Vongo, $9.99 a month for unlimited movie downloads Options

[xiopod]

anybody using vongo? Its a movie download service from the Starz channel. I was looking at getting netflix and found this. Here's my review:



At $9.99 a month for unlimited movie downloads I singed up to give it a try! But l don't know if i'll keep the service. The price seems fair for what you get: A limited supply of B class movies that saves you a trip to lack lustor. You won't find any new releases, only movies that have been out of the theater for a year or more. I was able to find a ton of movies I've never seen and some I wanted to watch again but the selection is very tiny at ~1500 titles. New titles are being added but its far from the half gazillion titles netflix has.



Lets look at some things i like about vongo so for:

• nice looking, easy to use interface
• searching for a movie is easy. search by actor/director or title and can filter by genre too
• preview a trailer before you download the movie
• previewing a movie gives you a link on each actors name to see other movie they are in. it also shows some recommended titles 'if you like this movie you may like ... '
• download as many movies as your hard drive can hold!!!
• 'Watch it Now' button allows you to start watching a movie as little as 30 seconds after you start downloading it (no need to wait until its complete)
• able to use vongo on up to 3 devices under one account (theater PC, laptop, and portable player - if i had one)
• growing stock of movies (new movies added every week)
• option to 'pay per view' newer movies ($3.99 each i think, which seems on par with other rental places)
• able to que upto 10 title in the download bin at a time, and there is option to schedule the download to start later (ie, when you're sleeping or at work)

Things i don't like:

• It took two calls to tech support to figure out i had windows media player security to tight to watch the movies (though i was surprised to find the wait time on hold was short ~5-10 mins)
• Tech support is clueless and was reading from a script, but they did fix the problem
• Picture quality varies. some movies are barely VHS quality but most look like a decent DivX rip, not quite dvd but defiantly watchable
• Service can be slow at times (I usually pull 250 -300 Kb/sec, but peek hours slow down to ~50 k/b and can't use 'watch it now' feature when its that slow)
• Downloads are sequential (one at a time)
• you can only watch movies using the vongo player
• the vongo player is crappy!! Only features: play/pause, stop, rewind, fast forward (its flash video based, like you tube or google video but it does have full screen mode)
• SOME MOVIES DON'T SUPPORT REWIND/FAST FORWARD!!! what the crap is that!?!?!? I called tech support and they said "its a known issue and they're working on it".
• limited selection of movies, basically if you can watch it on Starz you can download it from vongo
• Movies expire and are auto-magically deleted from your pc. the good news is most have months or years before they expire and vogno flags the ones due to expire in a week or less (movies are expired when starz ends their content for that title, the dates are known before you download)
• No sorting, movies are given a star rating but you can't sort by it (or any other field for that matter)
• No Media Center support (yet)

Other notes: Its windows only, you have to have media player 10 (11 will NOT work) and your IP address has to be in the USA (you could try to find a good US proxy server to get around that check)



I hope you found this review useful! let me know you if you're using vongo and what you think about it!

[xiopod]

Based on the low number of views I'm guessing no one else is using or interested in Vongo... I don't blame you! I just canceled my vongo account yesterday. Reasons I canceled:

• Last week I got a pop-up "Your IP is outside the USA..." (My IP didn't change and is in the USA). Tech supports reply: "go to showmyip.com, do you see a USA flag?", After telling them i did see the flag, they said it was a router problem. after a half hour of confirming my firewall and router were configured right, they told me that they were doing an upgrade and the service was offline and it should be back online in an hour or so...

• Service has become ridiculously slow (40kb/s MAX downloads). Tech supports reply: "Your router or firewall is the problem". after telling her i did all this last time i called, she still had me spend a half hour confirming the settings, I even tried plugging directly into my cable modem and disabling my firewall - still slow. Tech supports: "It is a problem with your internet connection, contact your ISP", my reply: I have a 6mb down/1mb up service and can pull from other sites at 500+ kb/s. tech supports final reply: "Sorry, we have had an increase in traffic to our service"

• E-mail support is the worst I've ever seen! I used their 'e-mail a question form' (which says someone will contact you in 24-48 hours) and didn't hear anything for 11 days! when i finally got a reply it was a generic message that had almost nothing to do with my question... I'm still waiting on their reply for a message i sent last week!

• Sound quality of the movies is depressing. Anyone that has read my plog knows I have a nice 7.1 sound system which is pointless with vongo's barely stereo sound effects.

• Movie selection is going down hill. They kept the promise of new movies every week but most 'new' titles being added are older movies (1950- 1980's) or music videos. Every week I found less and less movies I wanted to watch

My final view of vongo: it's a great idea and the price is right but the service/support is just not there. if they (or another company) can do the same type of service with better download times and at least half ass-ed support (vongo uses no ass-ed support IMO) i'd try it again but for now i may just stick with renting from the movie store or maybe i'll give netflex a try.



Sorry if this sounds like I'm ranting (mainly because i am) but I wanted to share my experience with everyone. If you have used vongo please post your story here - hate it or love it.

[autonut]

Blockbuster mail service has been pretty good. Movies come quickly. and they give you a free coupon for 1 instore rental every week. They have shipped a couple I never ordered though.

[Daredevil]

To be quite honest i've never heard of most of these services/programs except blockbuster for the occasional film which is less frequent nowadays from blockie. there's my $0.2 cents on it.

[Smalls]

Been doing Netflix for 3 years now... IMHO, its the only way to go

[xiopod]

Been doing Netflix for 3 years now... IMHO, its the only way to go

I'm still thinking about netflix... Since I dropped vongo I just rent from a local mom & pop movie place right down the street. Cheap movies ($1 to $3 for 5 nights!) We rented 5 movies for $11 bucks! I know I can get more movie a month cheaper if i get netflix but i like the idea of picking out a movie and watching it 20 minutes later. I'm still waiting on a good monthly fee based download service

[Mordeth]

We use Netflix and Blockbuster. Though, i'd have to say that blockbuster is better here where we live, they get here quick. But both are great if you don't mind waiting on the mail.

[brad33]

I never tried BB but I had NetFlix for 3 years and the I was able to send off my movies then I got the next movies in my list in one day!


BTW the way vongo decribes que as "Line" TRUE however if you add New realses before they come out your usually guaranteed it!

Also speaking of adding movies before they come out,
NetFlix sends movies out before they are in stores that way you get them to your house about the same time if not before BB stores get them on their shelves!

[computercowboy]

i used vongo for about 3 months, on demand is cool but quality sux

netflix has on demand now but I don't use that because quality sux

movielink is pricey but the quality is better, handy if you run out of stuff on netflix, no comitment for movielink.

[samm3]

I had the same initial impression and final impression of vongo. I hated that you could only use it on 3 computers, and that you had to call tech support to remove a computer. The straw to break the camels back was the movie selection though, I watched a good 10-15 enjoyable newish movies then i had nothing else interesting to watch. They even charge PPV on OLD movies, when i say old, think '98-ish. I can do better on VOD with my cable company.

This post has been edited by samm3: Jul 21 2007, 04:04 AM

[Butch]

As a movie lover I tried Vongo and found it basically OK, but the fact that you can't move or watch the movies on anything but the Vongo player is a problem. And, as was mentioned, the only movie that you can get are those currently on Stars, so its almost easier to get Stars and PVR the movie.

I also have Netflix. Wonderful! I tried Blockbuster but they are so far up the religous right's BUTT that they censor a lot of movie (especially cult favorites etc) and Netflix does not. I also think Netflix has a bigger selections overall. So I am keeping netflix.