Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: RIP

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Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 01-29-2009, 03:03 PM:

Well economics appears to have driven a stake through the heart of the coolest movie channel ever. Not that I ever had it...it was only available on Dish Network and Optimum Cable (I think that is limited to areas on Long Island but I could be wrong). 24/7 horror movies in real Hi-Def...everything from the Universal classics to the recent popular "franchise" films - with stops in between for the likes of Hammer films, 50s sci-fi and Corman/Price films. If I had that channel I'd never leave the house! Anyway last year Dish Network dropped the entire package of which it was a part and on January 20 it ceased operations entirely. I would have paid premium channel prices for just that one service. Comcast sucks!

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 01-29-2009, 04:05 PM:

If it makes you feel any better, Joe, MonstersHD sounded a lot better than it was in reality. They had a comparatively small library of films that they played over and over again. I had it for a few years, and all they seem to have were the Halloween, Friday the 13th and Puppet Master films with ALL of the sequels that that they ran and ran ad nauseum, plus an occasional grade B low budget mid-fifties schlocker along the lines of From Hell It Came, Earth Vs. The Spider, Monster From Pieadras Blancas, The Flesh Eaters et.al.. I mean, Horror of Party Beach can be a fun movie to watch, but not ten times in one week. Occasionally they would license some decent films for a brief period, last fall they had all the Planet Of The Apes pictures for a month or so. Ironically they had just brought in some good new titles a few weeks before they folded. Aside from that, it was pretty repetitious.

I’ll give them one thing, though; whoever did their transfers did a bang-up job for them. Everything looked great, no matter how originally low budget the original picture. They seemed to find the best possible copies of everything they had, and it was all technically pretty high quality. The same goes for Kung Fu HD, one their sister channels. I was watching Flying Snake-fist of the Seven Shaolin Assholes or somesuch thing when the plug got pulled.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-29-2009, 06:08 PM:

I loved MonstersHD. Even though they did have a small library, it seemed like it was expanding significantly just before Dish pulled the plug on it. They had a lot of Hammer stuff lined up, and then *POOF!* they were gone. And you're right, they did have one of the best looking HD pictures I've ever seen on broadcast TV. And the old stuff was a hoot to watch. No other channel has that kind of content. Now there's a big vacuum. A lot of folks were really pissed when that channel went away. There was an awful lot of noise on some of the forums when Dish took them off the air.

RIP indeed. Maybe someone else will pick up the ball.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-29-2009, 09:40 PM:

I don't blame Dish Network for yanking the various Voom channels off its service. The company wasn't getting its money's worth from the Voom contract. Just endless repeats of the same old content. The fact that the HD looked good was besides the point. Rainbow Media (the owners of Voom) and Dish went to court over the matter and Dish won.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-30-2009, 06:53 AM:

Dish doesn't really care about who is watching what. If they did, they wouldn't put the cable news network that no one watches on their lowest level service, and the #1 cable news network on their higher priced service. Obviously that's a money making decision, I guess. I'm still waiting for the #1 cable news network to be in HD. #2 is. We'll see how long that takes.

MonstersHD did repeat a lot of their content, yet people were watching anyway. I don't know how many times I watched Halloween, Friday the 13th, Hellraiser, Creature from the Black Lagoon, etc. But that's ok, because I love that genre, and so do a LOT of other people, and movies like that don't typically play ANYWHERE in HD. I've talked to people who would have loved to see that channel, and they never got a chance. So what happened? Dish replaced the Voom! channels with other incomparable channels. There was clearly viewership on the Voom! channels - mostly because their content was different and interesting, and the picture was phenomenal (Yes, Bobby, that does matter). And Dish yanked them and replaced them with other channels that in some cases (like Monsters) have completely unrelated content and an inferior picture. That just makes no sense, no matter how badly Dish's feelings were hurt.

I wonder if they ever got any complaints about MonstersHD being repetitious. Because when you read the feedback on various forums about MonstersHD (and some of the other Voom! channels) being yanked, the number of people who are upset outnumber those who either aren't upset or who think it was a good decision by a pretty substantial margin. Yet Dish seems to think it was a good idea. And now a channel that had a lot of potential is gone. And now there's a vacuum. Someone should pickup the ball and run with it.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-30-2009, 09:36 AM:

quote: Mark J. Marshall
Dish doesn't really care about who is watching what. If they did, they wouldn't put the cable news network that no one watches on their lowest level service, and the #1 cable news network on their higher priced service.

If you're talking about Fox News that's a totally different matter. Dish Network and News Corp. have been in negotiations for more than a year trying to hammer out some sort of deal on carrying the HD versions of News Corp. owned channels. No deal has been reached yet.

Dish only just recently reached a deal with Viacom. We'll see what HD channels get added in February once the new Ciel II satellite now just reaching its 129° position finishes testing.

quote: Mark J. Marshall
MonstersHD did repeat a lot of their content, yet people were watching anyway.

And there were plenty of people calling up Dish Network and doing some ass chewing over the endless repeats and contrasting the nonstop Voom regurge to all the national HD channels Dish did not have. Voom was wasting precious satellite bandwidth on Dish' service while DirecTV was adding a lot more HD channels that viewers really wanted. Dish lost lots of customers over the past year due to this.

On the video quality thing, if I really want to watch the same movie repeatedly over and over again just for the picture quality I'll get a movie on Blu-ray Disc. Nothing on any broadcast, cable or satellite service compares to Blu-ray. I don't even watch the movies I own on Blu-ray anywhere near as often as Voom repeated movies and other programs on its channels.

Some people loved Voom, but most people didn't. The service had very limited appeal. That's echoed in the various satellite TV forums like dbstalk.com or satelliteguys.us. A Monsters HD forum is going to be rife with fanboy bias.

If Rainbow Media really cared about Voom they wouldn't have been such freaking cheapskates when it came to licensing programming. What Rainbow should have done was move faster to get their national channels like AMC, IFC, Sundance and We into HD format and fold that into the Voom package so it would have at least some modicum of variety, along with shows like Mad Men that a lot more people really want to watch.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 01-30-2009, 10:13 AM:

I can't speak for the entire Voom package but I did look monthly at the Monsters HD schedule. Sure there were repeats. But look at the schedule for any cable station. How many times are the Godfather movies on Spike? And pay channels are worse...HBO, Showtime, etc. I don't think MHD was any more repetitive than those - just a little more obvious since they would repeat the same trio of films several times in a day. At least their content was unique. As someone who would have wanted to see many of those films their scheduling pattern would have pleased me. I would have paid $20 per month just for that one channel.

Mark is right also in that all the "new" HD additions...at least on Comcast...stink. Most of the time they are playing SD product stretched...even in cases where HD versions are available. AMC is a good example. Talk about wasting bandwidth!

Bobby - you make a good point about Blu-ray but when will we ever see Universal horror classics or the entire Hammer film library on Blu? Come to think of it "Vampire Circus" isn't even out on DVD here yet and MHD had it in HD and I hear it was breathtaking.

I think the problem with Voom was that it was marketed wrong and possibly ahead of it's time. I think it would be a successful pay service with the increased penetration of HD sets. You could create your own line-up...$10 for one channel, $15 for three, $20 for the whole package.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-30-2009, 12:57 PM:

I don't know what MonstersHD forum you're talking about, Bobby. I'm talking about the forums you mentioned, along with some others.

quote: Bobby Henderson
Dish lost lots of customers over the past year due to this.

Dish pulled Voom! in May of 2008. So if they continued to lose that many customers last year... I dunno what to tell ya. Maybe those people were only hanging around because of the unique programming the Voom! channels offered. I know I've thought about leaving.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-30-2009, 10:22 PM:

quote: Mark J. Marshall
I don't know what MonstersHD forum you're talking about, Bobby. I'm talking about the forums you mentioned, along with some others.

If you're talking about the forums I mentioned, anytime someone mentions Voom in those places these days a chorus of laughter typically follows. I was under the impression you were referring to a forum operated under a MonstersHD web site.

quote: Mark J. Marshall
Dish pulled Voom! in May of 2008. So if they continued to lose that many customers last year... I dunno what to tell ya. Maybe those people were only hanging around because of the unique programming the Voom! channels offered. I know I've thought about leaving.

Dish Network was losing lots of customers before May of 2008. There was lots of complaints about Voom regurging the same old programs over and over again with hardly anything new/current.

If any of the various Voom channels, such as MonstersHD, were really desired as much as some people insist, Rainbow Media would have launched channels like that as nationally available networks on their own -like they did with AMC, IFC, etc. Instead, MonstersHD was bundled in with a dozen other channels with comparatively limited appeal and an unrivaled amount of repeated on end content.

People can scoff about channels like Spike repeating The Godfather, Star Wars or various James Bond movies. Yet channels like that had new and highly desirable content like the latest Ultimate Fighter shows and some other original programs. Dish is still experiencing negative churn because it doesn't carry SpikeHD.

DirecTV has never offered any of the Voom channels, yet it has been kicking Dish Network's ass all over the place -mainly due to having national HD channels more people find uninteresting. Meanwhile Voom became 100% irrelevant over endless old program regurging.

[ 01-31-2009, 10:05 AM: Message edited by: Bobby Henderson ]

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 02-02-2009, 12:49 PM:

Bob -

Let me tell you what I find uninteresting. Improperly presented, edited for time and content, commercially-interrupted, visually-obscured movie presentations. I can say without exception I would NEVER watch any movie on AMC, Spike, UniversalHD, Fearnet, TNT, etc. I want my movies uncut, uninterrupted, in HD and Widescreen (when appropriate)...and without MONK dancing across the bottom of the screen every four minutes.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-02-2009, 06:23 PM:

I agree 100% the animated, screen hogging ads during original TV series shows or movies is very annoying. However, that's a completely different issue.

Channels like TBS, TNT, USA and AMC have enough original programming and a greater variety of programming overall that makes them more desirable to more viewers than any of the Voom channels.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 02-03-2009, 11:14 AM:

Yes I understand that the aforementioned channels have a wider appeal. That's why I think Voom should have been a premium service. I think it would have been profitable that way for all involved. I believe HD sets have reached a penetration level where all-HD premium channels could be viable...particularly if the programming is of a popular genre.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 02-03-2009, 01:01 PM:

Wouldn't having it premium make the people only more angry?

Paying a premium for a bunch of repeated stuff would make me really pissed.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 02-03-2009, 02:02 PM:

I'd pay $20 extra a month to have Voom! back.

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

Thank God.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 02-03-2009, 02:51 PM:

quote: Mark J. Marshall
I'd pay $20 extra a month to have Voom! back.

I'd pay that just for Monsters HD! Mark just walked into my office, saw I was replying to you and said "Those guys just don't get it!" To each his own I guess.

quote: Chris Slycord
Wouldn't having it premium make the people only more angry?

Paying a premium for a bunch of repeated stuff would make me really pissed.

Chris - I suppose if I were getting it for free and then they started charging for it I would be annoyed too. Then I think about when AMC was commercial-free uncut movies and I actually used to watch it. Now I never watch it. I think they should have marketed Voom as a premium option from the start.

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.

Currently I have Fearnet and it sucks...commercial interruptions several times in each program and animated promos running across the screen every five minutes. At least the shows are uncut. There was one occasion when they had something interesting ("Revenge of Frankenstein" with Peter Cushing in HD) but other than that I never watch it.

Below is a list of Comcast's HD offerings in my area. Most of them have little if any interesting programming in HD. Friggin' Food Network and Golf Channel!!!! WTF???

194 Science Channel HD* News & Info
195 ABC Family HD* Children & Family
200 Comcast SportsNet HD* High-Definition TV
202 ESPN HD* High-Definition TV
203 ESPN 2 HD* High-Definition TV
204 TNT HD* High-Definition TV
205 HD Theater* High-Definition TV
206 VERSUS HD* Sports
207 Golf Channel HD* High-Definition TV
208 Universal HD* High-Definition TV
209 Palladia* High-Definition TV
210 National Geographic HD* High-Definition TV
211 A&E HD* High-Definition TV
213 HGTV HD* High-Definition TV
215 HBO East (HDTV)* High-Definition TV
216 Food Network HD* High-Definition TV
217 History Channel HD* News & Info
218 NFL Network HD* High-Definition TV
219 Cinemax East (HDTV)* High-Definition TV
220 TBS HD* High-Definition TV
221 CNN HD* News & Info
222 USA HD* Lifestyle
223 Showtime East (HDTV)* High-Definition TV
224 Discovery HD* News & Info
225 TLC HD* News & Info
226 Sci-Fi HD* Lifestyle
227 Starz East (HDTV)* High-Definition TV
230 Animal Planet HD* Children & Family
231 WPVI HD (ABC)* High-Definition TV
232 WCAU HD (NBC)* High-Definition TV
233 KYW HD (CBS)* High-Definition TV
234 WTXF HD (FOX)* High-Definition TV
235 WPHL HD (MY)* High-Definition TV
236 WPSG HD (CW)* High-Definition TV
238 AMC HD* Movies
239 Disney HD* Children & Family
240 WHYY HD (PBS)* High-Definition TV
241 WHYY Arts & Culture** Lifestyle
242 WHYY Wider Horizons** Lifestyle
245 WPVI News** News & Info
246 Action New Now** News & Info
248 NBC Weather Plus** News & Info
249 Universal Sports** Sports
251 WFPA/Telefutura** Multicultural

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 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.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 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.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 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.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 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.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 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.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 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.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 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 ]

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 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.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 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 ]

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 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.