Voom: The New HDTV set-top box

I've seen commercials for these things, but unless someone has an HDTV/plasma screen@1080i (which are still pretty expensive), the product seems something of a niche for early adopters! Sidebar: One wonders if Microsoft will purchase Voom, considering Microsoft has already co-developed their own Media Center PCs/centers with hi-def features.

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For High-Definition Sets, Channels to Match
June 3, 2004
By DAVID POGUE
E-mail: [email protected]
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/03/technology/circuits/03stat.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=

LET'S face it: those $5,000 plasma screens are popular not just because they're high-definition TV sets but also because they're status symbols. Look at Gateway's 42-inch $3,000 plasma screen, a runaway hit even though it can't actually display images in high definition. At this rate, someone will surely come up with a $200 plasma screen that doesn't even turn on. It would just hang on the wall and look cool.

But however cool the screens, as the nine million people who have bought HDTV's have quickly discovered, the high-definition age is not yet fully upon us. If you buy an HDTV receiver connected to an antenna on your roof, you can enjoy a few hours of prime-time HDTV broadcasts each night on ABC, CBS and so on - if you're within about 50 miles of a big city. If you have cable or satellite, you can upgrade your plan to include a handful of high-def channels, like HBO HDTV and ESPN HD.

Otherwise, what you'll mostly watch is low-definition shows, either stretched to fit your wide-screen set or with black bars on the sides. It will be years before the networks, cable and satellite outfits broadcast all HD, all the time.

The executives at Voom, a new satellite service controlled by Cablevision and offered throughout the continental United States, don't think you can wait that long. Started in January, Voom already offers 39 HDTV channels, many more than you can get from any other source.

Now, HDTV aficionados may already be furrowing their brows. "Thirty-nine high-def channels?" they're saying. "There aren't 39 high-def channels in the world!" Actually, there are now. For starters, Voom gives you those prime-time over-the-air network broadcasts, because Voom's installers put not one but two antennas on your roof: one satellite dish and one that picks up NBC, CBS, ABC and so on. (If you live in an apartment, check on your building's restrictions.)

The basic $40-a-month package also includes Voom's 21 homegrown proprietary channels. All programs on those channels are filmed and broadcast in a high-definition format known as 1080i; they look and sound spectacular, and - apart from Voom promos - are commercial-free.

For example, Rush is an extreme-sports channel that specializes in colorful hot-air balloons, gleaming kayaks and hang gliders in bright sunshine. The Gallery channel is like an art history class that never ends: all close-ups of paintings, presented continuously. The Auction channel is nonstop descriptions of collectibles.

Then there's the MOOV channel, a 24-hour screen saver; it features weird kaleidoscopic "motion art" segments set to music and created by broadcast designers. (Video art is, as Voom puts it, "ambient television, not appointment television." You're meant to leave it playing on the wall as you do other things around the house, not gather the family in the living room for half an hour of "iMovie Effects Gone Nuts.")

All of these channel topics were obviously selected because they show off the stunning visual qualities of HDTV. Their looks are their sole reason for existence; most would die a quick death in any other forum.

Not all, however. HD's wider screen and sharper video make a big difference to Voom's news and WorldSport channels. And on Voom's Rave channel, featuring rock concerts filmed live in HD, something about that wide screen and the intimacy of the cameras makes the experience thrilling and immersive.

Rounding out the 21 Voom Originals, as the company calls its proprietary channels, are a dozen 24-hour movie channels. Most show the same movie all day, over and over. Unfortunately, their motto may as well be, "Not just bad movies - high-definition bad movies." Among this week's selections are the 1962 classic "Rider on a Dead Horse," 1986's unforgettable "Troll" and 1962's immortal "Slaughter of the Vampires."

Voom admits that the movies are so far on the lame side, but points out that you'd be hard pressed to find 12 commercial-free movie channels - let alone high-definition ones - in the basic $40 package from any other cable or satellite provider. Voom also says that by the end of the year, those channels will repeat less and gain thematic personalities: one channel each for action movies, chick flicks, westerns, documentaries, gay and lesbian movies, and so on.

Finally, for $15 each, you can add "plus packs": one each for HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and Starz. Each includes one high-def channel and eight spinoffs (HBO East, HBO West, and so on). (If you're a movie-holic, you may as well save money by subscribing to the Va Va Voom plan: $80 a month for all of the above.)

Each Voom basic package also includes 84 standard-definition cable channels like CNN, TNT and Disney. (You can inspect the complete list at www.voom.com, along with a "what's on right now" grid.)

Voom's best feature is its smooth integration of network broadcasts, cable channels and Voom's own homemade channels into a single set-top box, controlled with an expertly designed illuminated remote, and displayed on a unified onscreen TV guide.

As a result, Voom simulates channel-surfing in, say, 2015, when every channel from every source will be in high definition. The colors are breathtaking, the clarity puts standard TV to shame, and the rectangular, much wider picture fills your field of view the way a screen in a movie theater does. It all sounds good, too, because Voom transmits in five-channel Dolby surround sound.

The company has come a long way since its rocky start in January, when the installers didn't know what they were doing, the Motorola set-top box required frequent rebooting, and ESPN wasn't on board. (An HDTV service without sports? Heresy!)

Even so, Voom is still a startup. The listings grid routinely chops off the second line of each show's description, the box takes several seconds to change channels and the channel grid always appears at channel 100, rather than the channel you're already watching. And Voom's customer service department is still, ahem, evolving. (It took eight days to get a reply to an e-mailed question to Voom tech support, which promises a response in 24 hours.)

At the moment, Voom fills an important niche. But as the world goes all-HDTV in the coming years, you might reasonably wonder how long Voom will be around.Voom acknowledges that its window of opportunity is finite but maintains that it will remain open for much longer than people imagine. Voom has room for expansion; by the end of next year, it will have satellite capacity for 94 high-def channels and 368 standard ones, the company says.

(A single HDTV channel, according to Voom, requires as much bandwidth as eight standard-definition channels.) The company maintains that finding the bandwidth for a total switch to high-def will be far more difficult for its cable and satellite rivals.

In the meantime, through July 5, Voom is making an irresistible offer. The company will install the box and the two antennas at no charge. In addition to the service fee, you pay $9.50 a month to rent the equipment, and you can cancel at any time with no penalty. (Exploiting this offer - rather than buying the box outright for $500 - is even a good idea if you intend to stick with Voom, because this fall the company plans to offer a new set-top box adding the TiVo-like ability to pause, rewind, record and play back high-def shows.)

If you're a TV nut, you could consider supplementing your current service with Voom to add HD channels worthy of your screen. If you're anyone else, you could even replace your current service with Voom; $40 a month, or $55 with nine HBO channels, is somewhat more expensive than a basic cable or satellite plan, but, of course, includes those 12 movie channels and much more in high-def.

Either way, Voom is clearly an infant service still finding its way. But upgrade by upgrade, channel by channel, Voom intends to become a major player, capitalizing on its satellite capacity and advanced equipment to surge past its more established rivals in the age of high definition.

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I'd be tempted to switch, but I'd lose all my high-def local stations and InHD/InHD2 on Time Warner.

I've heard their rooftop antenna installs aren't the greatest. To get HD locals in my neighborhood, if you don't have cable, you need a rooftop antenna with a rotor.

 

I saw this in the Times yesterday, and thought it sounded pretty exciting. We're in the "infancy" of basic TIVO training. My long-term game plan is to upgrade to the mega-unit w/major HD-compat hard drive, record to DVD, capture 4 shows at once.

That'd be nice w/VOOM. A man's gotta dream, right?

doug

 

They had an exhibit at the Stereophile Home Theater Show in NYC a couple of weeks ago. They had about 20 big plasma screens going with HD signal feeds. I was impressed with only four of the channels. The rest were grainy, had their signal broken up intermittently or were standard TV stretched. In addition, the sales staff there were incredibly aggressive.
Cablevision, which controls Voom has a 20-year history of screwing up businesses, technologies and their customers.

 

I'd go with DirecTV with the high-definition Tivo, frankly. You'll get as much actual HDTV content and you'll get the best of the standard channels as well.

Not that I like lining the pockets of the master of Faux News, but what can you do?