From Primestar, Dishnetwork, DirecTV, and now Voom is my current satellite provider. My Voom was installed yesterday July 1, 2004. I ordered the basic Voom package June 7, 2004 and after two rescheduling of installation date (not my choice), it is finally installed yesterday, two receivers, a Voom dish with Wineguard OTA. I have read many bad experiences with other people's intallation, I thought I share my installation experience in this forum as well. My installer was Leo from Houston, TX. While he was installing a dish and OTA outside, I connected two receivers inside the house. It only took less than an hour to complete the physical installation. I was fairly satisfied with my installer. He was knowledgeable and very courteous. When I told him I had a difficult time to receive local channels before, he offered to install the dish and OTA on the roof instead of side wall where DirecTV dish was located previously.
After he called the Voom customer service to activate the two receivers, the channel was starting to appear in the menu. After about fifteen minutes or so, PG was complete and I was starting checking out the programs. Intitially there were lots of break-up of pictures with heavy pixelization and one of the receiver locked up couple times and had to reboot each time. There were some noticeable microstutter problems with several channels but didn't bother me that much. PQ in HD channels were fantastic and even SD channels were much better than DirecTV nor Dishnetwork reception. Initially there were only two local channels were watchable. Today PG was stating that I should receive 13 local channels but only 9 channels were active with other 4 channels receiving no signals. According to Voom's website's PG, my area is mapped out to have 20 local channels. I called customer service and they told me mapping of local channels is correct in my area. But I checked antennaweb, titantv and other sources and they all have little different stations listed each other. However, even if I don't get any more local channels than what I have now, I will stay with Voom for now. I connected all the available outputs from receivers for comparison purpose (DVI, component, composite, S-Video, analog audio, optical, coaxial digital audio). I tend to prefer component over DVI for some reason. And SD audio is better with analog instead of digital connection whether it is optical or coaxial. So far, Discovery HD seems to have best PQ.
Yes, Voom seems to have little glitches here and there but no more than other satellite systems. Overall, I am very satisfied with Voom although my wife didn't like my choice of Voom probably because her favorite cable channels like HGTV, LWN (Life Time Women?) etc. are not there yet. BTW, local channels that I do get have great PQ. Hopefully, Voom will have updated software to be able to scan the local channels without relying on central mapping. Meanwhile, I will enjoy my HD channels NOW.
After he called the Voom customer service to activate the two receivers, the channel was starting to appear in the menu. After about fifteen minutes or so, PG was complete and I was starting checking out the programs. Intitially there were lots of break-up of pictures with heavy pixelization and one of the receiver locked up couple times and had to reboot each time. There were some noticeable microstutter problems with several channels but didn't bother me that much. PQ in HD channels were fantastic and even SD channels were much better than DirecTV nor Dishnetwork reception. Initially there were only two local channels were watchable. Today PG was stating that I should receive 13 local channels but only 9 channels were active with other 4 channels receiving no signals. According to Voom's website's PG, my area is mapped out to have 20 local channels. I called customer service and they told me mapping of local channels is correct in my area. But I checked antennaweb, titantv and other sources and they all have little different stations listed each other. However, even if I don't get any more local channels than what I have now, I will stay with Voom for now. I connected all the available outputs from receivers for comparison purpose (DVI, component, composite, S-Video, analog audio, optical, coaxial digital audio). I tend to prefer component over DVI for some reason. And SD audio is better with analog instead of digital connection whether it is optical or coaxial. So far, Discovery HD seems to have best PQ.
Yes, Voom seems to have little glitches here and there but no more than other satellite systems. Overall, I am very satisfied with Voom although my wife didn't like my choice of Voom probably because her favorite cable channels like HGTV, LWN (Life Time Women?) etc. are not there yet. BTW, local channels that I do get have great PQ. Hopefully, Voom will have updated software to be able to scan the local channels without relying on central mapping. Meanwhile, I will enjoy my HD channels NOW.
