Another Colorado VOOMer - online!
Folks -
Just had my VOOM installed yesterday. I had 4 receivers installed, and for the most part the installation went without a hitch.
For reference, the folks who were deployed to do my installation were from a DishConnect subcontractor called 'Point to Point' (303) 871-8000. The gents who came onsite were John and Dylon. They couldn't have been nicer, and they were very knowldegeable. There was a bit of a glitch getting things started (the original schedule was for a morning install), but they were here by about 3 and worked straight through until after 7 last night.
I also have Echostar/Dish (also 4 receivers) installed, and will probably be keeping them - or most - until I can get parity from VOOM programming wise.
Overall reaction:
VOOM is pretty slick. I am having issues with my OTA reception (they put up a Winegard ??? on what is equivalent to a 3 story roof). I am able to get 2-1 ande 2-2 pretty reliably, but 4 and 9 are bad (pixelization/dropouts/etc.), 7 doesn't come in, neither of the PBS's (6 or 12) come in, but I do get FOX on 31.
Because of the roof height and the fact they only had a 20 foot ladder, they had to dangle my OTA cable so it hangs loosely in the air for about 12-15 feet. Supposedly someone will be coming out to address this. It also appears that I may need the 8-bay antenna in order to reliably get locals (at least I hope that will do it). My location is roughly C-470 and Kipling.
Quality wise, I am pretty impressed. As several have mentioned, the quality of the HD sources makes you want to watch things you might not have been previously been interested. Last night a watched one of the sports channels (I'm not a sports fan) to watch segments on kite boarding and sailing - beautiful water in both!
Unfortunately the SD stations don't hold up quite as well. I have a home office and ususally run CNN Headline News in a window on one on my screens while I'm working. I noted there's a lot of video noise or overmodulation in the various panels that CNNHLN displays - very distracting, and it forced me MSNBC and HDNEWS.
I have also had some difficulty getting pictures to look properly proportioned on my downstairs Sony 36 4:3 HD (using DVI) - I really think the VOOM box should offer more squeeze/stretch/zoom/truncate options.
A few questions:
Some of my boxes have older software versions - what do I need to do to get them to take a new download? Do they need to be in standby mode? Is there a specific time of day/night that these occur?
I thought I saw that someone has an RF remote that works with the VOOM box. We have been RF remote based with Dish here for years, and using IR seems so '80's ;^}
I'm getting an off air signal strength of about 49 and an off air signal quality of about 43 - I'm probably only about 15-20 miles out. Are these abnormally low? Will the 8 bay help (or just piss off my neighbors)? Could this be an aiming issue? I know others on the southern side of town are faring much better.
Thanks for any and all help!