Unofficial Self Installs?

[Bear]

I am finally relatively happy with my home theater, but I am now getting antsy for decent content to feed it. The Wife hates HBO (too much violence), but loves InHD and InHD2. It seems to me that Voom has this type of content in spades, and at a price that is competitive with our local cable monopolist. However, I am leery of the entry price for Voom sans either an ability to archive the few good programs that are worth it, or the ability to timeshift HD.

Here's my thought: there is a lot of used equipment available on the secondary market, and I am perfectly happy to spend $100 and some time to "test the water" with Voom. Has anyone gotten Voom to activate a system purchased from the secondary market? Or are those folks mostly hoping for an alternate use that reall won't work with Voom?

Thanks!

Bill

 

[shelly]

Do NOT, under any circumstances, purchase a preused or second party Voom set top box.

Voom has repeatedly stated that their policy is to NOT activate or authorize any stb other than those purchased directly from them.

No exceptions, no matter what you are told.

That said, Voom is the hd leader in content and picture quality. I have had Dish hd and Directv hd.

Shelly

 

[Bear]

Shelly - Thanks! That's about the answer I got from Voom yesterday. I'd love to pay them the $50/month, but I'm very leery of dropping $350 plus a guaranteed $600 over the next year while the DVR issue is unresolved. Like many folks, I find that once you've gotten used to the DVR, it is pretty hard to go back (even with HD).

If they'd let me self-install with no contract, I'd be a VOOMer as early as this weekend.

Later,
Bill

 

[wasch_24]

Do NOT, under any circumstances, purchase a preused or second party Voom set top box.

Voom has repeatedly stated that their policy is to NOT activate or authorize any stb other than those purchased directly from them.

No exceptions, no matter what you are told.

That said, Voom is the hd leader in content and picture quality. I have had Dish hd and Directv hd.

Shelly

Yup, listen to Shelly.

 

[Kentstater72]

I just went over to eBay and saw five or more stb's. All say comes with the card, but needs to be activated. In lies the lie.

Is the stb completely useless, or could one get OTA HD signals without activation?

 

[madpoet]

Nope. My two boxes are boat anchors .

 

[Bear]

MP - That's too bad. I take it you've tried that route? I almost think I should go with E* or D* just to be different from you...

Later,
Bill

 

[riffjim4069]

Is the stb completely useless, or could one get OTA HD signals without activation?

I would suspect as long as the box has firmware 6.x or higher, then is should work for OTA regardless of activation status.

If so, I would seriously consider picking one up "on the cheap" if I didn't already have 3 ATSC tuners.

 

[shelly]

Shelly - Thanks! That's about the answer I got from Voom yesterday. I'd love to pay them the $50/month, but I'm very leery of dropping $350 plus a guaranteed $600 over the next year while the DVR issue is unresolved. Like many folks, I find that once you've gotten used to the DVR, it is pretty hard to go back (even with HD).

If they'd let me self-install with no contract, I'd be a VOOMer as early as this weekend.

Later,
Bill

I thought that there was just a $50 investment to have Voom installed now, plus the $10 monthly rental fee on top of the programming.

By the way, I would not get Voom myself just for the exclusive channels, although I watch them as much as the other non exclusive ones.

The Vavavoom package is worth the extra $$$ each month for me to get all the premium movie channels as well.

Shelly

 

[Bear]

Shelly - The $50 install fee requires a 1 year commitment (total prize package value of $770). While I realize that's not very expensive to the folks who paid, what, over a grand(?), when Voom first came out, it is still more than I'm willing to commit sight unseen. This is especially true when there is a lot of "loose" equipment available for $50 - $100 in the secondary market.

Later,
Bill

 

[gross67]

I'm not so sure about that. VOOM Disconnected me because of a billing mistake (Their mistake,Can you believe that! ). While I was without service for three days, the OTA's would come in for a moment but then I got a message stating that my box was not authorized. So I think you would not get the ota's....

 

[jnardone]

Ebay VOOM Boxes

Hi:
These boxes have been selling on ebay for months and none of the feedback on the completed transactions says anything about the buyer having trouble activating the box. You would think that if it was actually impossible to activate the boxes then someone would have complained to the seller. Maybe there is something else going on there - like people duplicating their access cards or something
Joseph

 

[Bear]

jnardone - that was my guess, but since activation is not guaranteed by the seller, the buyer should have little recourse.

Oh, well. If any of the folks leaving Voom want to transfer their account, let me know.

Later,
Bill

 

[dankgus]

I have got to wonder why, most of the Voom boxes on Ebay are missing the doors that cover the card slot. Why would this be? I can understand 1 auction for a box missing a door, but not 5 auctions from several people, all missing doors.

Hmmmm.....
--Dan

 

[Bear]

I've only seen that from one seller in particular, but it is definitely an oddity.

Later,
Bill

 

[Ilya]

I have got to wonder why, most of the Voom boxes on Ebay are missing the doors that cover the card slot. Why would this be? I can understand 1 auction for a box missing a door, but not 5 auctions from several people, all missing doors.

Hmmmm.....
--Dan

I wonder if these are STBs from Sears displays. I remember initial Sears installation instructions included a recommendation to glue the access card door with "installer provided Crazy Glue"! I am not kidding!

 

[Bear]

Would your installation be unauthorized, then, if you supplied your own Crazy Glue?

Later,
Bill