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Topic: RIP - Monsters HD

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-03-2009 05:40 PM

quote: Joe Tommassello
As for the repetition of programming, Chris, don't you have HBO or Showtime, etc? Monsters HD was no more repetitive than those and their slate of titles was excellent and unique.

Baloney.

Voom repeated so much of the same programming over and over again that Dish Network cited breach of contract and killed the deal. The courts agreed with Dish Network's complaint.

Not everyone goes ape-shit for horror movies all the time either. The claim that people with my point of view "just don't get it" is silly. MonstersHD, like all the Voom channels played and often repeated programming with limited viewer appeal. Maybe if the viewer ratings of Voom channels were better Dish would still be carrying it.

quote: Mark J. Marshall
By the way, I guess the lawsuit with News Corp is over (or irrelevant) - Fox News HD is on Dish now.

The channel wasn't supposed to be available until tomorrow, but something got messed up in the uplink process. The Ciel II satellite is finally now in its 129° position and in operation. More HD channels may be lighting up on Dish Network tomorrow...

...just in time for a serious price increase.

I have the now discontinued DishHD "Absolute" package. That got replaced by the various "TurboHD" packages which cost quite a bit more for roughly the same channels.

Prices apparently aren't going up for existing DishHD Absolute customers. They're "grandfathered." The downside is no new HD channels are being added to that package either. Further, if any premium channels currently in the subscription are dropped, the grandfathered status is dropped too.

That doesn't bother me much since I'm getting a pretty good bargain for all the HD channels I do get. I pay $57 monthly for 8 HBO HD channels, my local channels and the channels in the DishHD Absolute package, which included all the channels in the Turbo Gold & Platinum packages. It doesn't include any of the new channels being added in February. With the Feb. rate increase factored, if I changed to a Turbo Gold/Platinum subscription with HBO and locals included my bill would go up to at least $81 per month. That's a big price hike.

Until Dish adds a lot more HD channels (particularly ones like Comedy Central HD, Spike HD, etc.) and those channels are showing a lot more HD content I'm not changing my satellite service at all.

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Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 02-03-2009 06:48 PM

quote: Joe Tommassello
As for the repetition of programming, Chris, don't you have HBO or Showtime, etc? Monsters HD was no more repetitive than those and their slate of titles was excellent and unique.

No I don't. I don't have any form of cable. OTA for the win. There's plenty of good local programming over-the-air, plus I have grad school to contend with.

That said, I would like to have discovery channel. And that said, I probably will get some sort of cable soon-ish.

Though, perhaps I'm mistaken but don't HBO and Showtime have quite a lot of new programming all the time? I know that they have several shows that are only on their network that show at least weekly.

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Joe Tommassello
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 547
From: Coatesville, PA, USA
Registered: Jan 2008

posted 02-04-2009 12:31 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Not everyone goes ape-shit for horror movies all the time either.

That's true, but some people do. My experience suggests that horror movies have the most devoted and fanatical - and probably largest - fan base of any single genre. Genre fans would have flocked to that channel had it been available and if Rainbow were making a few dollars a month for each subscriber instead of pennies they would have acquired more programming. I see what you guys are saying that month after month they weren't adding much new product but it never really got off the ground. Still I would have paid for it as it was by far the standard of what a horror movie channel should be.

BTW, Bob, I only get one HD channel for each of the premium services rather than all the HBOs, Showtimes, etc. Comcast blows. I am looking at FIOS TV for a likely upgrade.

quote: Chris Slycord
don't HBO and Showtime have quite a lot of new programming all the time?

Chris - yes they do but it's such a wide variety of product that only a fraction of it interests me. Right now I have all the major premium services and there is not one original series on in which I have any interest. There are two buisness models of which you and Bob are subscribing to one (appeal to a wide customer base with a generically-pleasing product capturing a small percentage of the overall base) and Mark and I are subscribing to the other (appeal to a specialized customer base with a vastly superior, targeted product capturing a large percentage of that base). The folks at Vermont Teddy Bears probably have an opinion on whether the latter can be successful.

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Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 02-04-2009 01:28 PM

So before you said that HBO's content was "just as repetitive" and now that changes to "HBO's content is extremely varied and not repetitive." Even if I dislike someone's shows, that doesn't make it repetitive.

Like when I was younger I saw some episodes of Dragonball Z periodically. I enjoyed the show even if I'm not an anime fan. But I also HATED the fact that it was EXTREMELY repetitive since whoever bought the rights for showing it in the US only bought the rights for one very short season. So I saw parts of the same episode like 10 times.

And I'm not saying that focusing on a small audience can't work, but if they repeat content this much it would seem almost like this would be better as an on-demand thing. Though if someone really wants horror movies in HD so much that they don't care if the content is repeated then so be it. Write to Dish and ask them to bring back Voom as a special add-on.

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Joe Tommassello
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 547
From: Coatesville, PA, USA
Registered: Jan 2008

posted 02-04-2009 02:24 PM

quote: Chris Slycord
So before you said that HBO's content was "just as repetitive" and now that changes to "HBO's content is extremely varied and not repetitive."

Chris - I think you misread me somewhere. I never said HBO didn't have a variety of programming nor do I see where I said they are not repetitive. Alien vs. Predator Requiem starts Saturday night. It is on the primary HBO channel something like nine times in three weeks. Fool's Gold starts on the 14th and plays eleven times in two weeks. This doesn't count all the other HBO channels...only the primary one. That's a lot of repetition...especially since it will be On Demand also.

I have already taken the steps you advise and written to Dish, DirectTV, Comcast, Verizon and Rainbow telling them I would switch to any available service that resurrected Monsters HD. The rest of the Voom package is specialized for viewers with interests other than mine.

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Mark J. Marshall
Film God

Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 02-04-2009 02:51 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
something got messed up in the uplink process.

I like those kinds of screw ups! [thumbsup]

quote: Bobby Henderson
particularly ones like Comedy Central HD, Spike HD, etc.

Great. Two more commercial infested HD channels showing movies in a screwed up fashion. I don't get the appeal.

It's sort of like being given a choice between two movie theaters. One shows a small library of films repetitively, but absolutely perfectly. The other has a much larger library, but plays everything through the wrong lens, slightly out of focus, with the masking set wrong, and with the pre-show projector still running so ads can jump across the screen through the course of the show. Oh, and they show movies on 20 minute reels - with one projector, so they have to stop and switch reels several times before it's all over.

I'll take the first theater every single time. But I guess everyone else is all for tearing that theater down to make room for building more theaters like the second one.

In fact, I'll go so far as to say that I'd be willing to pay Dish an extra $5 a month for them to turn those channels OFF and stop sending my money to them. Dish can keep that portion of my bill, and the extra $5.

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Joe Tommassello
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 547
From: Coatesville, PA, USA
Registered: Jan 2008

posted 02-06-2009 10:52 AM

quote: Chris Slycord
it would seem almost like this would be better as an on-demand thing

That's what Fearnet is and it sucks. I could see MHD as a "premium" on-demand service which you pay for so it doesn't have commercial interruptions or animated ads on the screen during the films. I don't mind their little logo in the corner giving a little spin every so often...Universal HD does that and it's not bad. But to obliterate the video and audio with ads constantly during the movie and have commercial breaks too? I thought we were all about quality presentation here?

[ 02-06-2009, 12:12 PM: Message edited by: Joe Tommassello ]

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Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 02-06-2009 01:20 PM

I wasn't at all referring to it as being an on-demand service with ads. Like I could see a lot of people saying to themselves that they only want to see some of the movies being offered and would only watch them once anyway. So having you pay to watch individual movies could be the way to go.

That's what I was thinking.

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Joe Tommassello
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 547
From: Coatesville, PA, USA
Registered: Jan 2008

posted 02-06-2009 02:46 PM

Perhaps but on Comcast the cheapest PPV seems to still be $2.99 so I'd go broke. I am thinking more like the business model Howard Stern has (not that I subscribe to his service) where you pay $10 or so a month and then have unlimited on-demand access to the product without it taking up a full-time channel.

[ 02-06-2009, 04:27 PM: Message edited by: Joe Tommassello ]

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Mitchell Dvoskin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1869
From: West Milford, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 02-13-2009 02:23 PM

The VOOM channels spent the last year and a half of their life on Cablevision's cable tv service. In fact, a division of Cablevision has owned VOOM since it's inception as a standalone satellite service. When the standalone service failed, they contracted with Dish to carry the channels. They made a commitment to Dish in regards to the amount of new programming that would appear each month, which they could not meet, so Dish dropped them.

I too will miss MonstersHD, along with a few of the other VOOM movie channels. The sad part is that since last summer, they had slowly started to introduce new titles to their lineup.

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