Tweet
Voom is really makin' some noise in the satellite world. Especially in the HD area as they are now up to 37 HD channels (21 of those exclusive to VOOM) and have more on the way in June.
We've posted a little on this in the past but they haven't had much offering up until recently. ESPN was just added.
They have added a host of SD channels as well... over 60 as of June. From reading what many subscribers are saying the quality is better than Directv and Dish. I'm suspecting that this quality could drop as they continue to add channels which they are in negotiations with several others.
$0 up front, $0 installation and 2 packages: $39.90 and $79.90 plus $9.50 per month for the receiver.
They are beginning to have a regular cable/satellite type line up.
Channel Line Up Link
You can check out the complete details at http://www.voom.com
6/12/04: Had VOOM installed this past Wednesday and gave up all but locals/WB/UPN with Dish Network.
Another country redneck hillbilly review... :roll:
We opted for renting the receivers vs. buying for now since they plan on releasing a DVR within a few months. We'll probably purchase at that time if we indeed decide to keep VOOM. The verdict is still out.
We had 3 receivers installed, 1 in the great room with the RPTV, 1 in the HT room, and 1 in our daughter's TV room.
The installation was contracted out to Installs, Inc., who contracted it out to Emerald Coast Broadband, who contracted it out to Travis Miller who is an intaller about 70 miles away. The install went fairly smooth other than the fact that VOOM did not ship him any of the remote controls for the receivers. 8O Fortunately I was able to download an .mxd file for my MX-700 and MX-800 from Remote Central that allows us full use of the functions on the normal VOOM remote. Our daughter is using the Sidekick remote to partially control her receiver until our remotes arrive. I'm kinda surprised he made the trip and actually installed the receivers (uninstalling all my E* receivers) before he told me he didn't have the remotes. The remote is required to activate the receivers... without one you can not get activated.
I played around with the VOOM system getting it all adjusted to our RPTV first off and once I've got it all figured out and set up like I like it I'll head to the HT room and start working on that one. Chelsea's was a no-brainer as I set it on 480i on her 35" Sanyo (el cheapo) set. She mainly watches the children channels which are almost all SD anyway.
The VOOM receiver allows you to set the resolution to 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, or Native (which will project whatever resolution it is being fed). I have it set to Native as this gives us the best PQ all around... 1080i or 720p for all the HD channels and 480i for the SD channels. This gives us the best stretching for SD channels as well, which is user selectable as well... you can either have black bars or stretch mode on the SD's on a widescreen set. We have the Toshiba 65" widescreen which is known for it's very good stretch modes and I give VOOM credit on this one... I can hardly tell that the SD channels are stretched. I'm not sure how they do it but I can swear sometimes that there's just no stretching at all. VOOM's stretching is better than the Toshiba's which we are happy about.
The best HD quality programming I've seen is HDNet on Dish Network (E*). It is truly awesome and has a serious wow factor to it. VOOM does not yet have HDNet (not that I would watch it that much anyway) but it gives me a good comparison to VOOM's HD channels. I'd say on a scale of 1-10 with HDNet being 10... most of VOOM's HD channels would be 8-9 with maybe a couple being 9.5 and a couple being 7. It's all still very good but I'd have to say their exclusives are better than the rest. HBO on E* and VOOM are both at about 8. DiscoveryHD on E* is probably closer to 9.5 and with VOOM 9. It's very close but there's an ever so slight difference in my setup.
SD quality is hands down better than E*. I've always been able to see motion artifacts with E*... they are not there with VOOM or at least I've not noticed it yet... if it's there it's surely not as evident to me as of yet. Once they load up their satellites with more SD channels that could change although they are supposed to have a huge amount of extra space coming to them on October 1, which btw, is when they plan on really pouring on more HD channels and more SD channels in an attempt to have the greatest satellite TV programming available.
I preferred using my component inputs on our RPTV thus far because on the DVI there is a brief white snowy screen when changing channels that's not there with component. Even with component there is brief and slight pixelization during channel changing. These are software bugs that VOOM has acknowledged that will hopefully be fixed soon. There is also a small black bar (2") down the left side of our RPTV with DVI. This can easily be adjusted in the service menu of the RPTV if we decide to change to DVI at a later date. Component appears to look just a little sharper than DVI anyway, not sure why.
Probably my biggest gripe right now is the channel scrolling. It does not skip unsubscribed channels. The software is not designed to allow flipping thru favorites either. We can flip thru favorites in the guide but not while viewing channels... we have to go thru black screens on channels we are not subscribed to. We have 9 OTA digital channels mapped in our receiver right not but due to low power output by the local stations we can not receive any of them. We have to scroll thru those as well. If you subscribe to every channel (Va-va-voom) and are able to get all your mapped locals then it might be so bothersome to you, but we don't subscribe to Showtime, The Movie Channel, Encore, and Cinemax... that's a heck of a lot of channels. Of course we can input the channel number when we get to those but it's still aggravating and a feature that will be very welcomed and hopefully soon. Oh and the program guide always brings up the first VOOM channel 100. It should bring up whatever channel you are watching.
There's several other small features that they have acknowledged and plan on working out via software downloads which is all done just like E* and Directv. To date I believe they have had 3 upgrades, all in a short period of time.
So far we are fairly well pleased and are willing to wait out a few upgrades before deciding on whether to keep or dish. We like the programming and the quality so we hope we can be patient and wait.
Now I'll take questions. :B :rofl:
We've posted a little on this in the past but they haven't had much offering up until recently. ESPN was just added.
They have added a host of SD channels as well... over 60 as of June. From reading what many subscribers are saying the quality is better than Directv and Dish. I'm suspecting that this quality could drop as they continue to add channels which they are in negotiations with several others.
$0 up front, $0 installation and 2 packages: $39.90 and $79.90 plus $9.50 per month for the receiver.
They are beginning to have a regular cable/satellite type line up.
Channel Line Up Link
You can check out the complete details at http://www.voom.com
6/12/04: Had VOOM installed this past Wednesday and gave up all but locals/WB/UPN with Dish Network.
Another country redneck hillbilly review... :roll:
We opted for renting the receivers vs. buying for now since they plan on releasing a DVR within a few months. We'll probably purchase at that time if we indeed decide to keep VOOM. The verdict is still out.
We had 3 receivers installed, 1 in the great room with the RPTV, 1 in the HT room, and 1 in our daughter's TV room.
The installation was contracted out to Installs, Inc., who contracted it out to Emerald Coast Broadband, who contracted it out to Travis Miller who is an intaller about 70 miles away. The install went fairly smooth other than the fact that VOOM did not ship him any of the remote controls for the receivers. 8O Fortunately I was able to download an .mxd file for my MX-700 and MX-800 from Remote Central that allows us full use of the functions on the normal VOOM remote. Our daughter is using the Sidekick remote to partially control her receiver until our remotes arrive. I'm kinda surprised he made the trip and actually installed the receivers (uninstalling all my E* receivers) before he told me he didn't have the remotes. The remote is required to activate the receivers... without one you can not get activated.
I played around with the VOOM system getting it all adjusted to our RPTV first off and once I've got it all figured out and set up like I like it I'll head to the HT room and start working on that one. Chelsea's was a no-brainer as I set it on 480i on her 35" Sanyo (el cheapo) set. She mainly watches the children channels which are almost all SD anyway.
The VOOM receiver allows you to set the resolution to 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, or Native (which will project whatever resolution it is being fed). I have it set to Native as this gives us the best PQ all around... 1080i or 720p for all the HD channels and 480i for the SD channels. This gives us the best stretching for SD channels as well, which is user selectable as well... you can either have black bars or stretch mode on the SD's on a widescreen set. We have the Toshiba 65" widescreen which is known for it's very good stretch modes and I give VOOM credit on this one... I can hardly tell that the SD channels are stretched. I'm not sure how they do it but I can swear sometimes that there's just no stretching at all. VOOM's stretching is better than the Toshiba's which we are happy about.
The best HD quality programming I've seen is HDNet on Dish Network (E*). It is truly awesome and has a serious wow factor to it. VOOM does not yet have HDNet (not that I would watch it that much anyway) but it gives me a good comparison to VOOM's HD channels. I'd say on a scale of 1-10 with HDNet being 10... most of VOOM's HD channels would be 8-9 with maybe a couple being 9.5 and a couple being 7. It's all still very good but I'd have to say their exclusives are better than the rest. HBO on E* and VOOM are both at about 8. DiscoveryHD on E* is probably closer to 9.5 and with VOOM 9. It's very close but there's an ever so slight difference in my setup.
SD quality is hands down better than E*. I've always been able to see motion artifacts with E*... they are not there with VOOM or at least I've not noticed it yet... if it's there it's surely not as evident to me as of yet. Once they load up their satellites with more SD channels that could change although they are supposed to have a huge amount of extra space coming to them on October 1, which btw, is when they plan on really pouring on more HD channels and more SD channels in an attempt to have the greatest satellite TV programming available.
I preferred using my component inputs on our RPTV thus far because on the DVI there is a brief white snowy screen when changing channels that's not there with component. Even with component there is brief and slight pixelization during channel changing. These are software bugs that VOOM has acknowledged that will hopefully be fixed soon. There is also a small black bar (2") down the left side of our RPTV with DVI. This can easily be adjusted in the service menu of the RPTV if we decide to change to DVI at a later date. Component appears to look just a little sharper than DVI anyway, not sure why.
Probably my biggest gripe right now is the channel scrolling. It does not skip unsubscribed channels. The software is not designed to allow flipping thru favorites either. We can flip thru favorites in the guide but not while viewing channels... we have to go thru black screens on channels we are not subscribed to. We have 9 OTA digital channels mapped in our receiver right not but due to low power output by the local stations we can not receive any of them. We have to scroll thru those as well. If you subscribe to every channel (Va-va-voom) and are able to get all your mapped locals then it might be so bothersome to you, but we don't subscribe to Showtime, The Movie Channel, Encore, and Cinemax... that's a heck of a lot of channels. Of course we can input the channel number when we get to those but it's still aggravating and a feature that will be very welcomed and hopefully soon. Oh and the program guide always brings up the first VOOM channel 100. It should bring up whatever channel you are watching.
There's several other small features that they have acknowledged and plan on working out via software downloads which is all done just like E* and Directv. To date I believe they have had 3 upgrades, all in a short period of time.
So far we are fairly well pleased and are willing to wait out a few upgrades before deciding on whether to keep or dish. We like the programming and the quality so we hope we can be patient and wait.
Now I'll take questions. :B :rofl:
I may look at it again at some point, but that time isn't right now anyway. Keep us posted though, I continue to be curious. 
Comment