Did Voom get what it deserved?

[seandudley]

Yea, same here. I wanted Voom from the start, but wasn't going to pay $800.00 up front on a new service. I signed up immediatley as soon as they started the $0 install, no commitment, leased equipment offer. I beleive I was actually the one that broke the news on AVS Forum about the deal. I had just happened to call Voom to ask a question, and they informed me of this brand new deal they just started. I signed up on the spot.

 

[SeattleVoomer1]

With all due respect to the poll I don't think it includes the most important reason for VOOM's likely failure. While all the reasons given contributed the main reason as my partner and I see it is virtually NOONE knew about it. No one I've ever talked to has ever heard about it until we mentioned it which means no one had seen it. I knew about HDTV from working weekends in a A/V store.

The advertising was abyssmal and trying to sell through Sears and a catalog company out of NY--don't make me laugh. A local A/V dealer friend of mine tried for months to get VOOM to allow him to display and sell VOOM service. And we know what drives sales in the U.S. advertising and price. However, price doesn't matter if you don't even know an item or service is available.

We signed up for the $800 deal (received a $300 rebate later) in Dec. of 2003 having become addicted to OTA HD via a Samsung STB and Radio Shack antenna. And that was a big monetary decision for us but we've found it well worth it and would do it again.

Still watching HDTV via VOOM for the moment under moderate rain in Seattle, Gill

 

[Walter L.]

My vote is for "all of the above..."

 

[subdude212]

I would have been a sub a lot sooner if they hadnt have started with that ridiculous $800.00 reciever cost. No offense to thos who bought it but No Fu$kin way am I going to drop that kind of money on a satellite reciever no matter whether its E*, D* or V*.

So what if I have a buttload of disposable cash I still have few regrets for buying my box back in November of 2003. Hell, I got about 8 months worth of free programming which takes a little bit of the sting out of now owning a boat anchor. Has anyone come up with the definitive word as to whether the boxes will continue to work after Voom goes dark so that we can pull in OTA channels?

I checked out my alternatives yesterday with DirecTV, Dish and my local cable provider - damn depressing. Excluding locals I will go from getting 35 HD channels to at the most 10. Dish's offerings look particularly pathetic yet they have an HD DVR. DirecTV has the HD Tivo but is chucking it in favor of the Ucentric system which is due out in 6 months which to me sounds more like 12 months with additional "2 week" delays. My cable operator offers the most HD channels but has no DVR nor any public plans for one. Like many here I guess I feel that Voom with a DVR would have pissed on the competition. I'm gonna have to start looking into getting a BUD.

 

[TheTimm]

So what if I have a buttload of disposable cash I still have few regrets for buying my box back in November of 2003. Hell, I got about 8 months worth of free programming which takes a little bit of the sting out of now owning a boat anchor. Has anyone come up with the definitive word as to whether the boxes will continue to work after Voom goes dark so that we can pull in OTA channels?

I checked out my alternatives yesterday with DirecTV, Dish and my local cable provider - damn depressing. Excluding locals I will go from getting 35 HD channels to at the most 10. Dish's offerings look particularly pathetic yet they have an HD DVR. DirecTV has the HD Tivo but is chucking it in favor of the Ucentric system which is due out in 6 months which to me sounds more like 12 months with additional "2 week" delays. My cable operator offers the most HD channels but has no DVR nor any public plans for one. Like many here I guess I feel that Voom with a DVR would have pissed on the competition. I'm gonna have to start looking into getting a BUD.

Heck, with all that disposable cash (I assume a "buttload" is a lot, right?), why not just get Dish, Direct, Cable, and a BUD. That'll pretty much cover all the bases, won't it?

 

[vurbano]

Yea, same here. I wanted Voom from the start, but wasn't going to pay $800.00 up front on a new service. I signed up immediatley as soon as they started the $0 install, no commitment, leased equipment offer. I beleive I was actually the one that broke the news on AVS Forum about the deal. I had just happened to call Voom to ask a question, and they informed me of this brand new deal they just started. I signed up on the spot.

Me too and paid D* 60 bucks to break the contract.

 

[Bruce]

I checked out my alternatives yesterday with DirecTV, Dish and my local cable provider - damn depressing. Excluding locals I will go from getting 35 HD channels to at the most 10. Dish's offerings look particularly pathetic yet they have an HD DVR.

Except for networks that most people cannot get, E* has just as many HD channels as D*, just replace TNT-HD with Universal, and on D* they broadcast and the HD-Nets, Universal, HBO and Showtime are shown at 1280x1080i resolution.

 

[vurbano]

So what if I have a buttload of disposable cash I still have few regrets for buying my box back in November of 2003. Hell, I got about 8 months worth of free programming which takes a little bit of the sting out of now owning a boat anchor. Has anyone come up with the definitive word as to whether the boxes will continue to work after Voom goes dark so that we can pull in OTA channels?

I checked out my alternatives yesterday with DirecTV, Dish and my local cable provider - damn depressing. Excluding locals I will go from getting 35 HD channels to at the most 10. Dish's offerings look particularly pathetic yet they have an HD DVR. DirecTV has the HD Tivo but is chucking it in favor of the Ucentric system which is due out in 6 months which to me sounds more like 12 months with additional "2 week" delays. My cable operator offers the most HD channels but has no DVR nor any public plans for one. Like many here I guess I feel that Voom with a DVR would have pissed on the competition. I'm gonna have to start looking into getting a BUD.

I didnt know at the time that they would give 8 months of free programming. I might have bought the reciever then. 800 bucks is a wash for 8 months of free vavavoom $104 a month for me. I agree the choices are depressing

 

[tonyp56]

Coming from a person that thought Voom was a good idea when I first heard about it!

The reasons why I never jumped on the Voom band wagon are 1) they didn't offer all of my favorite channels, and therefore, I would have had to have had Dish and Voom to be happy with my selection, which would have been expensive. 2) The HD channels didn't warrant paying that much money in my mind.(HD is still a new thing, and for many paying for just HD channels isn't worth it, and for me, I didn't like the selection of channels, for the money) 3) Their other rates were very expensive, $9.95 per receiver is ridicules. 4) 61.5 can be found where I live, but the satellite would have had to be put somewhere else, like my roof or side of my house and I didn't want to have another satellite dish around my house. And etc...

So from the prospective of a person that never signed up for Voom these are the reason why Voom failed. Though I agree with Sean about it being the investors and such, I don't think that even if Voom would have had the backing of everyone that it would have changed their outcome. HD is just too new to ask people to pay that much money, and to top it off they didn't offer all of the SD favorites that a lot of people like, or want, and that would have required them to carry Voom and another carrier to get what they wanted. Five years from now, Voom would probally work, but right now there just isn't enough interest in that much HD only content for that price. Like everyone keeps saying, most of you that joined Voom were early adopters. And there just ain't that many early adopters out there.

 

[tdti1]

So what if I have a buttload of disposable cash I still have few regrets for buying my box back in November of 2003. Hell, I got about 8 months worth of free programming which takes a little bit of the sting out of now owning a boat anchor. Has anyone come up with the definitive word as to whether the boxes will continue to work after Voom goes dark so that we can pull in OTA channels?

I checked out my alternatives yesterday with DirecTV, Dish and my local cable provider - damn depressing. Excluding locals I will go from getting 35 HD channels to at the most 10. Dish's offerings look particularly pathetic yet they have an HD DVR. DirecTV has the HD Tivo but is chucking it in favor of the Ucentric system which is due out in 6 months which to me sounds more like 12 months with additional "2 week" delays. My cable operator offers the most HD channels but has no DVR nor any public plans for one. Like many here I guess I feel that Voom with a DVR would have pissed on the competition. I'm gonna have to start looking into getting a BUD.

A bud is great, I bet if you look around you will find one free! and then just buy the 4dtv/hdd then you will be able to witness great SD and HD at a lower cost than any small dish or cable.

 

[GJetson]

I really hate to see the true potential of VOOM go down the drain...the company's ill-concieved efforts to back up the plus side on each of this poll's points borders on reckless ineptness...the vision was truly there, with very lame follow through...it's crucial on the onset that a new product or service become truly a houshold word-VOOM failed in that, and quite frankly until mid-Nov. when I plunked down $13K at Circuit City for two flat HDs, and began to search the Net for an HD provider, I'd never heard of VOOM...then, when I found this forum, I nearly backed out on VOOM installation after reading the negative results from current subscribers concerning software and billing , but I'm glad I didn't! I knew from the onset that VOOM was hanging by a thread but all things are a crap shoot and I gladly paid for two STB installs and man, I have to say, despite numerous lockups and reboots, that the "You Are So Beautiful to Me" VOOM spots aren't just hype-the media accolades that appeared in that VOOM commercial are so very true, and now it's as if the future has been yanked away from 26K households...I don't watch much TV, but when, very sadly on my part, VOOM goes dark and I am forced to acquire another satellite provider, I hope the Sony plasma doesn't suffer from a lot of disuse until my then-provider catches up on the future...the future that VOOM provided today...I'll never forget the stunning HD images seen on Equator, Rave, Gallery, Rush, and so much more...

 

[markrubin]

this is really a shame

I think Dolan's vision was just a couple (or more?) years too early :

look- if it does not make financial sense it is just not going to work, no matter how good the idea

But all of the hype, the advertising,the PVR, the talk of scores of additional HD channels and new satellites was disingenuous: in my latest issue ( Feb/Mar) of Sound & Vision he has over a page of advertising

Now it turns out they knew what was about to happen

All I can say is watch as much VOOM as you can until they pull the plug

 

[subdude212]

(I assume a "buttload" is a lot, right?)

It is a relative term but this simple equation might help you:

Sh!tload<BUTTLOAD<F&AMP;CKLOAD< p> < Buttload < F*ckload

And don't forget 100 boatloads = 1 buttload (thankfully buttloads are a unit of measure in the quantitative relative metric system )

To continue this lesson here are some units of measure used in sentences to help understand their relative values:

- Dish and DirecTV have a Sh!tload of customers.
- Voom has a buttload of HD channels
- We are getting a f*ckload of snow tonight.

 

[subdude212]

A bud is great, I bet if you look around you will find one free! and then just buy the 4dtv/hdd then you will be able to witness great SD and HD at a lower cost than any small dish or cable.

I'm checking out 4DTV.com and googling up some info but is there a particular forum here or other resource you might recommend to learn about 4DTV?

 

[rtt2]

www.satforums.com

then click on 4DTV Rocks

 

[klen]

They simply introduced the service too early. They had a lot of bugs to still work out, so a lower intro price would have meant more initial subs- and more initial service problems- which installs inc is ill equipped to handle. They should have worked out more bugs, worked out more channnel contracts, worked on more content, and found a better retailer than sears to represent them at the get go.

It is sad that they were just starting to hit on all cylinders. The expense to get us early adopters going should have been considered research and development costs- then investors might have been more tolerant of the amount spent.

 

[GJetson]

Oh great...I go to 4DTV.com to check out this alternative, and wind up deciding to get a few Ojo video phones for friends...always more toys!

 

[TheTimm]

It is a relative term but this simple equation might help you:

Sh!tload<BUTTLOAD<F&AMP;CKLOAD< p> < Buttload < F*ckload

And don't forget 100 boatloads = 1 buttload (thankfully buttloads are a unit of measure in the quantitative relative metric system )

To continue this lesson here are some units of measure used in sentences to help understand their relative values:

- Dish and DirecTV have a Sh!tload of customers.
- Voom has a buttload of HD channels
- We are getting a f*ckload of snow tonight.

:haha Funny stuff, 'dude!

 

[Lobstah]

I don't think they were too early...I just think they made some bad decisions, some worse than others. Probably the biggest mistake was going with Sears instead of a Tweeter or BestBuy...some place where people had a bit more of a clue, and where a much higher potential customer base existed.
Big mistake number 2 was not training and backing up Installs, Inc. when they started doing installs. Should have had hotlines and MUCH tighter links between Installs and VOOM.

Lob

 

[Ricknau]

BUD? This is a new one to me. Can someone translate?