Vongo: Starz and Microsoft $9.95 per Month Unlimited Movies

[Peace]

You sound very sure on that point. You know any inside info you want to share with the rest of us?

You may be right, though, sice Apple and Real were at odds during this same time, it may have made a Mac version of the Real software unlikely.

I still say that until (or IF) this service really takes off, we wont be seeing any Mac version. Hope it happens, though. At least a year away.

imho we wont be seeing vongo for the mac because the only reason vongo came out right before the CES is because they know Apple is gonna come out with Vingle at the MWSF..
Just like that new Acer dual core coming out...

The PC world sees a one upmanship dual this year with Apple going Intel..

We can expect this type of stuff all year..

And what a year it's gonna be!!

 

[Mr. Durden]

Too many posts to quote so :

2. STARZ is one of the worst movie channels out.


And where would you recommend going to watch movies? HBO? Tune in right now and odds are you'll get an original series. Cinemax? Actually, does anybody even get Cinemax any more? Showtime? They pretty much share HBO's movies and have series of there own.

For what its for, you can't get anything much better than Starz. Starz is movies. No series, or blah blah blah. Just movies. They have some of the biggest studios contracted to play movies on their channels. With the something like 13 channels, they have the bases covered for a movie only place to go. HBO kills with the series, which they are more popular for, anyway. Movies are and always will be a second thought to HBO.

 

[Peace]

Too many posts to quote so :

2. STARZ is one of the worst movie channels out.


And where would you recommend going to watch movies? HBO? Tune in right now and odds are you'll get an original series. Cinemax? Actually, does anybody even get Cinemax any more? Showtime? They pretty much share HBO's movies and have series of there own.

For what its for, you can't get anything much better than Starz. Starz is movies. No series, or blah blah blah. Just movies. They have some of the biggest studios contracted to play movies on their channels. With the something like 13 channels, they have the bases covered for a movie only place to go. HBO kills with the series, which they are more popular for, anyway. Movies are and always will be a second thought to HBO.

Where would I go to see a movie?

A theatre..

 

[the silver fox]

You sound very sure on that point. You know any inside info you want to share with the rest of us?

You may be right, though, sice Apple and Real were at odds during this same time, it may have made a Mac version of the Real software unlikely.

I still say that until (or IF) this service really takes off, we wont be seeing any Mac version. Hope it happens, though. At least a year away.

Because one of the interviews with one of the heads of the Vongo service said that.

 

[the silver fox]

Just curious. If you are in the UK, how can you use the service? And how do you know so much about it?

I live in the UK. I am currently travelling in the US (was here for New Year). Simply working through the application and website (particularly the help section) tells you a lot about the service. As do the hundreds of articles written by the journalists who were at the launch today in Vegas.

 

[the silver fox]

You sound very sure on that point. You know any inside info you want to share with the rest of us?

You may be right, though, sice Apple and Real were at odds during this same time, it may have made a Mac version of the Real software unlikely.

I still say that until (or IF) this service really takes off, we wont be seeing any Mac version. Hope it happens, though. At least a year away.

It wont be a year... The application is flash player based and essentially portable (with a few I/O changes). The only thing that Vongo needs for this to run on a Mac, is Microsoft to release the new DRM version of WMP. That is it.

 

[theBB]

Why do they hide details?

I can see from the posted article that it costs $10 per month, but I connected to their website three times today and I cannot find where they list their price. It makes me nervous when I see that a company hides such basic info about its service.

Besides, the site only worked flawlessly once, the other two times their streams were choppy. Maybe they cannot handle all of the traffic right now. I hope they improve it. I don't know about the video quality, not willing to try it on TV, yet.

I think $10 a month for unlimited downloads is a very good offer if the video quality is on par with DVD, even if I cannot save it on my harddisk (thinking about the past rumors about Apple's download service). I hardly ever watch a movie more than once anyways. I hope Apple and at least one other company makes such a video-on-demand system with a large library work successfully as competition is always good. Right now, one of the biggest draws of Netflix is their large library of titles. I wonder how long it would take for these services to make the size of their libraries comparable.

 

[berkleeboy210]

I just downloaded this onto my PC. and am Downloading a test movie right now "Elf". Currently it says it will take 26 minutes to complete.

Also I don't know if anyone caught this, but it also enables you to watch the live stream from the Starz Movie Channel.

I hope Apple really does come out w/ something like this soon, for the Mac side.

 

[the silver fox]

I can see from the posted article that it costs $10 per month, but I connected to their website three times today and I cannot find where they list their price. It makes me nervous when I see that a company hides such basic info about its service.

Besides, the site only worked flawlessly once, the other two times their streams were choppy. Maybe they cannot handle all of the traffic right now. I hope they improve it. I don't know about the video quality, not willing to try it on TV, yet.

I think $10 a month for unlimited downloads is a very good offer if the video quality is on par with DVD, even if I cannot save it on my harddisk (thinking about the past rumors about Apple's download service). I hardly ever watch a movie more than once anyways. I hope Apple and at least one other company makes such a video-on-demand system with a large library work successfully as competition is always good. Right now, one of the biggest draws of Netflix is their large library of titles. I wonder how long it would take for these services to make the size of their libraries comparable.

Maybe they are still deciding the price. After all, it has been reported by some sites as $9.95 and others as $9.99.

 

[the silver fox]

I just downloaded this onto my PC. and am Downloading a test movie right now "Elf". Currently it says it will take 26 minutes to complete.

Also I don't know if anyone caught this, but it also enables you to watch the live stream from the Starz Movie Channel.

I hope Apple really does come out w/ something like this soon, for the Mac side.

Still looking good and working well on my PC

 

[MarcelV]

Anyon thought about the possibility that Vongo will be available within iTunes? Vongo will be available thru Sony Connect according to some press releases. What if Apple will just be the front-end to Vongo's backend? Would solve the DRM issues as Apple adds the DRM layer at purchase time. Will provide Apple with the movies where Vongo has the rights to, and provides Vongo with an instant large customer base. Looks like a win-win situation. If Apple would release a nice 7"-10" tablet mac and everyone will be happy. Even the credit card companies because I expect a lot of people buying this thing with their credit cards...

 

[newamiga]

I think this is right

Anyon thought about the possibility that Vongo will be available within iTunes? Vongo will be available thru Sony Connect according to some press releases. What if Apple will just be the front-end to Vongo's backend? Would solve the DRM issues as Apple adds the DRM layer at purchase time. Will provide Apple with the movies where Vongo has the rights to, and provides Vongo with an instant large customer base. Looks like a win-win situation. If Apple would release a nice 7"-10" tablet mac and everyone will be happy. Even the credit card companies because I expect a lot of people buying this thing with their credit cards...

I think this is at least part of the answer. It appears fairly clear that MS is not going to fully update WMP with full up DRM for the Mac. That being the case.. would they use Quicktime with Fairplay DRM? Would Apple license it.. I doubt it.. so how would they become Apple compatible soon? Well if Apple did it they would.

 

[snowmoon]

Hmmm...

Slick - check
Site teid to buggy IE - check
Medocre selection - check
Application leaks like a sive ( 400+MB the first time I ran the app ) - check
Demads credit card information up front - check
No ability to preview quality of the movies - check

Being adventerous I am trying one from the "new this week" category to see what the quality is, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[snowmoon]

Ok, tried to download a PPV movie... ( twice even )

didn't work, in fact the whole thing crashed and burned.

* Customer service is at least responsive
* They don't know what's wrong
* The program requires some ports to be open, but CS doesn't know which ones
* They charge your CC before download starts
* The application eats memory like crazy
* The application uses all it's own GUI tools and does not respond to normal keyboard navigation
* It's jerky
* Searching can't match "Gone in 60 seconds" when title is "Gone in sixty seconds"

If this is the best they can come up with I still stand by my remark that Apple will be able to provide a much better environment than this.

 

[the silver fox]

Hmmm...

Slick - check
Site teid to buggy IE - check
Medocre selection - check
Application leaks like a sive ( 400+MB the first time I ran the app ) - check
Demads credit card information up front - check
No ability to preview quality of the movies - check

Being adventerous I am trying one from the "new this week" category to see what the quality is, but I'm not holding my breath.

Hmmm.
Site doesn't appear tied to IE for me; works better in Firefox, in fact.

Mediocre selection compared to which other movie download service?

Application does use a large amount of memory, but then it IS a beta.

The website allows you to download a clip of 'The Incredibles' before you even download the application.

Sorry all, but I think this is a very good first of its kind.

 

[snowmoon]

Hmmm.
Site doesn't appear tied to IE for me; works better in Firefox, in fact.

The site vongo.com works in firefox, but the application is an IE wrapper. Try removing the flash plugin for IE and installing or running the apllicaiton it won't work since it's just an IE wrapper.

Mediocre selection compared to which other movie download service?

Granted, but I could not find most of the movies I have in my netflix queue

Application does use a large amount of memory, but then it IS a beta.

400+ MB? It leaks at least a MB a minute.

The website allows you to download a clip of 'The Incredibles' before you even download the application.

one, low resolution trailer.... if that's the quality than count me out since it looked like crap.

Sorry all, but I think this is a very good first of its kind.

You are one of the few that seem to be able to get this working satifactory since I have checked over at AVSForum and others have been unable to get the application or service to work as expected.

 

[snowmoon]

Add to the list of problem..

* Account information randomly updates. I currently have a phone number that I never added to the account listed as my account
* It claims I can't updated my account info because my zip code is not in my state
* It won't let me remove or alter my credit card info. With how good the system is responding I would prefer that these people NOT have my CC info.

 

[the silver fox]

Ok, tried to download a PPV movie... ( twice even )

didn't work, in fact the whole thing crashed and burned.

* Customer service is at least responsive
* They don't know what's wrong
* The program requires some ports to be open, but CS doesn't know which ones
* They charge your CC before download starts
* The application eats memory like crazy
* The application uses all it's own GUI tools and does not respond to normal keyboard navigation
* It's jerky
* Searching can't match "Gone in 60 seconds" when title is "Gone in sixty seconds"

If this is the best they can come up with I still stand by my remark that Apple will be able to provide a much better environment than this.

Haven't tried PPV yet.

The GUI is clearly Flash for ease of cross-platform development. Maybe in the final release they will be putting more normal 'hooks' in

Yes, the meta isn't that great.

 

[BOOMBA]

Without the iPod, Vongo will fail, most likely. Ease of use will be very important, as well as portability of the video downloads.

I'd like to see something like this offered by Apple, since they have the foundation in place to make this happen.

The iPod CAN be defeated.
Apple needs to get high quality video playback on the iPod.

 

[the silver fox]

The site vongo.com works in firefox, but the application is an IE wrapper. Try removing the flash plugin for IE and installing or running the apllicaiton it won't work since it's just an IE wrapper.


Yes, but that isn't what you said. The app runs C++, Flash (GUI and Trailers, many different server calls) all within an IE wrapper, agreed.


Granted, but I could not find most of the movies I have in my netflix queue

True. But you can't get your netflix movies within 20 minutes.



400+ MB? It leaks at least a MB a minute.

Yes that is crazy, but then the first (non-beta) Windows versions of iTunes used over 300MB on it's first release... so no surprises there for a Beta release.



one, low resolution trailer.... if that's the quality than count me out since it looked like crap.


Agreed, It does look bad, and is clearly compressed by the 'holiday staff' since it is of a much lower resolution than the movies I've downloaded. But again, that isn't what you said.



You are one of the few that seem to be able to get this working satifactory since I have checked over at AVSForum and others have been unable to get the application or service to work as expected.

Yes, yes... I get it, you can't get it to work properly, but I'm sure many thousands of other people can. Including other people on AVSForum.com.

 

[snowmoon]

The iPod CAN be defeated.
Apple needs to get high quality video playback on the iPod.

I have DVD quality movies stored on my iPod that can be played back full resolution through A/V cables. So it's not that it's not possible, just that apple has chosen not to offer it through iTMS at this time.

 

[the silver fox]

The iPod CAN be defeated.
Apple needs to get high quality video playback on the iPod.

No-one really wants the iPod to be defeated.

The thing that is really holding up any of these services is the film industry. Starz obviously managed to get exclusive rights to many movies due to their Cable TV network.

Studios only really trust big companies like Microsoft, Sony (beacuse it owns studios) and Apple to pull it off. That is why MS is obviously using this service as a test bed for WMP timed DRM. That is also why Vongo keeps flaunting the Microsoft name. Real Didn't work out for Starz because not enough people use it and Starz were already in bed with MSoft.

 

[the silver fox]

I have DVD quality movies stored on my iPod that can be played back full resolution through A/V cables. So it's not that it's not possible, just that apple has chosen not to offer it through iTMS at this time.

Same here. Apple isn't offering higher resolution movies because of the incredible bandwidth costs.

They will have to offer different pricing structures if they were to offer the quicktime-trailer-type concept of small, medium, large. The back-end of the iTunes store is a horrible mess as it is (trust me on that if you don't know), offering a tiered service will be a considerable pain to write from scratch (not to mention get the studios to agree to), so I'm sure it will be hammered together with a large mallet.

 

[the silver fox]

400+ MB? It leaks at least a MB a minute.

Just double-checked this on two additional PCs I added to my account (thank you office), after running a process viewer for over an hour on the three machines the average usage seems to be 75MB.

Oddly enough, when it is running in the foreground, it uses on average 10MB less!

Have you tried a re-install?

 

[the silver fox]

Add to the list of problem..

* Account information randomly updates. I currently have a phone number that I never added to the account listed as my account
* It claims I can't updated my account info because my zip code is not in my state
* It won't let me remove or alter my credit card info. With how good the system is responding I would prefer that these people NOT have my CC info.

Sounds like their payment partner has a few issues, then, like the iTunes Music Store. I wasn't able to use an international credit card (offshore bank) originally registered to a UK address, for purchasing songs from the US store even though it is now registered to a US address (tells me it isn't valid). No other online store has any issues with it. Odd.