Unbelievable:
Install was yesterdeay, 7/27/04. The installer was competent and experienced with satellite installs, but not really an expert on the stuff unique to Voom. So it was properly installed, but not really properly configured to realize the full potential of the product. I wonder how many disappointed Voom customers have been at this exact point and simply never had the knowledge or the energy to correctly configure their service.
I had 3 issues, all of which seem to now be resolved:
1)The picture stuttered. Not unwatchably horrible, but very noticeable -- bad enough that had it continued I would have cancelled the service. But then last night (my first night with Voom) the new software came and it seems to have corrected the stuttering. I guess my timing was good.
2)I initially got fewer OTA channels (6) than with my indoor rabbit ears (13), but after doing a scan with the new software I now have 19 OTA channels, and I'm 40 miles from most of the transmitters in Austin, sometimes farther away.
3)The picture quality seemed ok but less than advertised. SD channels were decent, HD channels were good, but nothing was good enough to make me keep Voom. I thought I'd try the DVI input instead of the composite (the installer had originally tried the DVI input, but it didn't work -- "no signal" -- so he hooked up composite video instead). Later I learned through this forum that the STB was set by default to 780i, which my RCA Scenium TV does not recognize in DVI for some reason. I changed that to 1080i, hooked up the DVI connections, turned every thing off and then back on, and the difference was huge. The picture quality is noticeably better. It is truly exceptional. The "free flight" show on the Rush channel almost gave me motion sickness it was so real. ((to be fair, I never even bothered to look at the composite through the 1080i; maybe it improved substantially as well with the new setting)).
Bottom Line: Voom is Amazing so far, and I am extremely impressed, but you have to have tenacity and a willingness to tinker with things and figure stuff out. Don't simply assume that your install guy configured it correctly.
Install was yesterdeay, 7/27/04. The installer was competent and experienced with satellite installs, but not really an expert on the stuff unique to Voom. So it was properly installed, but not really properly configured to realize the full potential of the product. I wonder how many disappointed Voom customers have been at this exact point and simply never had the knowledge or the energy to correctly configure their service.
I had 3 issues, all of which seem to now be resolved:
1)The picture stuttered. Not unwatchably horrible, but very noticeable -- bad enough that had it continued I would have cancelled the service. But then last night (my first night with Voom) the new software came and it seems to have corrected the stuttering. I guess my timing was good.
2)I initially got fewer OTA channels (6) than with my indoor rabbit ears (13), but after doing a scan with the new software I now have 19 OTA channels, and I'm 40 miles from most of the transmitters in Austin, sometimes farther away.
3)The picture quality seemed ok but less than advertised. SD channels were decent, HD channels were good, but nothing was good enough to make me keep Voom. I thought I'd try the DVI input instead of the composite (the installer had originally tried the DVI input, but it didn't work -- "no signal" -- so he hooked up composite video instead). Later I learned through this forum that the STB was set by default to 780i, which my RCA Scenium TV does not recognize in DVI for some reason. I changed that to 1080i, hooked up the DVI connections, turned every thing off and then back on, and the difference was huge. The picture quality is noticeably better. It is truly exceptional. The "free flight" show on the Rush channel almost gave me motion sickness it was so real. ((to be fair, I never even bothered to look at the composite through the 1080i; maybe it improved substantially as well with the new setting)).
Bottom Line: Voom is Amazing so far, and I am extremely impressed, but you have to have tenacity and a willingness to tinker with things and figure stuff out. Don't simply assume that your install guy configured it correctly.
