Inside the New Voom

[jergenf]

In the EchoStar distribution deal, EchoStar subs who pay $9.99 a month for HD can gain access to 10 Voom channels for another $5. Next year, as EchoStar begins to deploy more advanced MPEG-4 boxes, Voom will cease to be an add-on, and all 21 Voom channels will be included in EchoStar's basic HD offering.

Does this mean all Voom and maybe HDPak itself will be mpeg4?
Also will the cost for the basic HDPak (including Voom 21) be $10 month?

[SIZE=1]Channel Genre: 
[B][COLOR=Red]Animania HD  animation [/COLOR] [/B] 
Auction HD  auctions and collecting 
[B][COLOR=Red]Equator HD  documentaries and nature in unique locales[/COLOR][/B] 
[B][COLOR=Red]Gallery HD  fine art and architecture[/COLOR][/B]  
[B][COLOR=Red]HD News  headlines, sports, features and weather[/COLOR][/B]  
Lab HD  "free-form" television [COLOR=Red]{sometimes appears on RAVE}[/COLOR]
[B][COLOR=Red]Rave HD  music series and concerts[/COLOR][/B] 
[B][COLOR=Red]Rush HD  extreme action sports[/COLOR][/B]  
[B][COLOR=Red]Ultra HD  fashion runway coverage[/COLOR][/B]
WorldSport HD  world sports  

Movie Channels:
Divine  gay and lesbian 
Family Room family-oriented 
Film Fest  art house and independent films  
Kung Fu martial arts and anime  [COLOR=Red]{sometimes appears on GuyTV}[/COLOR]
Gunslingers Westerns 
[B][COLOR=Red]GuyTV action and comedy[/COLOR][/B]
HaHa comedy 
[B][COLOR=Red]The Majestic retro favorites; early James Bond[/COLOR][/B] 
[B][COLOR=Red]Monsters horror, thriller and sci-fi[/COLOR][/B] 
Vice cops and robbers; thrillers 
WorldCinema global classics [/SIZE]

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Another way to look at it is that you could watch 8 hours of new content per day, five days a week, for six to nine months. How much TV do you watch?

There could be an awful lot of new content on RUSH, ANIMANIA, that fashion channel, and here and there on other channels that I would have no desire to watch.

I like having VOOM and I look forward to new content. But this really isn't much new content, and once you eliminate a fair amount of it as being stuff that won't be of much interest to you, it doesn't add up to a lot.

As I said above, if I get 300-400 hours of new content that I enjoy, then it will be worth the cost to me. That would be about 6-8 hours a week. Hopefully, I'll get 600 hours of enjoyable new content and have to pick and choose what I'll watch.

Frankly even at 300 hours, that is more than I will watch all of the networks combined. My estimate is that I watch about 150 hours a year from ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, WB, and UPN combined. Thus in my house, I watch the VOOM channels about twice as much as I do all of the networks.

 

[Sarang]

Am I the only one who thinks there's an easy way to add content here? For Animania why not license a TON of new Anime that's popular in Japan to there? As far as I know new Anime is already in HD, it would provide new content for VOOM and would leave Anime fans frothing at the mouth, myself included. This would be a great boon for Dish, being the ONLY service provider in the U.S. carrying HD Anime.

 

[BobMurdoch]

Yeah, my kids love the Pink Panther and Aardvark reruns, but the rest are worthless.

 

[voripteth]

For Animania why not license a TON of new Anime that's popular in Japan to there? As far as I know new Anime is already in HD, it would provide new content for VOOM and would leave Anime fans frothing at the mouth, myself included.

If Voom were to carry an HD anime channel that would be reason enough to keep be subscribing!

Frankly I find it very sad that the Animania channel features such crude ancient animation. Even the more recent CGI stuff is pretty disappointing. They need to carry, Reboot, War Planets, Starship Troopers or any of the other decent CGI series done in the past few years. I don't see them on any other channel so I would think they are available.