So.. Gavin and I saw a commercial a couple days ago for Vongo.com -- a new movie service that lets you stream movies for $9.99. Basically, it's my dream come true. If I could do it from my tivo, I'd pay probably three times that. But I wasn't without questions. I travel a lot, and since I travel a lot, a lot of my dvd watching takes place on planes. Can vongo fill this need?
Eric Becker from Vongo responded via a blog comment yesterday. Here's the kicker though, I never actually asked the question, and was completely shocked to see someone answer a question I never got around to asking. Huh.
Turns out, Gavin did over at HowSo, but HowSo doesn't support comments. At least, thats what we think happened. The point is, Vongo's got mad service -- that's how you pander to bloggers, listen to what's being said, and answer questions timely. Too bad OS/X users are currently locked out... but..
Either way, I'll anxiously be waiting for mac support.. From what I saw on Gavin's laptop, the site looks incredible (he runs a pc, like the rest of the unclean.)
Comments...
(Page 1)1. From the service model, I'm sure it uses whatever the movie equivalent of Janus/"Playsforsure" DRM is, hence the need for 2000 or XP. Something like the music services like Rhapsody/Napster to Go, etc.
Unfortunately, if you wait for Mac support for the kind of DRM necessary for a "rental" service, you'll probably be waiting forever, unless you think Vongo can get farther trying to open FairPlay than the French government did. I guess anything's possible.
12:23AM on May 23rd 2006 by Mike
2. Bahaha well, the french probably gave up on it after only a brief fight... ;)
If I go the mactel route, theres always virtualization I guess.. According to Vongo's website, it's Apple who's being stingy with their drm.. It could be that they have something similar going on with iTunes maybe.
A boy can dream.
9:41AM on May 23rd 2006 by Alex
3. I'm still waiting for slingbox to be OSX-compatable.
8:16AM on May 25th 2006 by Rob
4. You are exactly correct on what happened regarding when and where I posted my thoughts.
I could not find a way to offer a comment on Gavin's site and in the interest of timeliness, I decided to post over here. Should have offered a bit of a preface to my comments, but you figured it out just fine.
(For both of you...)Thanks guys - really appreciate it. Lots of exciting things coming in the future as we continue to tell our story.
Stay tuned.
Eric W. Becker
Executive Director of Corporate Communications
Starz Entertainment Group, provider of Vongo
10:34AM on May 25th 2006 by Eric Becker
5. This is clearly a Starz placed comment...I simply cannot believe the nice little tee for the service. EVERYONE...let it be known to all that Vongo charges for what can be done free. All you need is a half decent...but cheap video card...that handles video and you can copy from your cable all the channels you want for personal use. Or use a PVR and do the same thing. Then copy the content to your laptop. Why be limited to Starz programming which is already so limited in titles (most studios do NOT license to the Starz service which provides the bulk of the content), when you can get for free Starz and all the other cable channels by directly copying them legally. It is incredible they charge for this low grade encoding too...I can possibly see DVD quality being a minimal charge...but their quality is poor. Moreover, their streamed channel can be duplicated, along with alllll the other cable channels by using either a Sling box. Or better yet, instead of pay for content that is not worth watching...go buy your favorite DVDS, which people ALREADY do, and simply bring a few a long on your next trip...DUH. Also, who even picked the name Vongo...it sounds like a latin dance.
1:57AM on May 27th 2006 by Blake
6. What can be done for free? Your suggesting that I go pay for a bunch of dvd's, at $15 each, instead of paying the $9.99 for unlimited viewing through Vongo that I could do now?
Or go buy a slingbox or a $300 video card (that I would then stick in what? I own nothing but laptops), to do the same thing for cable tv shows, justified under uh, fair use? And after spending hundreds of dollars to get set up, this is now something you consider 'free'?
I don't have time for any of that. Not for the setting up, not for the headache. I want something transparent that easy and fast to use. I don't even care so much about the quality, so long as it's on demand, I don't have to search for it, I don't want to have to deal with bittorrent, and I want to be able to access it at any time. That's what I want. Starz can provide it, or hell, public access can provide it, it really doesn't matter to me.
I'm the kind of guy who pays for 100% of his music on iTunes. I have the income, I believe in supporting copyrights (as fucked up as they may), and I believe in convenience. There are millions of business travelers like me who I'm willing to bet feel the same way.
7:46AM on May 27th 2006 by Alex
7. Looking for classic downloads. I'm sure there are other ways to get what I want. I'm starting to here good things about Vongo so I'm asking. Classic R&B and Jazz. T.V. forces one to purchase
"greatest hits". Not what I'm looking for. Help If you can.
Hubert
1:06PM on Jun 11th 2006 by Hubert Robertson