth posting. Good for us and Voom to hear clear reasons why Voom customers get fed up and quit. The posts I don't like are the flames that waste everybody's time.

I guess everybody has a different goal with Voom. Why anybody would quit Voom over OTA is beyond me. No OTA channels here, and I couldn't care less!! Who wants to see those OTA network channels with all those annoying and constant commercials?? Gag!! :eek:
I'm not leaving VOOM either...but if you have a family...and alot of people do...its very difficult to explain VOOM service to them and the fact that they cant watch a certain ch anymore. You need to pick up your local Ch's. Voom does recognize this need...I'm sure in the future they will do something about it.
 
barth2k said:
Thank you. This forum is turning into a hangout for fanboys who shout down any criticism of Voom. yeah. that's the way to improve service.
Like I am shouting down anybody. Sheesh! :rolleyes:
barth2k said:
I guess some people prefer to watch football over skateboarding, the Simpsons over ice cream melting. Go figure!
:D Okay you got me there. But still, all those commercials! I almost gave up on TV until Voom came along. We caught one special movie the other night on USA (I think). The SD was tolerable, but those commercials! That's it. Never again.
vinnyv07 said:
I'm not leaving VOOM either...but if you have a family...and alot of people do...its very difficult to explain VOOM service to them and the fact that they cant watch a certain ch anymore. You need to pick up your local Ch's. Voom does recognize this need...I'm sure in the future they will do something about it.
I see what you mean. Not sure if it's better for Voom to try to be everything for everybody, or just become better at "being Voom" and let new subscribers get used to it. :confused:
 
Silly Rabbit said:
He asked the Voom rep and came back with some BS about they can't do that because of the FAA.


What does the Federal Aviation Administration have to do with Voom and OTA locals? :D
 
txcruiser said:
Hey! I'm not leaving!

Why does every Joe that cancels VOOM feels the need to let us all know about it?
If VOOM doesn't work for you then just cancel and be happy with your degraded E*, D*, or cable system. Most issues can be resolved if you just research the threads.
It's your loss not VOOMs. Their upcoming DVR will beat anything out there today.

txcruiser,

You just don't get it, do you? Constructive criticism is highly desired on this forum. I for one appreciate the details that Silly Rabbit provided. Hopefully VOOM will be able to keep users like you in the future based on this kind of feedback.
 

Gotta Cancel VOOM!! On principle Only...

doom for voom(ny post) monday we will know

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