DISH -VS- VOOM - A Settlement has been reached!

[Jim S.]

This is the way I remembered it. The Voom channels were a nice service when there were NO other national hd channels available. Once there were more national hd content channels Voom had outlived its purpose and was taking up valuable transponder space. Especially when all they showed was the same two show or movies over and over on the same channel ALL day long.

I agree with you that Voom was too repetitive, but I strongly disagree that any national non-premium HD channel, with the exception of HDNet, was the equivalent of Voom in other areas. Voom had no commercials and no censorship, as far as I know. And the other channels are still failing miserably in that area. Witness Palladia, for example.

And I also don't remember Voom's resolution being butchered as badly as some of the channels we have now. Yes it's well known that they were only 1440 horizontal, but they didn't seem bit-starved, so it wasn't as noticeable.

 

[dishcomm]

There are literally 10,000+ pages of artifacts posted about this case for your reading pleasure. A few are actually quite informative - like this one.

Pretty intersting stuff. I read the complaint sumary. It looks like Voom's attorneys are saying to the judge, "no, dont listen to Echo. We want summary judgement in OUR favor"....

Ya know what.. at the end of the day it looks to me as though Echo is going to bury Voom in paper and motions until Voom runs out of money to pay their lawyers, or Voom just gives up.
In the grand scheme of things ,do the people at Voom really think the American tv viewer is salivating over Kung Fu in HD? No.
Voom just wants their pound of Echo flesh so they can pay off their attorneys and retire in Tahiti.

 

[whatchel1]

RAVE

Rave is the only 1 I really miss. Most of the rest show up on the new HD chs. Cablevision (owner Rainbow which owned VOOM) is still trying to exact it's lb of flesh. It's not only on E* thought other providers are dropping their HD chs.The Dolan's need to get a clue they are now up against not on E* but big cable nets too.

 

[NotMe546]

Pretty intersting stuff. I read the complaint sumary. It looks like Voom's attorneys are saying to the judge, "no, dont listen to Echo. We want summary judgement in OUR favor"....

Ya know what.. at the end of the day it looks to me as though Echo is going to bury Voom in paper and motions until Voom runs out of money to pay their lawyers, or Voom just gives up.
In the grand scheme of things ,do the people at Voom really think the American tv viewer is salivating over Kung Fu in HD? No.
Voom just wants their pound of Echo flesh so they can pay off their attorneys and retire in Tahiti.

Cause the dolans are a bunch of a-holes.

 

[bela_blasko2006]

...Now I can watch some of the same Monsters hd movies on MGM , Retro, channels as well as others. I don't miss them anymore.

you must not have watched Voom then-there was a lot of programming STILL not on other channels. Monsters had tons of movies AND behind the scenes things that have not shown up on anything else. I remember a series called Monsterama or something to that effect that was hosted by Elvira-they had great specials on makeup men in the industry etc. I watched another channel called Treasure channel all the time. On that channel there was a show devoted to deep sea treasure diving-FANTASTIC picture quality. The man on that show now makes appearances on History channels Pawn Stars. I still miss Voom and if Dish had that package together with what they have now they truly would be the HD leader.

 

[HDRoberts]

There are close to 500 documents posted for public viewing. You can just as easily access these documents and post them here if you wish. Why do you need me to post them for you? In fact, I'm surprised how you failed to post EchoStar's motion after complaining about my not posting it. Additionally, I posted no such emails in the pub. Once again, here is the link to access these documents: WebCivil Supreme

Anyway, the document I originally posted accurately portrays both sides of the argument (assuming you read any the thousands of pages of legal arguments, depositions, expert testimony, financial statements, and other artifacts publically available in this case) regardless of whose side you believe. I've posted EchoStar's motion (which took less time to post than your reply) which, in my opinion, mirrors the issues being addresssed by Voom. I think most people here are smart enough to realize this is Voom's motion...and can download and read EchoStar's motion if they wish. Finally, there literally dozens of really interesting documents that are publically available but nobody seems too interested in this case since it doesn't involve Tivo..and VOOM will certainly never reappear regardless of the outcome.

Such is life...

Someone posted some emails somewhere. If it wasn't you, I'm sorry.

The document you posted called "good reading" was "PLAINTIFF VOOM HD HOLDINGS LLC'S OPPOSITION TO ECHOSTAR'S CROSS-MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT", i.e. a motion solely in support of Voom, and hardly "accurately portray[ing] both sides of the argument."

Most readers on this site are casual readers and probably only reading what you posted. Seemed to me you were editorializing in what you posted rather than presenting facts. You are welcome to your opinion, but certainly just posting one side's argument and acting like that proves the case isn't right.

But you did the right think and posted some the Echostar response, so thank you.

 

[datwell]

Sad. VOOM was a huge opportunity lost by all parties IMHO. I still liked VOOM in spite of their shortcomings.


---Doug

 

[HDRoberts]

Wow the Dish filing is interesting. Some of you honestly think it was OK for the $100M to include political contributions, charitable donations, executive bonuses, and executive jets?

 

[chicagonettech]

After re-reading the initial filing, digging further into various other agreements with providers, and taking a serious look at the costs associated with both the initial VOOM agreement and the costs associated with other "HD fee agreements," I can certainly understand DNs desire to get out of the agreement altogether - between the VOOM agreement, the recent Disney demands, and the potential for other providers to significantly "up" their pricing demands, the only way Dish will be able to make any kind of profit in the future will be to raise all of our bills to the $1,200 [yes, that's TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS] per month level.

Think about it:

- cost of launching and maintaining a fleet of aging satellites . . .
- cost of building and maintaining ground stations . . .
- cost of building and maintaining master control centers . . .
- cost of staffing and salaries . . .
- cost of general office equipment and supplies . . .
- cost of PROGRAMMING . . .
- cost of providing "free" equipment as part of a 24 month package . . .
- cost of installing "free" equipment as part of 24 month package . . .

when you put it all together and do the math, it's an unsustainable business model.

As the economy continues to tank - and, yes, IMHO, it is no where near being ready to recover because of all of the residential and commercial properties which are sitting in foreclosure with no one to purchase them - more than 85,000 residential and close to 40,000 commercial properties in the State of Illinois alone!

We've already hit our limit on what we will pay for service. Our monthly bill is now $137.00 per month for 3 VIP 722K receivers. If Charlie raises prices again, we cut our service with him.

We are fortunate, no outstanding bills, no pressures, no financial issues, but we will never allow ourselves to be placed into that position by an entertainment provider either and will significantly cut, or even fully discontinue our services, before we will pay another penny to Charlie each month.

These next couple of years - especially as content providers begin to do away with SD content altogether, will prove to be an interesting ride.

 

[multnomah]

Wow the Dish filing is interesting. Some of you honestly think it was OK for the $100M to include political contributions, charitable donations, executive bonuses, and executive jets?

I don't think the Dolans should be allowed to make political donations with their own money, much less with mine.

DISH will win this argument, I think.

 

[multnomah]

I agree with you that Voom was too repetitive, but I strongly disagree that any national non-premium HD channel, with the exception of HDNet, was the equivalent of Voom in other areas. Voom had no commercials and no censorship, as far as I know. And the other channels are still failing miserably in that area. Witness Palladia, for example.

And I also don't remember Voom's resolution being butchered as badly as some of the channels we have now. Yes it's well known that they were only 1440 horizontal, but they didn't seem bit-starved, so it wasn't as noticeable.

I think Voom had a sharper, clearer picture than virtually any of the channels we have now (HDNet being the exception). I can still watch Voom, because I have about a dozen movies and documentaries that I copied to my EHD just before DISH pulled the plug. The size of these is huge, much bigger than anything else I was copying at the time, and the PQ is gorgeous.

 

[Jim S.]

I was watching Palladia last night. The picture quality was terrible. It shouldn't even have been called HD. I've seen far, FAR better widescreen SD (although not from Dish of course.) I'm not exaggerating.

 

[jacmyoung]

... Finally, there literally dozens of really interesting documents that are publically available but nobody seems too interested in this case since it doesn't involve Tivo...

Such is life...

Really? Where are the billions you said TiVo will soon get from dish? Shouldn't you post those documents that people are more interested in such as in life?

 

[jacmyoung]

Interesting...MediaBiz

Wrong case

The link you provided is about the TiVo v. E* case. BTW the FTC brief is very much on the side of encouraging design around, therefore on E*'s side.

 

[Dah-Henny]

Gosh, my bulb ain't shining to bright tonight.

 

[riffjim4069]

Huge news regarding Tivo vs EchoStar...not so much as far as Voom vs EchoStar goes.

 

[riffjim4069]

Never mind...Scott moved the post to the Tivo vs Dish Network thread.

 

[riffjim4069]

Court Update: 9 Nov 2010

I noticed this Notice of Motion/Order was posted on Friday...good reading. Anyway, here is a very quick summary: (read all 57-pages for yourself)

002 - Voom moves for summary judgment, as to liability (Denied...the judge pretty much stated the case going to trial for a jury to evaluate and consider the extrinsic evidence).
003 - EchoStar cross-motion for an order precluding consideration of certain extrinsic evidence submitted by VOOM (Denied)
004 - Voom motion for the imposition of sanctions against EchoStar for spoliation (Granted).
005 - Motion for an order barring EchoStar from calling non-party as an expert witness and introducing expert reports (also Granted).

The judge has some harsh statements about EchoStar's ability to produce email evidence:

"However, here, EchoStar has systematically destroyed evidence in direct violation of the law and in the face of a ruling by a federal court that criticized EchoStar for the same bad-faith conduct as EchoStar's conduct in the instant action. It is worth repeating that EchoStar is a "large public corporation with ample financial resources" to institute and enfore a proper litigation hold which EchoStar failed to do..."

"In conclusion, the court notes EchoStar's pattern of egregious conduct and questionable-and, at times, blatantly improper-ligitation tactics. EchoStar's spoliation in this action, and the fact that it has been sanctioned for spoliation in previous actions, is precisely the type of offensive conduct that cannot be tolerated by the court. Similarly egregious is EchoStar's last minute finagling with expert reports, believing that it can play fast and loose with the rules of procedure in order to enhance its litigation posture."

 

[nlk10010]

How many times do you see "spoliation" and "finagling" in the same paragraph.

 

[FitzAusTex]

Thanks Riffjim for keeping us informed with the status. I'm one who loved the Voom channels (repetitive, or not), and signed up for E* in 2007 thinking I'd have those channels for 12 or so years...silly me.

I know that our rates will probably go up if E* doesn't prevail in this (as if E* needs a reason to raise rates/fees), but I kinda hope they don't prevail in this lawsuit. I've never felt the same way about my E* service since Voom was removed in May 2008.

...and if E* did intentionally destroy evidence, I hope they get smacked badly...sounds like the judge isn't going to put up with BS.

I'll attempt to wade through the 57 pages this week, but thanks for your summary of this document.