2 Questions:OTA Multicasting & Price Increase

[squicken]

1. Just watched Kentucky Derby on NBC in HD. Nice. My NBC multicasts. 11.1 is HD. 11.2 is SD. 11.3 is weather/fixed camera on skyline. The picture looked very good, even in poor weather. I thought multicasting hurt HD b/c of signal strength. Anybody know?

2. When 5/31 hits, will the price of Voom go up to $49.99 for current subscribers? What about VaVaVoom? I think I read something like that on AVS forum once.

Thanks. Hope everyone's having a nice weekend.

 

[Sean Mota]

1. Just watched Kentucky Derby on NBC in HD. Nice. My NBC multicasts. 11.1 is HD. 11.2 is SD. 11.3 is weather/fixed camera on skyline. The picture looked very good, even in poor weather. I thought multicasting hurt HD b/c of signal strength. Anybody know?

2. When 5/31 hits, will the price of Voom go up to $49.99 for current subscribers? What about VaVaVoom? I think I read something like that on AVS forum once.

Thanks. Hope everyone's having a nice weekend.

Multicasting definetly hurts HD. The Kentucky Derby was nice to see the actual race w/o SD cameras. There were a lot of SD 16x9 HD shots. NBC, CBS, & ABC need to really improve in this business of mixing SD and HD cameras. It is awful.

2. Did not know that the price would go up to $49.99. I thought it was locked to $39.99 until December 2004. Isn't that correct?

 

[Sean Mota]

btw, I am watching the repeat of the race right now and what does NBC do. They replay the race in SD instead of HD. So why not call it 30% HD of Kentucky Derby instead of saying "HD".

 

[squicken]

Multicasting definetly hurts HD. The Kentucky Derby was nice to see the actual race w/o SD cameras. There were a lot of SD 16x9 HD shots. NBC, CBS, & ABC need to really improve in this business of mixing SD and HD cameras. It is awful.

2. Did not know that the price would go up to $49.99. I thought it was locked to $39.99 until December 2004. Isn't that correct?

That's what I thought. I was confused b/c I didn't know if increase was to be effective only for those subscribing after 5/31, for everyone, or for no one. Voom's webpage says rates can be increased at any time. I thought any price increase would effect only those signing up after 5/31, but I remember reading Voom would be 49.99 and vavavoom would stay at 79.99.

 

[squicken]

Well, at least "Friends" final episode will be all HD. Hahaha

 

[vurbano]

I know the fine print on the zero install said you had to sign up by the end of march or april i think to lock in the prices for the year. Someone on avs said theres a price increase on the basic voom pack to 49 bucks but vavavoom would remain the same. Might just be a flamer. I dont know if its true

 

[LOBO2999]

I was told I was locked into that price of $39.90 untill the end of the year and after that it could go up but wasn't told how much.

 

[Ken F]

The $39.90 price is locked in for existing subscribers until January, 2005. This price guarantee was posted on the VOOM site when the $0 UPFRONT OFFER made it's debut. This notice was recently removed from the VOOM web site in the last week or two, so I'm not sure whether customers subscribing now receive that guarantee.

A price increase for new customers does seem plausible after June 1, particularly if VOOM adds InHD and/or TNT-HD. Or they may wait until additional channels are added with MPEG-4/WM9 before increasing the monthly rate for new customers. We'll have to wait and see.