SharkJumping

Clowncastic! - How I Unwillingly Left Comcast

  Everyone in Silicon Valley loves to hate cable and high speed provider Comcast, but I used to be That Guy defending Comcast, saying that the Internet speed, price, channel selection, etc. was actually pretty good vs doing some bizarre Boxee or Netflix/Roku deal which would always confuse the family, and waste more time than just going Comcastic!  Especially on the business side, the Philadelphia high speed team was just spectactular on the business development side.

And then the dreaded "Vacation Hold" discussion began.  So my family moves to Tahoe in the Summer, looking for better weather and great outdoors options outside of urban SF.   No different than my WSJ or NYT subscriptions, I called Comcast to ask them to put the $60/month video option on hold for 2 months since I probably wouldn't miss it for the time, especially since NBA and NFL are off-season.

But NO, that is apparently not possible, unlike almost any other provider I have, including my cable provider in Tahoe.  The best I can do is to tune the video down for 2 months, reducing my rate, vs just turning it off for 2 months - so we have this big debate, and eventually I agree to turn entirely off the video for 2 months (not high speed), and I won't have to return the equipment since I told the guy I would turn it back on in Sept - this is just a type of vacation hold.

Of course 2 weeks later I get the call from Comcast insisting I return the equipment before the large fines begin, and BTW, my high speed cost has gone up 50%! since I'm no longer taking the cable part of the package.  I was so irritated, I wasn't sure what to do, especially since I was actually quite happy with current Comcast package.  

To make a long story short, after fighting an amazing amount of battles with Comcast, I then switched the whole damn thing to an ATT DSL package combined with Netflix/Roku for now (none of which I owned before), so Comcast lost the entire customer, which is roughly an $6,000 LTV customer - and this was completeley over $75 in Vacation Fees.  Given that I had no desire to leave Comcast weeks ago, and that i was probably worth $1,400/year, I'm shocked that Comcast would go this way, but even in a recession, companies apparently get lazy and short-sighted, as our cable provider has done.  

But remember at all times,  It's Clowncastic!

Starz Play Review - Good Value Video Download Service

I have been using the Starz Play video download service for a few years now, although it has its flaws as I have written about here when it was called Vongo, it's continued to evolve.  Now that it's a white label service offered by Starz affiliate partners such as Verizon (here)  for a low price of $5.99 a month, it's really a pretty good value if you need a download service versus a streaming one such as Hulu.

Starz Play involves the download of client software (a version of Windows Player 11) to the PC, but it's not incredibly intrusive, and the overall set up is straight forward.  Then you browse or search through 2,500+ video offerings, primarily movies, all of which are available from Starz Entertainment.   This is a subscription service with unlimited viewing rights, so you can download a series of videos to the hard drive, and then watch them when convenient, even if not connected to the Internet, so it's perfect for travel or if you don't have a reliable Internet connection.

Users can activate up to 3 PCs per account, and I use at least 2 of them, one filled with kids/family movies for our Tahoe house, and one with my own movies for my work laptop, plus there are a few portable devices you can transfer the videos to, but almost no one has  one of those devices.   The quality of the video is reasonably good, although the volume is occasionally too low for me.  The bigger issue I have with the overall performance is the length of time it often takes to download a movie, although it's true you can start watching it after just a few minutes since it's a progressive download, but there is no reason for it to take 1 hour to download a 2 hour movie on a good connection.  

On the content side, the selection of movies & videos shows the strengths and weaknesses of the Starz Entertainment library since the suppliers are limited to just a few movie studios plus assorted other suppliers, although I find there are generally 5+ that I want to watch each month.  Top current movies include No Country for Old Men, Enchanted, and Spider Man 3, plus a bunch of catalog hits like the Back to the Future films.  In addition, the first Starz original content, a TV series version of the award-winning movie Crash, is far more entertaining than I had expected and almost makes the service worthwhile by itself.  

For a flat fee of $5.99 a month, that's a good deal, especially compared to $3-4 per rental on the Blockbuster OnDemand service (reviewed here) or on Comcast VOD.  Hulu or Netflix Instant may offer a wider range of content, especially on the TV side, but both require fairly robut live Internet connections.   If you're looking for a convenient download service and if you're willing to be somewhat flexible about the exact content, then deinitely try out Starz Play.

Blockbuster OnDemand Review Part 2: Box Goes Dead

As I blogged about 2 weeks ago here, I recently purchased the Blockbuster OnDemand set-top box and movie download service to use in our Tahoe house where we have no television service, but where we do have broadband, so it's a perfect environment for the service, if the box would actually work.

The service set-up on the new TV went better this time than in San Francisco, with the 2Wire-manufactured MediaFind box easily finding our WiFi service and correctly connecting to it.   Although the user interface is slow, it worked well enough to find a couple of movies (Young Avengers and Zohan) and then rent/download them, and you can apparently keep a few on the box, but nowhere does it make that obvious.  25 rentals come free as part of the $100 device purchase price, but normally, the cost is $4 a movie, with a few cheaper ones.   Apparently, like many video rental services, you have 30 days to watch the movies before they expire, and you must finish them within 24 hours of starting them, but that's not mentioned anywhere.

The children watched the Young Avengers movie and apparently enjoyed it, althought I thought it was a little fuzzy on our cheap TV vs the HD set we have in SF.  So today I discovered that I could switch the resolution on the screen back to a Standard Resolution (480) from the High Def setting i had, and the screen immediately became much clearer.

Unfortunately, this was the first step in the death spiral for our short-lived box.   Some random error started showing up (something like "Can't Text Connect"), and there was no way to get rid of it without restarting the box.  Upon restart, and many more follow on attempts, the box now takes 2+ minutes to start up, momentarily reboots, and then freezes on the big ass Blockbuster logo, which, if left long enough, will presumably "burn" an image into the TV set.

Understandably, I'm pretty irritated, having spent 30+ minutes trying every possible way to reboot or restart the box, and then spending another 30 minutes on the Blockbuster OnDemand web site, which is one of the most unhelpful sites that I can remember seeing.  If one attempts to download the MediaPoint manual to see if there is any help there, you're greated with a Big ERROR 500 - Internal Server Error, which is not useful.  Other than a few completely useless FAQ questions and the ability to email Customer Service, there is nothing there to help a user, unlike any normal site which has a much more robust community area.

So the Blockbuster OnDemand box is going to be sent to the junk heap in the sky, where my guess is a bunch of its siblings are heading.  Ignoring the waste of carbon, it's a really lousy idea to put out a beta hardware product into the marketplace, especially if you're charging for it, and if you've had a consistently terrible reputation for digital incompetence.  Stay awy from the Blockbuster box, at least until they actually make it work, let alone actually offer more than 10 movies that anyone would actually wish to rent.

Blockbuster OnDemand Review

I recently purchased the Blockbuster OnDemand set top box called MediaPoint.  Made by 2Wire, it costs $99 for the hardware, and it comes with 25 complimentary rentals, so it's a relative wash if one views all 25 movies.  This service competes with the traditional Pay Per View rental services from cable/DBS providers like Comcast & DirecTV, and with the Netflix streaming subscription service offered through a Roku box, LG DVD player and now through the XBox 360.

The box is good-looking, compact, has all the necessary AV plugs for almost any type of video (HDMI, composite, component), and also has a USB slot and memory slot for future expansion options.  It comes with a simple AV cable, remote control and power cord.

The set-up of Media Point should be really easy - the software is simple to understand, it's a quick process to activate the box by inputting a PIN code into the web site, and it can mostly be done using the small remote control.  However, in my case, the box simply didn't recognize my WiFi signal, no matter where I placed the box, and the power cord itself is too large to easily plug into other powered components, so I had to find a separate outlet, for which the power cord was too short to reach.

Once we worked out those issues by plugging it into an Ethernet port, the software worked well, providing a clean menu of options with a simple branching tree of genres, along with instructive graphics, the ability to preview a movie before renting it, and a set of lower priced $1.99 rentals, as well as the standard $3.99 ones.

In general, I like the service EXCEPT that simply put, the selection of movies SUCKS.  This is not unique to Blockbuster, but Comcast at least has all the big recent movies available, and Netflix has a larger selection of movies and TV shows, so it doesn't seem so sparse.   Blockbuster OnDemand has roughly 2,000 movies available, a lousy set of TV shows, and outside of what I would consider 5 mainstream hits like Iron Man, it's Most Popular category has almost nothing recognizable, even from a media junkie like me.

The service allows you to watch the movies pretty quickly after the progressive download begins, and the quality appears better than what I see from the Netflix streaming service, especially if a microwave or wireless phone gets turned on during the movie, so the quality seems pretty strong.  If one is already a Netflix subscriber, even at the $8.99/month service, the Netflix service is a better deal since you're not paying per movie.

However, in my case, I have a Tahoe house with broadband, but not with cable/satellite service, and when we want to watch movies, it's painful to attach the laptop to the TV to use either Slingbox or some type of PC-oriented service.   The Blockbuster OnDemand service has done a really nice job of providing an easy way to connect a video box to a TV, and to deliver possibly compelling content to users. 

If BB can only improve the content offering, then BB will have a niche, but interesting video service, but the momentum in this category is still with the rapidly improving traditional Pay Per View and Netflix video services.

UPDATE:  see subsequent OnDemand experience post here

Meez Launches Hulu-Powered "Movieplex"

In a big step forward for social entertainment, Meez this month launched our new Hulu-powered Movieplex where our 2M monthly unique users can get together with friends to watch the best television clips, episodes and full length movies, all while chatting away with each other and comparing avatars.  

With 16 initial theaters, plus the popular lobby and concession areas (see below), users can choose from top shows such as perennial favorite The Simpsons, spooky break-out hit Fringe, crowd-pleaser brawler Saturday Night Smackdown, and many more, as well as classic movies such as Bring it On, and Dude, Where's My Car?, all provided by the amazingly broad Hulu catalog.

The best seats in each theater are reserved for Meez VIP members, but the entire experience is free, with a huge, high quality video screen driven which automatically syncs up as users enter the room - it truly brings back the social part of entertainment, which is why these rooms fill up earlier in the day.   Next steps are to significantly expand the Movieplex, and then to make the Hulu content available to Meez users in their 1M+ personal rooms, in addition to the current YouTube offering in every room.

Why is McCain Spanking Obama on YouTube this Month?

I have been doing a lot of YouTube research recently since the MeezNation users are using YouTube like there is no tomorrow, primarily for music videos so they can dance together.  However, what has surprised me is the shift in the month of August in YT popularity from Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama (whom I give money to) to Republican nominee Senator John McCain (whom I don't).  Senator John Edwards might be more fun right now, but the key "personal" tape hasn't been released yet from that fiasco. 

As you can see from the graphic here, McCain is now crushing Obama in video views this month on YouTube, garnering 4.7M+ to 2M+! - this may be due to gaming of the system or it could be because McCain just figured out YouTube existed vs Obama knowing about it for a while, but in any case, each campaign is diligently posting videos each day, and McCain is spanking Obama in views - so what gives, especially since Obama is seen to be the high tech guy? 

As a sidenote: If you're trying to do this on a Verizon 3G card in middle of Manhattan with all 4 green bars showing, you may want to kill yourself while waiting for the screen to load....why it needs to average less than a 28.8K old-style analog modem is simply mystifying...that will take another post after this since the performance is often far better in other cities.

Cablevision DVR Plan Defeated in Court

As I blogged about a year ago here, Cablevision tried to introduce the concept of a "remote DVR" where a Cablevision video subscriber could access DVR functionality at the server level without having to purchase or lease a hard drive-enabled set top box for their house.  It is very cool functionality, but as I pointed out, it was unlikely to withstand legal challenge.

This week, as could have been predicted by anyone with even a remote knowledge of copyright law, US District court judge Denny Chin ruled against the concept since it was a clearly a service which did the copying, and not the end user, which defeated the legal underpinning of the case - actual ruling can be downloaded here. 

I dislike defending copyright holders' ability to hold back all progress, but it's hard to understand which  counsel at Cablevision thought this concept was going to pass muster unless it was just a negotiating tactic - try looking at the MyMp3.com case next time before the legal clock starts ticking.  That having been said, a network DVR should make a huge amount of sense for consumers and for cable companies - it just won't economically work once licenses are worked out with every content provider unless those rights can be granted as part of larger negotiations.

SlingBox - Now Ready for Prime Time

I reviewed the place-shifting Slingbox device/service a year ago (here and here), and concluded that it was a cool idea, but not quite ready for prime time.   That having been said, I took the box (now called "classic") out of the closet 2 weeks ago since we were heading to the mountains with no cable TV service, and I wanted to watch some NFL games over the Holiday week, as I am going to do today as well.  I downloaded the significantly revised software and attached it to my much simpler TV set-up on our 2nd floor, avoiding the Comcast DVR and more complex sound system downstairs.

The results were really good.  It's a much better experience than I first encountered (even with the same hardware), and I can now really recommend it for occasions where you emphasize access and mobility over quality.  It's like the rise of MP3's in digital music - enthusiasts argue that the sound quality is lower than either albums or CD's, and that the lack of the album diminishes the overall experience, but the other 99% of the population is willing to make that trade-off.  The Sling access opportunity totally trumps the quality issue now that quality in my set-up has reached a high enough level.

I have a good Comcast network at home in SF, and a decent wireless one in Tahoe, and overall result when I ran the laptop through the TV was pretty good, especially from 10 feet away, and that's a much tougher test than just seeing it on the laptop.  It occasionally cut out, and the channel switching is still painful, but I ran the box for hours each day and my entire extended family thought it was a big win over having to go down to the local bar to watch the games.  Definitely go get a SlingBox if you want more access to the content you already pay for. 

Of course, if Senators Feinstein and Graham get their way with their wonderfully titled PERFORM Act, then it's likely that Sling's service will be in jeopardy once they get around to including broadcast...

Atom Entertainment Deal: A Great Move by Viacom

MTV Networks/Viacom announced (see here) this week that they were acquiring Atom Entertainment (home of Shockwave.com, Atom Films and Addicting Clips/Games) for approximately $200M.  I want to be clear that I'm biased about Atom since CEO Mika Salmi is a friend, as are some of the other executives, but this is a simply great move by MTV, and it appears to be a fair price by both sides.

With Atom, MTV gets a great creative team, a select group of popular sites in games and video with 20M+ monthly unique visitors to plug into MTV's strong advertising team, and  another source of content for the rest of MTV Networks.  I have to tip my hat to the executives and investors of Atom who persevered for the last 7 years through the bubble mayhem, the downturn carnage, and now the steady upswing in their properties, with the end financial result being quite positive for all involved - plus it's yet another great outcome for a RealNetworks alum, as so many of us are.  I love casual games, and I think this purchase vaults MTV Networks right into a strong position in this rapidly growing category, and the Atom/Addicting video assets are a strong fit for both iFilm and for MTV's more mature video properties as a "farm team" or modern A&R team to find upcoming talent.

Great move for MTV Networks, and kudos to the Atom team for sticking it out through the grim times.  I think this move is being underestimated by the market for how much it will bring to the company.

Cablevision DVR Plan - Part 2 - Lawsuits Commence

The other shoe inevitably dropped this week in Cablevision's attempt to roll out the "Network DVR" discussed in this previous post.  3 movie studios and the 3 big television networks sued Cablevision (NYT article here), stating that the company didn't have the right to store their programs for use at a later time without obtaining a license first.  It's a big fight since the other cable companies will roll out similar functionality if Cablevision wins the case, possibly diminishing some of the copyrights of the programmers, so expect a long battle.  Cablevision's stock dropped 2% on the news.