Chase Carey Voom Sticky (Cat Fight Version):

[dragon002]

boston,

voom= 24 hours of nothing.....looped.

dish and directv = we are trying, in different ways.

cablecos= we suck.

FIOS 4 years and counting.

http://www.dve.com/pages/am/audio/Jake Plummer Song.mp3

 

[LonghornXP]

Hey this wasn't Scott's idea by the way. It was my idea and it was quite good looking at it now. That Chase Carey Voom thread had swayed into a bitrate picture quality issue which wasn't the topic of that thread. Just for the record I'm not going to go hog wild if a provider downgrades the picture quality as I also do think it will only be a short term issue. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't rave when another company offers us a certian set of channels and better picture quality. I liked the Voom channels when I had them and I would still like them. Some channels I won't like but it again doesn't mean they are crap.

Also on a side note I'm not loyal at all to any specific one company. If Verizon gets a franchise agreement done for Largo I will be with Verizon as they have the best offerings for both selection, picture quality and price. But if in three years DirecTV gets their broadband network up and offers VOD, high speed internet service and improves both SD and HD picture quality with those spaceway sats and they offer more HDTV or the same amount of HDTV channels for a good price I will switch back to them. Whoever has the best set of offerings will get my business.

As with anything every company will have their various drawbacks but I along with many here will go with the company that fits them best. I left DirecTV because I couldn't stand the constant black screen every three seconds during fast moving scenes on ESPN HD or that horrid green streak on the screen and the macroblocking and this was indeed caused by a lower bitrate and its noticeable and it wasn't caused from rainfade either. If all of that never occured and it was just the picture quality I would have stayed with them.

That is my cat fight and I'm not saying that I'm not biased and that I don't care because I do care and I am biased but I'm not biased towards a specific company. Voom was a great change for me and even though they had their problems it was still nice to enjoy the most HD anywhere and I will admit I was very upset when they went out of business but I don't go around bashing DirecTV or any company for that matter because my beloved Voom went out of business. I'm not saying anyone in this thread does that but I want you all to know who I am and what I believe on these fronts.

Now let the cat fight begin and you can start with me. Bring it on biatches.

 

[CPanther95]

If you guys had access to two different CBS affiliates OTA and only one multicasts - you don't need to see any bitrates or a blind taste test to pick out the crappy HD-Lite version.

If you saw the HD Demo loop D* used to have or the quality of HDNet when it was first put on the system - you'd know what D* is capable of delivering - and you'd also know that they aren't anywhere close to that quality now.

I agree that most have no patience, and I'm waiting for 2007 when they have excess capacity - and although I'd rather have a couple less channels and higher HD PQ, I'm pretty happy with the balance they have struck in the meantime....but to say that it is great and there's not really anything out there that's better is false. It is either ignorance, or an attempt to mislead others.

 

[CPanther95]

As far as "Voom being Crap", it was clearly the same kind of response as Charlie's "waiting for compelling content" comment. Those comments aren't what led to their respective policies at the time - the policies were dictated by bandwidth limitations, and the comments were only trying to minimize their marketing disadvantages.

 

[boston area dtv]

Duly noted on credit for the catfight. I went back and edited the post. (thats ok in a catfight right?)

Um Panther what did you expect him to do? Stand up in front of everyone and say I wish we could offer out subscribers VOOM. He was minimizing the cometition. And noone from the Directv side said oh thats so true.

But you guys wrote really mean things about D* subscribers taking it in the chute...why because when Chase attacked VOOM and its content he was basically calling you guys a pigs lining up to be fed any old slop and so happy to get it. So the the VOOM people got mad at the Directv content..and the the Directv people were hurt and maybe we all just need some time for the healing process to take hold.

As for FIOS it is make great inroads here in MA. Im excited about having another choice but I will wait to see the offer until I make a decision.

I think this is a time of influx in the Sat/Cable. The companies are morphing into something new and exciting. And when we apply the reasoning, that lead us to chose our providers in the past, to those same companies in the future..the results may not end up the same.

For me its going to come down to local sports coverage...and while I have D* now I may end up with Cable or Verizon depending on what happens with NESN and FSNE.

 

[vurbano]

voom= 24 hours of nothing.....looped.

And just how many times have you seen the same thing on discovery HD theater? over and over and over again. How many times has HDnet run Hogans heroes?

 

[bgsmallwood]

And just how many times have you seen the same thing on discovery HD theater? over and over and over again. How many times has HDnet run Hogans heroes?

Don't forget CD USA

 

[Satmeister]

I'll make just this one post, and then bow out.

We all should keep a couple of things in mind about all of Carey's comments:

1) His comments were made to an internal company audience of non-executives, so to some degree, Carey was playing to the audience a bit (which managers/execs do in such meetings every day at thousands of companies).

2) Since CSRs are pretty much pounded all day long on the phones, but somehow seem to maintain their cool 99.9% of the time, one or two of the comments he made were probably inteded to "throw the team a bone", in terms of motivation (the Voom is Crap comment, specifically). The last thing he was going to do was tell them a firm committment on any new HD channels, since (if he is any kind of manager at all) he could assume some of the CSRs might disclose this inadvertently when the right situation arose. To maintain their company plan to keep plans under wraps, he was limiting his disclosures.

3) These kinds of meetings have no representation of what management is necessarily planning or thinking. Even the Voom comment could be a personal opinion alone. I have been on both sides of that fence, and sat in on many "team/group" sessions, only to partiicpate in the Exec team meeting later on the very same topic -- the song and lyrics were not always the same (different audience) - see point #1. Often senior management carefully thinks through just what they want to tell line management and their employees, and just how they want to tell them, specifically with that audience in mind. I've seen that thousands of times at 3 different Fortune 500 companies first hand.

When you think through the context in which the comments were made, the audience, and the timing of what would be disclosed at this session, it should not be surprising or shocking. Rest assured these same kinds of comments and discussions take place all the time at may other companies' "group" or "team" meetings all over the place. They're just not reported on in a message board thread.

Meow - I like cats - taste like chicken.